Haunted York and a Review of Sixteen Souls by Rosie Talbot

York, England is the kind of place you can imagine the living and the previously-living both wandering the streets together. In fact, you don’t even have to imagine very hard as there are enough people in old-timey costumes on the street that you can easily fool yourself into thinking that the Historical walk among us in York. And that’s just what Rosie Talbot’s book Sixteen Souls asks us to accept. While in York, Europe’s most haunted city, I had no problem slipping into Talbot’s version of reality.

Although it was the first week of October, I had not come to York because it’s the place to go during Spooky Season. I had actually come to the city because of its connection to King Richard III. Ever since reading Penman’s Sunne in Splendour, I’ve wanted to see the city she believed his skeleton should have been returned to rather than it staying in Leicester.

[Read the post Leicester and King Richard III: The King Under the Car Park for more on that.]

It was by chance that I was lying awake, thanks to noisy hotel room neighbors, on the night of my arrival in York and picked up my phone to watch TikTok videos until next-door settled down. A video by a Waterstones bookseller and author, Rosie Talbot (@merrowchild), happened to pop up in which she mentioned that her first book takes place in haunted York. I was intrigued. The next day I went to the closest Waterstones and picked up her book, and all thoughts of Richard III were pushed aside.

Sixteen Souls is a YA LGBTQ emotional romance, mystery, and sci-fi, that I could. not. put. down. And it all takes place in York in a reality where some people, like our main character, can see ghosts. And the ghosts are ALL OVER York, interspersed with the living.

The Shambles

After spending just a half hour in York, on my first afternoon in the city, I found Talbot’s premise completely believable. I arrived in York by train too early to check into my hotel room so I left my bags at my hotel and walked to the only place in York I’d read about ahead of time, The Shambles. The Shambles is the oldest street in York, the most touristy, and according to what I’d read, may have been the inspiration for Diagon Alley in Harry Potter. It was once a row of butcher shops, the meat hung from hooks in open windows and drippings and carcass pieces flowed down the middle of the street. Hence why in today’s vernacular the word “shambles” has come to mean “mess”! But I digress. The Shambles is a very skinny street, or really more of an alley, with buildings on either side leaning towards each other looking like they might collide at any minute. The old alley contains the strangest assortment of shops I’ve ever seen. And some of the individuals in the Shambles were no less strange in appearance.

Upon entering The Shambles, the first shop I came to was The Shop That Must Not Be Named. This is the largest Harry Potter brand shop outside of London in the UK. It was actually two shops directly across from each other, but the larger one had a line out the door and around the corner. As I was just trying to kill time, I joined the line. After filing in, through, and out of the shop filled with magical accessories, I continued down the street to find several more shops filled with knick knacks for witches, wizards, and the supernaturally inclined.

I stepped into a cologne shop to find myself face to face with a life-size horned, furry dragon, passed The Potions Cauldron at 9 ¾ Shambles, which was too busy to get inside, weaved my way past Hogwarts students in robes, and finally discovered a line of people down the middle of the alley and out the other end that were all waiting to enter a shop named The York Ghost Merchants.

Individuals in Sherlock Holmes era period clothes patrolled the line, keeping it in order. Rather than join the Ghost Shop queue though, I decided it was tea time and went in search of a tea shop. As I walked back through the alley, a tall, skinny gentleman, in a long black coat and holding a walking stick, who I thought could be Sherlock’s Professor Moriarty, turned and stared at me. I shuddered and kept walking.

The opening scene of Sixteen Souls takes place in The Shambles. As we meet the main character, Charlie, he’s dodging both young and old ghosts as well as living humans all shopping in the alley. Considering the type of shops and the costumed characters surrounding me, it wasn’t a stretch to imagine some ghosts interspersed in the crowd as well. A little later in the book a walking tour guide shows up who looks suspiciously like the man I assumed to be Moriarty. During a brief conversation with the book’s author, I learned that the man I saw in The Shambles is a walking tour guide who she met after writing a character that looks quite coincidentally just like him!

I didn’t have to go far before I found a skinny, three-story tea and scone shop that reminded me of the Burrow in Harry Potter. I wasn’t quite sure how gravity hadn’t pulled the upper floors down by now, considering they were leaning out over the first floor. I was escorted by a waitress to the second floor and I told myself that if the building had lasted this long, it probably would last another twenty minutes while I had my cream tea.

I pulled out my phone only to find that there was no cell service to speak of here. I wasn’t sure if it was due to the masses of people in The Shambles, the buildings, or if the Shambles sat inside a magical service-blocking force field, which at this point I’d believe. So I used the time to jot down questions for my York walking tour guide who I would meet up with the next morning. I already had so many questions.

