Halloween in York
We have LOVED Halloween in York. It is all the things I love about Halloween: atmospheric, fun activities, spooky stories, cute costumes, and mild weather. But there is basically no trick or treating or sugar. As much as I adore seeing all the cute costumes of the kids (including my own!) and handing out candy, I despise how much candy my children get. Even with giving away a ton of the candy that they come home with (bless you, Kristina, and your November 1st birthday!), by New Year’s we still have an overload of Halloween candy in our house. The girls know that on January 1st I throw all remaining candy into the garbage. I hate that sugar overload turns my sweet little girls into nutty monsters. The night also is so busy from the moment we finish work that it feels like a whirlwind, unless Halloween happens to fall on a weekend.
The lead-up to Halloween in York was so much fun! Being a medieval city means that it already has a lot of natural atmosphere. But they also added a lot of special touches, like broomsticks and ghosts hanging above the walkway along Coppergate. Then there are all the magical shops in York, like the Potions Cauldron, the Hole in Wand (minigolf), the York Ghost shop (which we never went into as there was always a minimum one-hour queue), so many Harry Potter shops, an alchemy shop, and so many more!
York is such a family-friendly city, and we love the special extra things they do to make fun, free, and engaging things for kids to do. One of these things is the Ghosts in the Gardens in October and early November. They set up “ghosts”, composed of wire mesh statues that (in the right lighting) really do look like ethereal beings, all throughout the downtown core. The ghosts are typical of whatever building they are located near. There’s a Viking ghost outside DIG, priests and nuns in the Museum Gardens, an archer on top of Clifford’s Tower, a judge with his gavel at the Judges Lodgings, a nurse in front of a former hospital, etc. They give you a map letting you know where approximately the ghosts are located in town, but not specific details or how many ghosts there are (some places had tons, others only one or two). Once you get to the general area, happy hunting! We spent a lot of time walking around town hunting all of the ghosts and we are pretty sure we found them all! This was so fun for the kids, but also for us. And we always appreciate free activities, so that was a huge plus!
One of the museums we loved, DIG, had a DIG After Dark a couple of days before Halloween. In their 1000-year-old deconsecrated church graveyard, we got hot drinks and cookies while we sat around a campfire at night listening to ghost stories from this area of York. It was so atmospheric and such a perfect weather night. The storyteller was so engaging and included a little bit of audience participation, which the girls loved being a part of. Afterwards, we got to go into the museum to look around, which we had already done a couple of times with our annual museum passes we got (good for four different museums in York). But it was different to experience at night when the museum was typically closed.
We had the best Halloween day! The girls and I dressed up as a mama cat and her two kittens, though Jon didn’t dress up. We joked that he could be our boring owner. We took a train out to Knaresborough in the morning. We explored the town a little bit, but our main purpose was to go to Mother Shipton’s for the Creepy Carnival. We loved this place! It was so cute. It is the oldest tourist attraction in England, having been open since 1630. It is a natural setting along a river with a beautiful forest, a walking path through, and a cave with a petrifying well and wishing well.
Mother Shipton was a real historical person. She was born to a single mother who refused to name the father of her baby girl. As a result of refusing to name the father, the mother was shunned and banned from the town. She went to live in the cave and gave birth to her baby girl, Ursula, alone here in 1488. Ursula lived in this cave with her mother for two years before her mother was sent away to a convent and she was taken in by a local family. She grew up and had an interesting life as an oddity and outsider in the town. She married a man with the last name Shipton. And while she never had any children of her own, became known as Mother Shipton.
Mother Shipton was a soothsayer and made a lot of predictions that turned out to be scarily accurate over her life. She was well known throughout England to common folk and nobility alike, including King Henry VIII.
The water in the petrifying well next to the cave is rich in minerals, especially calcite (calcium carbonate). As water pours over items, the minerals stick to the items and form a layer around the items. This process is referred to as petrification. Often this is a slow process, but it’s pretty quick here with items becoming petrified in as little as a few months! There were several items hung up here petrifying now, and plenty of other items in the museum that have been petrified in the past. Celebrities will donate things to be petrified. Even Queen Mary left a shoe to be petrified in the 1920s during a visit. The cave and wells were gorgeous, and it was still possible to see the outlines of the witch’s face when looking at the well from the side, despite the vegetation that’s grown down along its side. We made sure to throw a coin into the wishing well and make wishes, too!
This was a popular destination for tourists to come to experience the waters originally. I can’t recall at the moment if it was originally to bathe in the waters, drink the water, or both. But it was considered to have healing properties for people. In 1739, they added the pathway, which was intended as a promenade for the gentry who were coming to visit the petrifying well, complete with beautiful landscaping on each side of the pathway. It’s only about a 20-minute walk from end to end but was considered to be extremely long back in those days. I suppose when you’re restricted with a corset and a big dress, it would probably be a bit difficult to walk too far. But that still seems awfully short to us! We loved walking along the path and enjoying the gorgeous nature in the area. We adore the outdoors and this area was particularly beautiful.
About halfway along the path was where we found the creepy carnival. There were so many huts and tents with all the old, creepy carnival items, people dressed up in odd attire, old carnival games to try, fortune telling, etc. We had so much fun here and laughed a lot! There were some food places, as well, so we indulged in some fancy hot chocolates and popcorn. I was tempted by the black vanilla ice cream, but it seemed a bit too cold for ice cream, though it was a mild enough day.
This year for Halloween it rained at night. So I was extra grateful there was no trick or treating! We did ask the girls in the weeks leading up to Halloween if they wanted us to find somewhere to go trick or treating, but they had no interest in it this year. All they wanted was to be at home, cozy on the couch together. So that’s what we did! We bought some yummy Halloween-themed foods to cook up for dinner (bubbling cauldron cheese bake, wiggly worm sausages, bacon wrapped around mini sliders to look like mummies, and then a delicious chocolate cake with marzipan that looked like a jack-o-lantern) and curled up on the couch to watch the Addams Family together. The lead-up to Halloween and the actual day were absolutely perfect. It was so relaxing and all the fun with none of the stress or sugar high! The British know how to do Halloween well! Or at least the people of York do!