A History of the London Dungeon
It’s late October, the nights are getting darker and Theme Parks up and down the country are celebrating the arrival of the ever popular Halloween season. But alongside these annual seasonal scares there are many scary UK attractions that are open all year round. To celebrate all things Halloween, we thought we would take a look at the history of one of London’s most popular tourist attractions, London’s original horror themed experience the London Dungeon.
The London Dungeon first opened its doors to the public in 1975 and was founded by Annabel Geddes as a museum based on over 1000 years of London’s horrible history, complete with all the blood and guts. Originally it was a waxwork based walk through attraction, where guests could enjoy studying sickening scenes including those depicting some of the most barbaric torture techniques in human history.
The Attractions
Some of the punishment and execution techniques on show at the Dungeon included Stocks, Pillory, Flogging, Hung Drawn and Quartered, Boiling Alive, Gibbet Irons and the Tyburn Tree which was a form of hanging from a three legged gallows structure.
Some of the very early scenes also included figures of mythical/ legendary persons such as Boadicea/Boudicca and “…the wicked magician of Arthurian legend” Merlin. But it was not just fictional or legendary figures and events that were featured, as historical events were also covered in gruesome detail. Some of the most memorable ones included the Norman Conquest, the lives and deaths of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Mary Tudor, Elizabeth I, Charles I and the assassination of Thomas Becket. Many of these scenes were later replaced or removed with other sections featuring Witch hunts, the Plague and the Whitechapel murders of Jack the Ripper.
To keep up with the changing expectations of their guests, the London Dungeon has changed a lot over the years to become more of an interactive experience. One of the first big changes at the Dungeon was the opening of a new water based dark ride in 1997. Part of a new section called Judgement Day: Sentenced to Death, this was also London’s first indoor water ride. This new £3 million ride would begin with members of the group having to stand trial in front of a judge, before he condemns the group to travel through Traitors’ Gate and on to meet their fate in front of a firing squad. The ride was manufactured by WGH Ltd and was heavily themed with models depicting various torturous scenes. Also new in 1997 was Under Siege a new exhibition depicting a medieval city under siege. These were part of a £3.5 million redevelopment program for the London and York Dungeons. Judgement Day was later re-themed to become Traitor: Boat ride to hell.
To celebrate the Dungeon’s 25th anniversary, 2000 saw the introduction of the Great Fire of London experience. This £1 million attraction featured many special effects that gave visitors a chance to witness the disaster up close and in person. As a climax to this section visitors had to negotiate the gauntlet of flame, a spinning tunnel in which the flames surrounded you.
In 2001 a new section featuring the Halifax Gibbet, an early guillotine or decapitating machine put visitors face to face with the executioner himself. Then 2003 introduced a new £500,000 area showing the devastating effects of the Plague that swept across the country in 1665.
In 2004, Traitor: Boat ride to hell opened as a £1 million pound re-theming of the Dungeon’s classic Judgement Day boat ride. The ride was now apparently scarier than ever, after research was conducted to find out the public’s biggest fears. This meant that most of the ride theming had been removed and the boats would now float along their journey in near total darkness, with eerie sounds echoing around them. Judgement Day’s old firing squad had also been replaced with a new animatronic of an axe wielding executioner.
New for 2005 was Labyrinth of the Lost, a mirror maze inspired by an ancient Saxon crypt beneath All Hallows Church, this year also marked the London Dungeon’s 30th anniversary.
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, aka Sweeny Todd, was the inspiration for the new attraction in 2006. After meeting Mrs Lovett, guests are led into Mr Sweeny’s barber shop as they are invited for the closest shave they will ever have. With guests seated in chairs facing the centre of the room, the lights go out and this attraction uses binaural audio technology to a very chilling effect.
And then in 2007 Extremis: Drop Ride to Doom, the London Dungeon’s second ride, opened. This intense 20 foot high mini drop tower ride is themed around the famous public hangings that once took place outside of London’s Newgate Gaol.
In 2008 the Dungeon’s Jack the Ripper section was updated to feature a new ending where you came face to face with Jack himself in a scene set inside the Ten Bells pub, on an anniversary of the last murder.
2009 was the first year for Surgery: Blood & Guts where visitors could experience some of history’s bloodiest surgery. In 2010 Bloody Mary Killer Queen opens, in which Mary Tudor sentenced heretics to be burnt at the stake.
New for 2011 was Vengeance the UK’s first 5D laser ride, which is set during a séance at 50 Berkeley Square, in Victorian London. You can read more about this 5D ride in our exclusive Vengeance review.
The Location
The London Dungeon is situated in old railway arches beneath London Bridge Station. The station was built in the mid-19th century and the railway arches would have been used to store imported goods that had been unloaded from ships on the Thames before being carried to their destination by the rail network. By the 1970s these storage facilities had became redundant and that is when the London Dungeon acquired its very atmospheric home.
Although the site itself was never used as a dungeon there is evidence to suggest that the area of Tooley Street where the railway arches now stand used to be home to some medieval features that are quite in keeping with the Dungeon’s theme. One of these was a pillory where fraudulent traders would have been punished and next to this was a “cage”. This would have been a place that drunken disorderly people, arrested to late in the day to be imprisoned, would have been kept until they were sober.
The Dungeons as a Company
Founded in 1975 by Annabel Geddes and Hugh foster, the London Dungeon was a new type of visitor attraction for London and soon became a popular destination for tourists to the city. The popularity of the London Dungeon led to the company opening another Dungeon attraction called the York Dungeon in 1986. Since then these two attractions have also been joined by Hamburg Dungeon (2000), the Edinburgh Dungeon (2001), the Amsterdam Dungeon (2005), the Castle Dungeon at Warwick Castle (2009) and the Blackpool Tower Dungeon (2011).
The Dungeons company was owned during the 1980s by the Kunick Leisure Group before being bought by a company called Vardon in 1992. Vardon would then go on to also acquire the SEA LIFE centre brand later that year. Then in 1999, Nick Varney led a management buyout of Vardon Attractions to form Merlin Entertainments.
The Future of London’s History
Although the London Dungeon was quite a unique attraction when it first opened, it now operates in a market that is popul
ated with many other scare attractions such as their neighbours, The London Bridge Experience and London Tombs. Even though some people may look at the London Dungeon as being a less scary attraction than some of their more extreme rivals, I feel that with its mix of light horror, gore, historical information and its ability to evolve with its visitors expectations the London Dungeon will still be entertaining and horrifying visitors for many years to come.
