The Ghost of August Holiday Past - or - Haunted in York
York is proud of its spiritual reputation and quite rightly so. The Minster dominates the skyline, overlooking many other churches and chapels along ancient streets, and all bounded by even more ancient city walls. In fact, there are no buildings taller than the Minster in the city; no other building is allowed closer to heaven.
York also has more pubs per head (allegedly) than any other city in England, serving spirits in liquid form.
And York prides itself on the quantity and quality of its ghostly spirits. Which, judging by the quantity of ads for ghost walks, haunt every available street corner. I lost count of the ghost-walk pamphlets I was handed.
Peter and I didn’t take up any of these offers but we did visit ‘York’s Most Haunted House’ at 35 Stonegate. This is the house made famous on TV’s Most Haunted show, where the ghost hunter, Derek Acorah, was once ‘almost strangled’ by a spirit. Well, hmm…
After collecting leaflets with a £2.00 off voucher (per booking, not per head!) we saw no reason why we should have to pay as a couple. So naturally we decided we didn’t know each other – never met before! – and paid our separate admissions with separate leaflets.
Inside the tiny entrance hall, a very small, and very tearful, boy of maybe seven or eight, sat on a wooden bench, red eyed and pale cheeked, twisting a paper hanky round and round in his fingers and sniffling quietly to himself. I kid you not: the child was visibly trembling.
The matronly figure at the pay desk told me that his mother had taken him into the Haunted house, and the poor wee scrap had been so terrified by the dark and the atmosphere, and his over active imagination, that he had just panicked and run. His dear sweet mother, having seen her offspring out into the light, had promptly vanished back into the house to finish her tour – leaving this wide-eyed and trembling infant to the kindness of strangers.
It was all there – the pathos! the fear! the anticipation! As an example of all that the ‘Haunted’ experience could promise it was hard to beat. But ideal parenting? Not for me to say. It’s probably not an ideal place for sensitive kids – so be warned.
We had a short wait before we could enter the house and spent it watching infra-red images on the security screens of bewildered people already inside wandering through darkened rooms, stopping to stare around them and not a word passing between than that I could see.
Every few moments the camera showed tiny white blobs streaking across the room; some slow, some fast, some in straight lines and others weaving around. Well I’ve watched Most Haunted. I know all the terminology. I know that those are ‘orbs’ according to the ghost hunters. Or moths, depending on your perspective…
I am open to new ideas and experiences. I can and do sense many things that are not easily explained. Yet when it was our turn I was in two minds on how to approach it. Clairvoyant? Or sceptic?
Once inside that decision was made for me when an over-loud voice-over began its monologue on the house and its history. For most of the tour I was struggling to tune out that piped voice. I wanted to ‘sense’ what was around me. To soak up the atmosphere and let the imagination run riot.
Yes, there was a spot in a small room full of pictures where I could detect a tremble, and in the séance room a faint, intermittent, chill played on the back of my right hand. I am sensitive to atmosphere, and know for sure there are more things in the world than can be explained, but I failed to get anything like the sense of menace or sadness that I have in other times and places. I was left feeling that the very thing the venue promotes is being razzamatazzed out of existence.
Entertaining, yes, and the tales were sad enough, and tragic enough, but the radio-theatre style re-enactments were just a little too stage-managed to create any genuine sense of verisimilitude.
But don’t be put off making the trip yourself, however. It is entertaining, and I could see how it was ‘spooky’ enough to cause a small boy to run screaming. It’s a great way for any devotee of the ‘unexplained’ to while away an hour.
York is proud of its spiritual reputation and quite rightly so. The Minster dominates the skyline, overlooking many other churches and chapels along ancient streets, and all bounded by even more ancient city walls. In fact, there are no buildings taller than the Minster in the city; no other building is allowed closer to heaven.York also has more pubs per head (allegedly) than any other city in England, serving spirits in liquid form.
And York prides itself on the quantity and quality of its ghostly spirits. Which, judging by the quantity of ads for ghost walks, haunt every available street corner. I lost count of the ghost-walk pamphlets I was handed.
Peter and I didn’t take up any of these offers but we did visit ‘York’s Most Haunted House’ at 35 Stonegate. This is the house made famous on TV’s Most Haunted show, where the ghost hunter, Derek Acorah, was once ‘almost strangled’ by a spirit. Well, hmm…
After collecting leaflets with a £2.00 off voucher (per booking, not per head!) we saw no reason why we should have to pay as a couple. So naturally we decided we didn’t know each other – never met before! – and paid our separate admissions with separate leaflets.
Inside the tiny entrance hall, a very small, and very tearful, boy of maybe seven or eight, sat on a wooden bench, red eyed and pale cheeked, twisting a paper hanky round and round in his fingers and sniffling quietly to himself. I kid you not: the child was visibly trembling.
The matronly figure at the pay desk told me that his mother had taken him into the Haunted house, and the poor wee scrap had been so terrified by the dark and the atmosphere, and his over active imagination, that he had just panicked and run. His dear sweet mother, having seen her offspring out into the light, had promptly vanished back into the house to finish her tour – leaving this wide-eyed and trembling infant to the kindness of strangers.
It was all there – the pathos! the fear! the anticipation! As an example of all that the ‘Haunted’ experience could promise it was hard to beat. But ideal parenting? Not for me to say. It’s probably not an ideal place for sensitive kids – so be warned.
We had a short wait before we could enter the house and spent it watching infra-red images on the security screens of bewildered people already inside wandering through darkened rooms, stopping to stare around them and not a word passing between than that I could see.
Every few moments the camera showed tiny white blobs streaking across the room; some slow, some fast, some in straight lines and others weaving around. Well I’ve watched Most Haunted. I know all the terminology. I know that those are ‘orbs’ according to the ghost hunters. Or moths, depending on your perspective…
I am open to new ideas and experiences. I can and do sense many things that are not easily explained. Yet when it was our turn I was in two minds on how to approach it. Clairvoyant? Or sceptic?
Once inside that decision was made for me when an over-loud voice-over began its monologue on the house and its history. For most of the tour I was struggling to tune out that piped voice. I wanted to ‘sense’ what was around me. To soak up the atmosphere and let the imagination run riot.
Yes, there was a spot in a small room full of pictures where I could detect a tremble, and in the séance room a faint, intermittent, chill played on the back of my right hand. I am sensitive to atmosphere, and know for sure there are more things in the world than can be explained, but I failed to get anything like the sense of menace or sadness that I have in other times and places. I was left feeling that the very thing the venue promotes is being razzamatazzed out of existence.
Entertaining, yes, and the tales were sad enough, and tragic enough, but the radio-theatre style re-enactments were just a little too stage-managed to create any genuine sense of verisimilitude.
But don’t be put off making the trip yourself, however. It is entertaining, and I could see how it was ‘spooky’ enough to cause a small boy to run screaming. It’s a great way for any devotee of the ‘unexplained’ to while away an hour.
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