As a city dating back over two thousand years, it is not surprising that London has had its fair share of murders, mysteries and ghoulish, macabre events. Exploring that history can be a great fun, but can also involve a lot of screaming and laughter while you are a resident at the Aparthotels in Kensington.
We take a look at some of the best places to explore that macabre history.
The London Dungeon has to be top of the list. This is one of the must-see places for most visitors to London staying in one of the classy Aparthotels London. It’s theatrical, lively and full of special effects and rides where you can see, hear, touch, smell and feel the past around you. Listen to stories of murders and ghosts, meet characters such as Jack the Ripper who stalks the London Dungeon, the murderous Henry VIII, and Mrs. Lovett who has a Pie Shop with mysterious contents in Fleet Street. Stroll through the dim streets of Whitechapel, meet a torturer and try the Drop Dead ride to Doom as you face the hangman’s ‘long drop’.
Equally scary is The London Bridge Experience. Tucked away under the arches of London Bridge itself, this has been described as the top horror attraction in the world. Come face to face with Queen Boudica’s Iceni tribesmen as they burn their way through London, meet the Keeper of the Heads as he preserves William Wallace’s head before sticking it on the spikes above London Bridge, pass through the narrow shop lined street of London Bridge as the Great Fire takes hold. For those who have the courage, you can then enter the London Tombs, a place where hundreds of bodies were discovered in plague pits. Mad detainees wait to chase you, nesting spiders trap you and a maniac butcher add you to his collection of limbs.
The Ghost Bus Tours are an experience not to be missed while you are in London and staying potentially in one of the fantastic serviced apartment like Presidential Apartments Kensington. The deep black double Decker bus is full of pure black comedy as it takes you around the streets of London highlighting sites of murder, torture and execution, telling tales of ghosts and ghoulies, of the grisly skeletons that lie hidden under our modern world. Discover the demon barber of Fleet Street, the Cross bones graveyard of Southwark and the black dog of Newgate prison. It’s lively and scary, for your conductor and driver are not what they seem!
No one can think of London’s ghoulish past without a Jack the Ripper tour. This is truly atmospheric, passing through the old, narrow alleyways of London’s East End where the murky darkness of Victorian London still seems to be present. See the murder sites and locations linked to Jack the Ripper, such as the doorway where he may have left a sinister message, the place where one of the suspects worked as a barber, the pub where many of his victims drank the night away, and the former convent where one of the victims desperately sought shelter.
