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Offered languages
- English
York calls itself the most haunted city in Europe, though nobody has ever produced the survey that says so. This self-guided ghost walk takes the claim seriously enough to test it.
With the Questo app you work a case file on the walled city that has been open since 1953. In February of that year, an apprentice fitting a boiler in a cellar behind the Minster saw Roman soldiers come through the wall, visible only from the knees up. Some stories hold up better than you'd expect. Others, like Mad Alice of Mad Alice Lane, fall apart the moment someone checks the gaol records.
Thirteen stops lead from the old castle prisons and Clifford's Tower over Ouse Bridge to the Minster, then along the Shambles to the Merchant Adventurers' Hall. Each has a puzzle you solve on the spot, from a scrambled message to a doctored photo of a carved doorway.
The walk covers about 2.6 km and takes most groups two hours. Hints and 24/7 support are built in. There are no jump scares, by design.
What's Included
Meeting and pickup
The game starts at York Castle Museum. After booking, we'll message you a code and activation link. Activate with your own email, then log in to the Questo app with that email. No message? Open the Questo app, tap "Bought a quest somewhere else?" and enter your booking reference number.
The game ends at the main gate of the Merchant Adventurers' Hall on Fossgate.
Itinerary
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1York Castle Museum
The case opens on the green between the old castle prisons, now the York Castle Museum. Part of the lettering on the building is cut out of your photo, and a number code turns the real thing into a password. In 1801 a cattle thief named Samuel Lundy was the first man hanged on York's new gallows here.
6 minutes • Admission ticket free -
2Clifford's Tower
On the mound above sits Clifford's Tower, shaped like a four-leaf clover. You'll pick the right version of the English Heritage sign out of four. In March 1190, about 150 people, York's entire Jewish community, died in the wooden tower that stood here before it, and the only plaque went up in 1978.
6 minutes • Admission ticket free -
3Fairfax House
Along Castlegate, Fairfax House was bought to marry off a daughter, and you'll track down the name of the man who built it. Her father opened it in 1763 with a ball of sixty-three courses and 6,700 bottles of beer. Anne Fairfax never married.
6 minutes • Admission ticket free -
4
At Ouse Bridge, you'll unscramble a message and answer its question on the spot. A toll booth on the old bridge is where Margaret Clitherow, a butcher's wife who hid priests, was put to death in 1586 after refusing to plead so her children wouldn't have to testify.
6 minutes • Admission ticket free -
5All Saints Church
All Saints on North Street has some of the finest medieval glass in England and a small cell stuck to its side. You'll fill in a word missing from a handwritten list. Dame Emma Raughton had herself walled in there in 1425, dead in law, and the Earl of Warwick still came to ask her advice.
6 minutes • Admission ticket free -
6Yorkshire Museum
Across the river, Museum Gardens has abbey ruins, peacocks and a carved stone drinking fountain whose date is hidden in your photo. In 1953 the museum's caretaker found an old man reading in the library after closing and put a hand on his shoulder. There was no shoulder.
6 minutes • Admission ticket free -
7York Minster
At York Minster, the largest Gothic cathedral in northern Europe, a riddle leads you to a bronze model of the area and the number of a red house. Across from the south door stands a Roman column, found under the cathedral only because its central tower started to sink.
6 minutes • Admission ticket free -
8Treasurer's House
Behind the Minster, the Treasurer's House holds the best-attested ghost in the whole file. You'll uncover what a sticker hides on a stone pillar outside. The 1953 apprentice saw the soldiers only from the knees up, and a Roman road was later found fifteen inches below the cellar floor.
6 minutes • Admission ticket free -
9St William's College
Timber-framed with a red door, St William's College housed the Minster's chantry priests from the 1460s. You'll spot what's missing from a photo of its carved doorway. People paid those priests to pray for their souls forever, until Parliament cancelled the deal in 1547.
6 minutes • Admission ticket free -
10Holy Trinity Church
Through an archway off Goodramgate, Holy Trinity is the one church in York nobody got round to modernising. You'll pick the right version of a nearby shop sign out of four. Inside, the floor still rises and falls over the graves beneath it.
6 minutes • Admission ticket free -
11Low Petergate
Mad Alice Lane is one of York's snickelways, lanes too narrow to be streets, and a rhyming riddle leads you to its sign. Then you'll see the gaol records: there was never an Alice hanged in 1825, and the lane's real name is Lund's Court.
6 minutes • Admission ticket free -
12Shambles
The Shambles still has the meat shelves and hooks of its butchers' days. At Margaret Clitherow's shrine you'll find the day of the month that her death and her canonisation share. The shrine is very probably in the wrong house.
6 minutes • Admission ticket free -
13Merchant Adventurers' Hall
The file closes at the Merchant Adventurers' Hall on Fossgate, a timber hall that has served the same trade for over six hundred years. At the main gate you'll solve one last logic puzzle by ruling out half of what you see. The merchants met upstairs, directly above the almshouse they paid for.
18 minutes • Admission ticket free
Additional info
- Service animals allowed
- Public transportation options are available nearby
- Infants and small children can ride in a pram or stroller
- Suitable for all physical fitness levels
- A charged smartphone with internet is required to play the game in the Questo app
- Comfortable walking shoes are recommended
Tags
Cancellation Policy
For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.
Cancellation Policy
- For a full refund, you must cancel at least 24 hours before the experience’s start time.
- If you cancel less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time, the amount you paid will not be refunded.
- Any changes made less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time will not be accepted.
You can cancel up to 24 hours in advance of the experience for a full refund.
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