By Amelia Oprean
October 12 2019, 11.45
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London Dungeons is one of the most renowned attractions that everyone must visit at least once. Not only is it a great source of Halloween fun, but also explores the broad and dark history of London, spanning over 1,000 years.
The ‘Home of Halloween’ Hide & Seek show is filled with jump-scares, sound effects that carry into the bathrooms and amazing actors that will make you scream.
I am not a person that is scared easily, but from the moment I walked into the entrance and accompanied my friend Emily to the bathrooms, my legs were like jelly.
My favourite attraction of the tour has to be Jack The Ripper. Every ‘event’ had one to two rooms, but the story of the Whitechapel serial killer had four to accompany the story-telling.
It starts in a room named Mrs Lovett’s Pie Shop, who explained that there had been a series of killings in Whitechapel, and moving us into the next room, told us to be careful of said killer.
The second room was filled with chairs and a stack of newspapers in the middle covered with front page stories about the killer. We were then moved into what, in my opinion, was the scariest and eeriest room of them all.
This room had foot to ceiling wooden fence with gaps where one could look through and see the middle of the room, a bedroom which belonged to one of the last of The Ripper’s victims, Mary Jane Kelly.
The lights blacked out, and a young man wearing a black coat, top hat and a cloth that covered his mouth and nose appeared via the window of the bedroom and stood in silence as Kelly told him of the recent killings in Whitechapel.
As she did this, the actor paced around the room and made eye contact with everyone which is what I found eeriest about this room. After this, we wandered through a mirror maze and were led to the last room, which was the Ten Bells pub.
The young woman running it was talking to us about how a year had passed since the last Jack The Ripper killing, and how the people of Whitechapel were still shaken up about these events, which can be said even after 130 years.
One of my other favourite rooms was the court room, where I got to interact with the actor, playing a Judge of the court. He called me up among the ‘boo’s’ of the crowd, into the witness box.
He then accused me of witchcraft for dancing naked in the streets of London and casting ‘witch spells’. He asked me whether I’d plead guilty or by reason of insanity, to which I responded the latter, and he let me go, but not before making me dance in front of the rest of the group.
Lastly, we then went to, where we were dropped 10 feet below and brought back up, and I’ll be honest, the unexpected drop was pretty scary.
Despite my fears on the Drop Ride, a pretty funny flash photo of me and Emily on the ride resulted from it. After the drop, we were then welcomed into the The Tavern, where I snagged a red velvet cupcake and left feeling very satisfied with my first trip to the London Dungeons.
If you get to visit London and are a fan of horror and history, I would recommend this attraction for anyone.
As well as this, the trip itself is a great look into the history of London and is very educational. As the tour was going on, I realised how events had shaped London into what it is today, and I considered it a great way to learn about the city.
