With Halloween creeping closer, it’s the perfect time of year to test your nerve - and you might just have some spectacularly spooky encounters on a trip with this North East tour business.
GHOSTNorthEast run events all year round which give customers the chance to experience some paranormal encounters as well as learning more about some of the most grisly parts of the region’s history, and are now ramping things up for their most popular time of year. The spine-chilling events are run by Steve Watson, an expert in all things paranormal in the region who has penned three books on the subject - Paranormal Newcastle , Paranormal Sunderland and The Chronicles of a Ghost Hunter.
With its centuries of history and grand old buildings from medieval castles to Georgian prisons, the North East is said to be rich ground for ghostly goings-on. Now lovers of all things supernatural have the chance to take a look around some of the buildings most notorious for paranormal activity - if they dare.
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The ghost-hunting team are running events throughout October and November, with more dates to be announced for 2022 soon. Visitors to these locations will have the chance to become paranormal investigators for the night, using specialist equipment in an attempt to capture some spectral inhabitants.
Each location has been hand-picked by Steve and the team for its fascinating history and reported paranormal activity, which visitors will hear all about on the night. A few of the events have already sold out, including a night at Newcastle’s oldest library the Lit & Phil - which Steve has dubbed the most haunted building in the city.
Nights at Vane Tempest in Durham , Bensham Grove and Ryton Masonic Hall in Gateshead , and Creighton Hall in Embleton have also sold out. But there are still tickets left for some spooky North East venues, as well as others across the country.
The GHOSTNorthEast team are stopping off at The Phoenix Lodge Masonic Temple in Sunderland on Saturday 5 November, with a tour running from 9pm-2am. Dating back to 1785, the Queen Street building is thought to be the oldest purpose-built Masonic Temple in the world that is still in use today.
A visit to Bedlington 's Masonic Hall is also on the cards on Saturday 19 November, again at the eerie hour of 9pm-2am. Opened in 1902, many visitors to the Bedlington building have reported spooky occurrences - one person who went on GHOSTNorthEast’s previous tour of the Hall called the experience “fascinating”, saying that they had “never felt so much on edge in any other place”.
The ghost hunting team is running a series of haunting evenings up in Scotland too, including two chilling nights at Jedburgh Jail on 15 and 26 November with tickets still up for grabs. Other events include Closeburn Castle in Thornhill and the old Army Drill Hall in Duns, both promising plenty of their own bone-chilling tales.
For those who are prepared to travel further in their pursuit of supernatural sightings, GHOSTNorthEast is also running a special event for £50pp at Shrewsbury Prison in Shropshire. Branded the ‘second most haunted jail in the world’, the originally Georgian prison was once the site of public executions and has featured on several episodes of Most Haunted.
GHOSTNorthEast also offers walking tours of the most haunted spots in Newcastle, which recently won silver for Accessible and Inclusive Tourism at this year’s North East Tourism Awards. You can book a place on any of the haunting upcoming events on the GHOSTNorthEast website .
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