Led by Rodney Davies, whose encyclopaedic knowledge is second only to his dress sense – he’s come as a monk tonight – we start at the oldest and “most haunted pub in Llandudno,” the Kings Head, where copper miners on the Great Orme would come to get paid.
Rodney proved an excellent tour guide (Image: Newsquest)
Then, we learn about one of the tramway’s more tragic tales; when a 12-year-old passenger, Margaret Worthington, and the brakesman, Ed Harris, were killed in a crash in 1932, with several others injured.
It’s then on to Llandudno’s “water cottages,” which will turn 200 years old next year, and then “one of the most bizarre places in Llandudno” – The Bistro.
Now shut for more than a decade, Rodney explains that “everything is exactly as it was when it closed” – indeed, the bar tops are untouched, the windows are dusty, and there’s even talk that an orb has been seen there (one of those on tonight’s walk thinks they see someone inside, only to be fooled by their own reflection).
The Bistro has stood empty for more than a decade. (Image: Newsquest)
We press on to The Snowdon Pub, Christ Church, the aptly-named Masonic Street, and then The Palladium – the JD Wetherspoon pub which isn’t just home to cheap pints, but a ghost called Mary.
In one corridor at the pub, a lost Edwardian girl has been seen looking for her parents, meanwhile.
Later on, we meet the “phantom of the pier” by Llandudno’s seafront, and stop by The Grand Hotel, where in Edwardian days, Rodney tells us, “children could be seen but not heard”.
Nowadays, on the fifth floor, the sounds of whispering children can be heard there.
We finish up by the old Llandudno police station and magistrates court, which has been converted into four apartments.
The old Llandudno police station and magistrates court (Image: Newsquest)
It was at this court in the late 1800s where kitchen maid Grace Davies, 22, was convicted of murder, having concealed her pregnancy and tried to remove all traces of the birth from her attic.
Nearly 90 minutes in length, and run by Llandudno Guided Tours every Wednesday and Saturday at 8pm, it’s a thrilling insight into some of the eerier tales of Llandudno’s past.
