Yesterday I was invited to explore the Home of Halloween at York Dungeon (DON’T WORRY – THERE ARE NO SPOILERS! ). I haven’t been to the Dungeons for a good few years and so I was so excited to go – especially at this time of year!

As you may have figured out from some of my other posts, I am a big lover of Autumn, however, I am also a huge lover of Halloween! It’s the chance to be creative and dress up like when I was a kid (albeit with some questionable costumes over the years haha).

Halloweens Past

Before I tell you more about York Dungeon I will say that due to rules on photography and also not wanting to ruin the experience for you, I won’t go too deep into the detail. After readying ourselves and preparing to be scared witless (I said witless) we headed to the dungeon at around 2.30pm. The Dungeon close at 5pm on a Saturday and so we opted to head early so that we didn’t have to walk home at dusk jumping at any unexpected movememts! However, for the brave ones amongst us, the dungeon will be open until 9pm over the Halloween weekend of 27th-31st October – a must for any Halloween thrill seeker.

The tour of the Dungeon takes you through 10 different experiences and lasts just over an hour – well worth the ticket price for an afternoon of screams. And talking of screams, there are definitely plenty of jumps and screams throughout the tour – watch out for the what might be behind you!

The tour starts with the Vikings of York where Dave, or should I call him Edevict of Wales, was chosen by the Viking as our leader (questionable choice right!?), before being overhauled by a school girl called Hilda (real name Anna) and made to sit in the “idiot chair”.

From the intro with the Vikings we went on to take a tour through York’s dreaded past, visiting a number of different points in York’s long and varied history including:

The Plague Doctor

The Haunted Golden Fleece

Margaret Clitheroe’s House

Guy Fawkes

The Torturer

The Courtroom

The Executioner

The Highwayman

Within each of the ten experiences you are greeted by a character to talk you through the gruesome tales of the history of York (with the occasional fright for good measure!). The actors do an incredible job, bringing the characters to life and creating a realistic, and at times frightening, experience through both their acting and their costumes/make-up. What’s more, everyone gets to feel part of the experience as members of the group are selected to take part in the different interactive tales through time.

The scripts are very cleverly crafted to work across a wide age range, with the adults in the group picking up on a number of double entendres and innuendos, bringing out a lighter side of an otherwise gruesome story!

Overall this was an enjoyable (and at times scary) afternoon learning about the dark side of my beloved York. If you get the chance then whatever your age range I’d highly recommend you check out the experience this Halloween season. However, all is not lost if if you don’t get chance to visit during Halloween – the excellent acting and interesting historical side to this experience are guaranteed to make it a fun and frightening activity for any time of year.

Visit York Dungeon here:

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• Web: www.thedungeons.com/york/en/

*Our trip to York Dungeon was complimentary thanks to the wonderful people at York Dungeon in return for coverage on my blog. I again thank them this great experience and it goes without saying that opinions in this review are 100% my own (and seconded by Dave)! When you have chance you MUST take a trip yourself!