Take a walk on the dark side

Chester has it all: Romans, Victorians and The Beatles. But, most of all, I’ve become fascinated by the way it packs plenty of dark-tourism heritage into the nooks and crannies of its 2,000-year history.

I started discovering these dark tales while training as a Green Badge Tourist Guide. An ancient city like Chester, I learnt, lends itself innately to dark tourism with its layers of history peeling slowly back to reveal the darkness trapped within.

That was the genesis for my storytelling walking tour, Dark Chester. By collecting old folk tales and consulting local sources on the places associated with grisly tales, I was able to shine a flickering candlelight into the darkest recesses of the city I’m proud to call home.

Besides, I’ve always been drawn to the darker side — ever since I made friends with the monsters under my bed as a child. From the ghost stories of M.R. James to listening to The Cure’s gothic masterpiece Disintegration in my teenage bedroom, I’ve had a penchant for what James described as “a pleasing terror”.

And, with the evenings drawing in, who doesn’t love a pleasing terror at this time of year?

A Dark History of Chester, by David Atkinson, published by Amberley. Photography https://www.stuartrobinson.photography/

Burning belief

This month, my new book, A Dark History of Chester, comes out, continuing the tradition of the tour, which recently picked up an award at the Marketing Cheshire Tourism Awards. I’ve drawn on testimony from local experts, augmenting my collection of dark-tourism tales, while trying to keep the tone both informative and entertaining.

After all, it is a tourism experience, not an academic study. As such, think plenty of light and shade.

Amongst the stories, I talk about the modern-day Chester suburb of Boughton as home to Gallow’s Hill, Chester’s answer to London’s Tyburn, the site of public execution. Many a criminal, and lots of innocent people, drew their last breath on this spot. But hanging wasn’t the only execution practiced at Boughton. During the reign of Mary I, otherwise known as a Mary Tudor, some 300 people were condemned as religious martyrs during her short time on the throne, a period of religious turmoil.

One of those victims was the Chester widower George Marsh, who was condemned by the Consistory (ecclesiastical) Court, still to be found within Chester Cathedral, to be ‘burnt to ashes as a heretic’ as part of the Marian Persecutions carried out against Protestant Reformers. He went to his death reading The Bible and refusing to denounce his Protestant faith. There’s a memorial to Marsh on the Boughton roadside to this day, marking his horrific death in the flames of religious persecution on April 25, 1555.

Haunted hotel

Across town on Lower Bridge Street, I visit Ye Olde King’s Head, which will be hosting Chester’s biggest Halloween party on Saturday, October 25. But the pub, dating from the 17th century and named after a headless Charles I backed by Royalist Chester at the time of the English Civil War, is no ordinary boozer. It first hosted the TV series Most Haunted in 2013, and after Covid lockdowns, the owners converted the upper rooms into a dedicated space for paranormal investigation.

The concept is to spend a night in a haunted hotel, joining a live ghost hunt in a 400-year-old building filled with all-seeing-eye live cameras. It recently featured in the Amazon Prime TV series, My Haunted Project, and in 2024 expanded across the Atlantic, partnering with an American-based team of paranormal investigators in Columbia, Pennsylvania. It’s no Hammer-Horror show, however. While commercially run, the team is keen to take a rational and scientific approach to the nighttime investigations. They assess. They scrutinise. It’s only by eliminating the options and debunking the misunderstandings, they suggest, what’s left could be genuinely described as unexplained.

Watch out!

Look out for me around Chester this autumn. You’ll find me telling stories beside a Gothic archway and striding the city walls behind a former Benedictine monastery, which the monks of the Middle Ages turned into a prayer factory for the dead. There will be regular walking tours, departing from the Visitor Information Centre in Town Hall Square (where you can also buy the book), plus special storytelling events with Heritage Chester as part of its ‘Rowvember’ programme, a month-long celebration of Chester’s unique, tiered shopping galleries, or Rows, during November.

Most of all, I want Dark Chester to remain accessible to all people of all ages and backgrounds. Everyone is welcome to my Dark Chester community.

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

 

About the Author

David Atkinson is a jobbing writer and Green Badge Tourist Guide, working across Chester and North Wales. He leads the Dark Chester tour and welcomes enquiries about future tours — contact atkinsondavid@icloud.com, or phone 07974 390436. A Dark History of Chester is published by Amberley (£15.99). More from www.davidatkinson.tours