It’s a busy time of year for Steel City Ghost Tours. The Sheffield institution’s natural affinity for Halloween makes for the perfect spooky activity on a dark October night. For Mr P Dreadful, the tour’s enigmatic guide and founder, it’s business as usual. “We run every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday night of the year, come rain, shine or snow!”
Even to this day, the tour changes as more stories are uncovered. “We’ve realised that the city still has more layers that nobody’s actually looked into. Sheffield’s like an onion: the more layers you remove the darker it gets towards the centre!” It’s the people that inhabit the city, though, that add extra depth to Sheffield’s tours. “You can just talk about buildings, but to have an empty city with no people from history is just a mausoleum! We put the people back into the buildings.”
“We’re getting a lot of good feedback. It feels like we’re opening a lot of people’s eyes to the city’s depths. Some who’ve lived here all their life say, ‘My god, I didn’t realise Sheffield was so interesting!’. This is a historic city, where we changed the world with industry and ideas.”
The warm and good-natured Mr P is an engrossing storyteller, backed by thorough historical research and corroborated with multiple eye-witness accounts. Whether you believe in the supernatural or not, everyone enjoys a well-spun yarn. Expect a tour full of them, and two hours well-spent. “Come down and learn a little bit of history – hopefully even see the city in a different way!”
Mr Dreadful’s Haunted Hotspots
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Head to steelcityghosttours.co.uk for special events and more info.
