A Series of Unfortunate Events

On January 4th 1922, the scene in the Harrison household on 24 Brook Street was probably very similar to many others. William Harrison and his wife were both at home with their two young children, three year old George and eighteen month old Catherine. The fire was roaring and the kettle was boiling up some […]

A right pea-souper

Winter usually throws us a few curveballs as she goes; black ice, flooding, burst pipes and even thunder-snow is to be expected in Scotland at this time of year. Danger lurks on every corner and on every (un-gritted) path as we slip and slide our way around. There’s always something you can rely on – […]

Dundee Calendering Company Fire

It was late afternoon on Saturday 20th December 1873 when the flames were first spotted from the windows of the calendering department halfway down Sugarhouse Wynd in Dundee’s Cowgate. By the time they had been seen, the fire had already caused significant damage. The Fire Brigade were called, but despite their attendance and protracted efforts, […]

What have we been up to?

Jeez, where do we start? Best to start with our Deceased in the East tour which we did in early March this year – what a laugh.  Who knew death, darkness and mystery could be so funny! If you were one of the 230 folk who managed to make it, you’ll know exactly what we’re […]

A Violent Son

Nestled away in a copy of The Evening Telegraph and Post from late July 1905 is a dark tale of a violent ex-soldier.  There aren’t many words, as the railway disaster in Liverpool which claimed 20 lives takes up the vast majority of the page, but what it does say paints a vivid picture of […]

Death by fire – just not how you think

Sometimes fires can be deadly, as we all know, but not always in the way we expect. As we’ve been browsing the newspaper archives we’ve noticed a bit of a trend, with deaths by shock following a fire, including one woman in her 80’s dying after the shock and excitement of being evacuated by a […]

A Strange Suicide

When an on-duty constable patrolling the harbour on 11th March 1894 noticed something in the water at King William Dock, he quickly called for assistance in dragging it out of the water.  When the object was lifted to shore, they quickly realised that what they had pulled out of the Dock was a human body […]

Away with the faeries

Away with the faeries I was sitting reading a book the other day by Stuart Hardy called ‘Speakin O Dundee’, when I came across a rather far-fetched tale of a young man called Jamie Moir from the Hilltown.  Jamie was found by some local men one morning rather worse for wear on the slopes of […]

Return of the zombies

Well, if you’ve read our last post on Castle Horror’s Zombie MAYhem, you’ll know we had an absolute (Tay) whale of a time!  Saturday past was no exception either as we rocked up to Mains Castle for the 2nd instalment of the zombie madness.  The first thing we noticed was the size of the group […]

Zombie MAYhem event in Dundee

Zombie MAYhem

When we took one of our first walking tours, we got chatting with two of the masterminds behind the horrorfest that is Castle Horror – Carrol and Scott.  We eagerly took up their offer to come and see them in action training volunteers up for their latest instalment of zombie madness – their ‘Zombie MAYhem’ event in […]