The Grim Reaper Tour9 May 2012
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| Our tour begins in the 1400’s – a time long before an official police force patrolled the shadowed alleys in the city’s infamous “East End”. London was a city where the tyrants ruled and the weak were swallowed by Death’s gaping maw. This walk through the city’s gloom takes us through the site of gruesome executions, poverty, overcrowding, disease and criminality. As we retrace the trail of the notorious Jack the Ripper murders, we get a taste for a new breed of soul harvester born of the Victorian age, the world’s first psychiatric hospital, plague pits, the Bloody Tower and Traitor’s Gate and several notoriously haunted areas of the East End. The Imprisonment of Elizabeth was in the Tower of London on March 18, 1554. She was held in the Bell Tower which also held her mother, Anne Boleyn and Henry's first wife, Catherine Howard. There are several stories about the Tower of London being haunted. Here are a couple: Believed to have been killed on the instruction of Richard III, the two young princes have been seen holding hands, cowering in various rooms of the tower. In 1990, two Coldstream Guards heard two young children giggling just outside the tower, accompanied by a bouncing sound. The Bloody Tower is also home to the ghost of Sir Walter Raleigh, who wanders around the area and also along the battlements now known as Raleigh's Walk. One visitor reported seeing a phantom woman in a long black dress standing by a window; the witness had time to see the figure was wearing a white cap and a gold pendant before the figure melted away. The East End is definitely a frightening area of London. From the beginning, the East End has always contained some of the poorest areas of London. The crowds out there are... interesting. We got yelled at by a very rough lady who had no teeth. Our guide said the woman could pass as one of the prostitutes from 1888. The Ten Bells is the original pub Jack the Ripper claimed his final victim, Mary Kelly. It's amazing that it still stands to this day and is a very popular pub. It was packed when we walked by! Spitalfield Market is built on the graves of the victims of the plague. Apparently there are over 100,000 bodies under it... On a lighter note, I discovered London's Canadian pub called the Maple Leaf. Yes they really are that original out here. It basically looked like any Irish pub you see around Calgary. They have imported some Canadian Beers and offer poutine on the menu. Unfortunately, I was persueded to go to the Australian pub, Walkabout, next door and was greatly disappointed. Next time will stay in Canadian pub to enjoy it's many wonders including a black bear! |
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