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With York having such a rich, colorfull history, taking a ghost walk seemed a natural.  We signed up for “The Ghost Hunt of York,” which bills itself as the number one rated ghost walk in the city.

Our guide took his role seriously, although it was hard not to giggle at his antics.  Dressed in Victorian garb complete with top hat, step ladder (allowing him to be seen and heard by all), and bag (into which he collected quite a few £s!), he rounded up quite a crowd.

We were all to meet at “the bottom of the Shambles” — “York’s oldest street and Europe’s best preserved medieval street” which is also mentioned in the Domesday Book of William the Conqueror (making it date over 900 years).  Historically it was a street of butcher shops; today it’s filled with shops, restaurants, and plenty of tourists.

Our group of over 150 people were told to stay put.  He ventured off, and, like sheep, we waited.  Our ghostly guide, ringing his “death bell,” returned about 10 minutes later with another crowd following him until we all were grouped together.  I’m sure there were more than 200 of us.

Part actor and part jokester, everyone crowded around to listen to his entertaining narrative.  It all wasn’t laughs, as several stories were humbling and sad — a small girl abandoned and locked into her room because of having the Plague, individuals who fell to their death, marching Roman soldiers, and so on.

“The Golden Fleece” claims to be the oldest (being mentioned in 1505) and most haunted licensed premises in York, (featured in a 2005 episode of “Most Haunted”).  The wooden-framed building has no foundation which, as they explain, is why the building and staircases are crooked.

You can see how the second floor of the building dips.

And what would be next to the oldest and most haunted building in York?  A Pizza Hut, of course!

Here, our guide instructed everyone (on his count) to wave at the customers in a restaurant across the street from where we were standing.

Then, on his count, everyone walked towards the resturant and did a collective “boo” in the face of the customers.  I suspect this goes on nearly nightly, but it still was good fun.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 9:32 pm and is filed under photos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.