Shiverpool celebrates 18 years of giving the city ghost stories and goosebumps

Liverpool’s famous ghost and history tour guide experience, Shiverpool, is celebrating 18 years of giving goosebumps to the city and its visitors.

Shiverpool is marking its coming of age with more frighteningly good and ghoulish adventures in the run up to Halloween and beyond, and ‘doing what we love and hope we do the best, delivering the best street theatre guided tours in the country’.

“It’s impressive that Shiverpool has been around for so long, but that’s a testament to the power of a good ghost story, and how well we bring the history of the city to life (or death),” says Will Goodwin, aka one of Shiverpool’s lead tour guides, Indiana Bones.

“And to the fact that Liverpool has such a rich history, politically and culturally, and so many stories to tell.”

He adds: “I have always loved Liverpool and 50% of the people we have on the tours are from Merseyside and it’s a real gift to be able to show them elements and parts of their city they never knew existed, like St James’ Gardens.”

Will and his partner in crime and ‘sinister sister’ Chiller Black – also known as Lucy Carew, artistic director of the company – David Boney (Liam Brady) and James Vagabond (Joshua Griggs) have got a week-long series of tours in the days leading up to All Hallows Eve on October 31, as well as its regular tours for all ages in the new autumn and winter season.

Along with private ‘bespook’ tours, it now offers three tour experiences:

The Hope Street Shivers (the first ever theatrical tour of Liverpool)

‘Our signature dish, voted Best Tour in Ye Olde England by Visit England’. Meeting outside the Philharmonic pub, it explores the Cathedral Quarter of Hope Street including both cathedrals, Rodney Street and the infamous story of Will McKenzie (Liverpool’s most infamous undead resident), The Irish Centre (formally The Wellington rooms), and ending the journey beneath the gothic majesty of Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral and St James’ Cemetery ‘where for over a hundred years something sinister has lurked beneath the shadows’.

Find out more HERE.

Auld City and Dead House Tour

Meeting at the Queen Victoria Monument in Derby Square, it boasts tales of hulking castles and dank airless dungeons, marble facades and sanctuary stones. Guests are asked to behold the lofty banking halls and chilling corridors of power, the regal opulence of the Town Hall and the crooked lamp lit alleyways, and witness the city’s darkest and less well known hidden avenues in the now bustling commercial district.

The immersive tour ends in the oldest morgue in the city, ‘nestled quietly within a medieval garden, hidden beneath the gothic spire of a floating chapel, entered through a trapdoor and named by Herman Melville himself ‘The Liverpool Dead House’.

Find out more HERE.

The Secret Garden and Cemetery Shivers – ‘The Old Necropolis tour of St James’s Cemetery’

Shiverpool will transport you on a spine-tingling gothic odyssey through the ‘Dormitory of the Dead’, St James’ Cemetery, and peel away the layers of time and place where spooky spirits dance and storytellers dream and weave their tales in the pale moonlight. ‘A journey you are unlikely to forget…’

Find out more HERE.

Will, 24, a former theatre student from Bebington who combines his love of horror with his passion for performance, said:

“It’s the wicked combination that people love; you’ve got the history side and the ghost stories plus the horror.

“Then throw in the comedy with the theatricality and audiences feel completely immersed, you’re in the moment, and there’s no hiding.

“A lot of guests may never have experienced theatre or anything of this nature before, it’s great to exceed expectations and introduce audiences to a combination of history, theatre, comedy, and the thrill of the unexpected, and we hope it all comes together to offer a unique experience.

“People love ghost stories, they love to step into this other world with things they may be afraid of without the real danger. And scientifically, there is a dopamine boost, people love being frightened, it’s a buzz and a thrill!

“But ghost stories – like the one we tell of Old Will McKenzie – can often serve to offer a lesson, and help you to understand the darker side of ourselves and the world as it can be”

With promises of a few surprises along the way – ‘we might well make you jump’ – Will and the team promise a fun-filled experience throughout October, and in November they’re planning to introduce a Wicked Wednesday £10 ticket tour on the Auld City and Dead House route, alongside new Shiverschool stage performance workshops, and festive tours.

“It sounds like a cliché but the best thing of all is that no day, no tour, is the same,” says Will. “People are always surprised by the places and history with its darker side, and tourists fall in love with Liverpool, its landmarks, and all those places. But most of all it’s the people they love, and that fills our hearts with pride.”