Delve into the spooky history of Halloween’s traditions and hear the truth about Yorkshire’s real witches in two special new tours at York Castle Museum this October half term. Fearless families can enter the museum to discover the history of Halloween through the new family-friendly guided tour, looking at the origins of famous Halloween traditions, such as trick-or-treating, and exploring the past beliefs about witches and evil spirits. A second tour, suitable for older teens and adults, takes you back as far as the early seventeenth century and explores the stories of Yorkshire women labelled as witches, their trials and the fatal outcomes.

Halloween Family Friendly Tour
Set in the Period Rooms and Toy Stories Galleries, the family tours will shed light on
Halloween traditions and the spooky supernatural including a fun-filled insight into
the history of Jack-o-lanterns and the use of protective charms to keep the evil
forces at bay. At £8 per person, this 30 minute guided tour is a unique Halloween
experience for all to enjoy.

The Witches Curator Tour
Suited to older teens and adults, this historical tour focuses on the witchcraft craze of
the early seventeenth century to the sensationalist broadsheets of the early 1800s,
when many Yorkshire women were labelled witches.  At £18 per person, this tour will
explore the stories of some of those women, including Jennet Preston, who was the
only person from the famous Lancashire Witches of 1612 to be tried at York. Visitors
will also hear the story of Mary Bateman, a spiritualist and convicted thief who
was executed for murder in 1809, and who the public termed the Yorkshire Witch.