The York Ghost Walk Experience

The streets and passage-ways of York
31 May 2011

I like to use this on-line journal as an opportunity to appraise any live experience and so whilst on a short family break to York, why not review an evening ghost walk we did on our final night.

With a tangible history all around you, York is a great place to stay and to simply enjoy being a tourist. There’s the Minster, Jorvik, the Dungeon and not forgetting the cake trolley at Betty’s Tea Rooms.

It is a city that seems very proud of its Roman, Viking and other major historical roots and not afraid to sell itself in this respect. Therefore, with such a long history, the city has developed over the centuries a number of legends and ghost stories. The result is that on any evening in York you will encounter several guides leading groups of people down the Shambles and through the many back passages of the city telling tales of ghostly Roman legions and dismembered members of the aristocracy.

We chose to go on The York Ghost Walk Experience which starts from the Roman Column outside the Minster every evening. So what happens? You turn up and then at 7pm prompt a figure come towards you wearing a three cornered hat and long black coat. He is carrying a small step-ladder. He takes our money and then for the next one and half hours we are taken on a tour of the city and given various ghostly stories and fascinating snippets of history, such as how one particular church in the city simply used the stone from old Roman coffins to build its walls.

We are told of a nun who had feelings towards the opposite sex and so was bricked up alive on what is now the site of the York Theatre Royal. Her ghost has apparently been seen on the stage. There is also the plague-ridden child who was locked in her room to die and can occasionally be seen tapping on the window pane asking for help.

We are also taken to the wonderfully named Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma Gate, possibly the smallest street in York and where the city’s whipping post and stocks were situated in medieval times.
Our guide was clear and forthright. He managed our little crowd of about 30 people well and with his constant mantra of “Shuffle, Shuffle’ we crowded closely round him. His step-ladder was a nice touch, giving him that extra bit of elevation for us all to see, especially the children.

Of course our guide had a marvellous backdrop to work with, namely the grandeur of the Minster and the cosiness of The Shambles. I would imagine that on a dark autumn night, rather than a sun-dappled evening in May, the stories and the setting would truly gel together.

It’s a shame that there was no name to go with this tour. Ade Andrews with his Guts ‘n’ Gore Tours around Nottingham revels in his Ezekial Bone persona. It would have been a nice extra touch to know who was talking to us, whether it be real-name or alter-ego. However, there was something quite mysterious and ghost-like about seeing our guide after the tour had finished, simply walking back up The Shambles, with his coat-flapping in the wind, carrying his step-ladder, turning the corner and then disappearing out of view.

Who was that man in the three-cornered hat? I shall never know.