York Dungeon
Encyclopedia
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
, England. York Dungeon depicts local horrible history using actor led shows, special effects and displays of models and objects.
History
York Dungeon was opened in 1986 at 12 Clifford Street, YorkYork
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
, England. It was the second Dungeon attraction created, the first being the London Dungeon
London Dungeon
The London Dungeon is a popular London tourist attraction, which recreates various gory and macabre historical events in a grimly comedic 'gallows humour' style, attempting to make them appealing to younger audiences...
in 1974.
Exhibits and shows
The dungeon operates on the basis of tours which start every 7 minutes and last between 1 and 1.5 hours. In these tours visitors are led around a sequence of shows and exhibitions which are loosely based on historical events and practices.The Great Plague
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...
show is set in 1551 with a recreation of medieval York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
streets and culminates with a performance from an actor playing a plague doctor. There is also a recreation of a York pub the Golden Fleece Inn where visitors are told ghost stories
Ghost story
A ghost story may be any piece of fiction, or drama, or an account of an experience, that includes a ghost, or simply takes as a premise the possibility of ghosts or characters' belief in them. Colloquially, the term can refer to any kind of scary story. In a narrower sense, the ghost story has...
. Other shows include the Judgement of Sinners where visitors are accused of various crimes and the Torture Chamber where visitors are shown demonstrations of torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
devices. During the tour actors playing plague doctors, innkeepers, Viking cohorts of Eric Bloodaxe
Eric Bloodaxe
Eric Haraldsson , nicknamed ‘Bloodaxe’ , was a 10th-century Scandinavian ruler. He is thought to have had short-lived terms as the second king of Norway and possibly as the last independent ruler of the kingdom of Northumbria Eric Haraldsson (Eric, anglicised form of ; died 954), nicknamed...
, judges, torturers and Dick Turpin
Dick Turpin
Richard "Dick" Turpin was an English highwayman whose exploits were romanticised following his execution in York for horse theft. Turpin may have followed his father's profession as a butcher early in life, but by the early 1730s he had joined a gang of deer thieves, and later became a poacher,...
's executioner tell visitors gruesome stories.
Criticism
The ChristianChristian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
community in York raised concerns in 2004 about a Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
show at the dungeon called Satan's Grotto and asked the dungeon to stop the show. Reverend Roger Simpson of St Michael-le-Belfrey church said "There are real evil forces . . . We are concerned the attraction has the potential to do real pastoral harm." A spokesman from York Dungeon's responded that "It is all tongue-in-cheek" and should not be taken seriously.
York Dungeon offered free entry to people subject to anti-social behaviour order
Anti-Social Behaviour Order
An Anti-Social Behaviour Order or ASBO is a civil order made against a person who has been shown, on the balance of evidence, to have engaged in anti-social behaviour. The orders, introduced in the United Kingdom by Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1998, were designed to correct minor incidents that...
s (ASBOs) for the weekend of the 26 May and 27 May 2007. The dungeon was "widely condemned for a controversial decision" with criticism coming from victims of crime, York Councillors and Hugh Bayley
Hugh Bayley
Hugh Bayley is a British Labour Party politician and Member of Parliament for York Central. He held the City of York seat from 1992 to the 2010 general election, when boundary changes took effect.-Early life:...
, the Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for the City of York
City of York (UK Parliament constituency)
The City of York was a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elected one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election.-Boundaries:...
, who commented: The manager of York Dungeon said "I thought it might shock the ASBO offenders a little to see what would have happened to them a couple of hundred years ago", but the Dungeon reported that no one took up their offer of free admission.