Tag: Dark tourism

Dark Chester runs special spooky tours for Chester Heritage Festival

 

Image: Stuart Robinson Photography [www.stuartrobinson.photography] 

Dark Chester ran some special walking tours as part of the Chester Heritage Festival this month.

Each time, we finished the regular tour by doing something we’ve ever done before: going into a Chester building to hear a spooky story first hand.

First up was a visit to the restaurant Carbonara on Bridge Street Row.

Here, the owner, Sam, shared with us his experience of discovering the haunting of the wood-panelled upper room when he first moved into the building.

The second of the special tours took us to Huxley’s, the cafe-bar beside Chester’s famous Eastgate Clock.

Neil, the owner, talked about the history of the building and his family connection to the Freemen of Chester, who had earlier that day joined the city’s Midsummer Watch Parade.

Look out for more Dark Chester special tours coming this autumn as thoughts turn to Halloween.

More from the Chester Heritage Festival in the Our Heritage section.

Liked this? Then read Dark Chester collaborates with My Haunted Hotel.

Dark Chester highlights dark tourism trend in Cheshire Life magazine feature

Dark Chester was featured in the April issue of Cheshire Life magazine [pictured above].

I wrote a feature about  the rise of dark tourism in Chester and how my tour taps into this trend to explore the darker side of our history.

Here’s an extract:

Dark Chester is a storytelling walking tour of the city, which traces a journey through all periods of Chester history from the Romans to The Beatles.

It highlights some of our lesser-known stories, such as tales of Viking Chester and the Anglo-Saxon fortification of Chester as a burh, a defended settlement.

It also spotlights some of the lesser-known figures from our history, such as Aethelflaed, the daughter of Alfred the Great, and St Werburgh, whose relics were said to be paraded around the city walls during raids by the Welsh.

The focus is dark history. By exploring the dark side, the tour reflects the growing interest in dark tourism, or visits to places associated with dark tales.

As Dr Philip Stone of the Institute for Dark Tourism Research, explains in his book, 111 Dark Places in England that You Shouldn’t Miss:

“Dark tourism allows us to sightsee in the mansions of the dead, while having deference to those deceased.”

Read more at Cheshire Life magazine.

Liked this? Then read Take a walk on the dark side for the BGTG blog.

A preview of my Dark Chester tours for Halloween with the travel blog Go Eat Do

An interview with the travel blogger Stuart Forster for his blog, Go Eat Do.

The feature is about ideas for a weekend visit to Chester but, with Halloween approaching, previews my new Dark Chester tours [pictured above].

The tours run Saturdays at 6pm and delve into the dark-tourism heritage of the city, exploring 2,000 years of plague, poltergeists and religious persecution.

Talking about St John’s Church, a Saxon site of worship from 689AD, I describe how:

“Cestrians, the people of Chester, call it ‘the thin church’. It’s a reference to the fact it’s one of those places in the city where the world we know, and another we can’t explain, is at its thinest point. It’s a place to step across the supernatural threshold.”

We also discuss, amongst others, the Chester Mystery Plays and the Chester Heritage Festival (both returning in June 2023).

Plus wider ideas for things to do and see during your visit.

Read the full story at Go Eat Do, Haunted places in England: Chester walking tour.

Dark Chester: a walk through the shadows of our dark-tourism history

We took a walk on the dark side a few days ago.

It was the inaugural outing for my new Dark Chester tour [pictured above], a walking tour through the shadows of Chester’s 2000-year-old history.

Think Horrible Histories meets Inside Number Nine with a dash of the Uncanny podcast.

In other words, an evening storytelling stroll with tales of plague, persecution and poltergeists.

For some more background, read this blog I penned for the British Guild of Tourist Guides:

Chester: take a walk on the dark side.

This first tour was an exclusive event for the Chester Heritage Festival, which runs until July 27 with lots of free activities, as well as paid-for tours.

As well as leading the tour, I also worked with the Heritage Festival team to livestream stories from two of the tour stops.

You can watch the livestream from Chester’s Roman Amphitheatre here.

The livestream from The Bear & Billet is here.

Plus I had some great initial feedback, including this comment:

 

The plan now is to take Dark Chester weekly.

So join me. Let’s take a walk on the dark side.