| Event type: | Meeting |
| Date: | 4th February 2025 |
| Time: | 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm |
| Venue: | Festival Church Chester |
Local tour guide and author David Atkinson presented a social history of Chester interspersed with some Gothic readings and poetry from the heart of Victorian darkness. Festival Church was almost full with 128 members listening in person and at least 20 more joining on line.
"Come! Begin your tale. There is a chill in the air, the wind is hollowing through the eaves, tell us of monsters" - Queen Victoria
David Atkinson gave an illustrated talk based on his new walking tour in which he presents dark-tourism tales from Chester’s Victorian heyday with a literary twist. What did the Victorians ever do for Chester? Quite a lot actually. The Eastgate Clock, The Town Hall and the refurbishment of The Rows all date from Chester’s Victorian golden age as a fashionable centre for retail and leisure. It was an age of innovation, global power and flushing toilets, but the Victorians also gave us some of our favourite ghost stories and bequeathed a fascination with our dark-tourism heritage.
David Atkinson is a Green Badge tourist guide to Chester. His Dark Chester tour was awarded Tourism Business Of the Year at the Marketing Cheshire Tourism Awards 2024 and his book, Dark Chester, will be published summer 2025.
https://www.atkinsondavid.com/.