Walking Tour of York

Emily, the British travel agent who had helped plan the Enchanted Book Club trip I’d just finished, had set me up with a personal tour guide in York. David Holt of Great Yorkshire Tours is a certified Blue Badge guide and former history professor and has given tours of York for literary festivals. I was scheduled to meet Mr. Holt for a half-day walking tour of York. He arrived outside my hotel in the morning and we set out on foot.

As we walked, Mr. Holt reeled off a summary of York’s history so I’d understand the sights we would see during our walk. York was first settled by Romans, then later Vikings, then Normans and Saxons during the Medieval period. York has such a long history, that it’s easy to believe ghosts from all ages haunt York. Mr. Holt even has a few good ghost stories he shared during our walk. (One of his ghost story retellings was filmed and can be watched on YouTube here.) As it was October, there was even a city-wide ghost statue installation for the month, so every once in a while I’d spot a wire “ghost” somewhere in town.

As we passed through The Shambles, walking past the incredibly long line outside The Ghost Merchant Shop, Mr. Holt explained that this shop had inexplicably gone viral on TikTok, so now tourists line up for hours to purchase small, customized, ghost statues made of resin. (If you too are in need of a York Ghost, you can sometimes order them from the York Ghost Merchants website.)

York Minster

While researching York before my visit, the one place that I found recommended to visit above everything else is York Minster, which is the largest Gothic Cathedral in Europe. Luckily, Mr. Holt is also a certified York Minster guide, which meant we were able to proceed inside and continue our tour of the city uninterrupted.

Though there were a couple areas within the Minster that Mr. Holt was not allowed to accompany me as a guide. One of these was the crypt where the Minster Saint is interred. Saint William was believed to have healing powers in the 1190’s.

York Minster is huge inside! Mr. Holt informed me that one of the stained glass windows is the size of a tennis court, and it’s the largest stained glass window in Europe! One of the other windows, the “Five Sisters” windows, Mr. Holt informed me appears in Charles Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby novel! As we moved from one part of the Minster to another we maneuvered around other tourists and I passed an Asian Gryffindor student who I’m pretty sure I’d seen wandering the streets earlier in the day. Somehow, at this point, it seemed completely normal to see a young witch wandering around the cathedral.

Mr. Holt guided me to the part of the Minster known as The Chapter house. Here he explained that this place is the only part of the cathedral not considered sacred ground, which meant that the masons who had sculpted the interior in the 1280’s had the freedom to sculpt whatever they wanted. Encouraged to take a closer look, I found this circular room decorated with a series of sculpted heads. Some animals, some with crowns, and some that looked like beggars. It was a strange assortment of bodiless humans and animals. And speaking of bodiless individuals, I now understood why Talbot placed a very pivotal scene in Sixteen Souls here, this was exactly the right room for it, but I don’t want to spoil the book, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Eventually Mr. Holt and I explored the rest of the Minster and headed back outside to continue our tour, but before we left the cathedral behind, my guide directed my eyesight back to the exterior of the cathedral. The newest statue is quite obvious. A statue of Elizabeth II has been added to the outside, and although it’s made of the same stone as the rest of the cathedral, it’s currently a ghostly white. Mr. Holt assured me that eventually it would weather to match the rest of the cathedral, but for now it’s a stark reminder of her death. And like ghosts are generally a fair representation of their former human, but they’re not quite right, this statue too is just not quite right. It’s a bit more plump than the former queen ever was!

I learned from Mr. Holt that York was the second richest city after London in the 1200’s and at one point had 43 churches. We walked past the ruins of a church where Anne Bronte used to worship, long before its roof was blown off. And we popped inside the beautiful St. Olave church with Viking origins where I learned that Shakespeare had based his Scottish play Macbeth on a real story and the man who’d fought the real Macbeth was buried here. So it turns out the information I was looking for in Stratford-Upon-Avon was here in York!

Jorvik Viking Center

The walking tour with Mr. Holt was fascinating and informative, and he’d pointed out a few interesting locations I wanted to return to, so I was happy I had the afternoon to myself to do just that. The problem was choosing which activity to do with my one afternoon left in York! York is home to the KitKat chocolate bar, so one option was taking the chocolate tour. But Mr. Holt had also pointed out the Jorvik Viking Center and said something about it being quite silly and having a ride. I wasn’t sure if I’d understood him correctly, but the Historian in me thought it sounded too good to pass up.

Besides, one of the ghosts in Talbot’s book is Inge of Jorvik, so I thought I’d at least find out a little more about the Viking history of York and where when this character came from. Although there was a line out the door and I hadn’t purchased tickets ahead of time, the line moved quickly and I was in the door in less than the 20 minute estimate the center’s line-manager had given me. Once inside the door, I purchased a ticket at the desk then proceeded down a set of stairs just behind the desk. Perhaps the ride my guide had mentioned was down the stairs? No. At the bottom of the stairs I stepped onto a glass platform that was the floor. This place had been built right on top of an archeological dig site and we could see the original foundations of viking homes just beneath our feet! There were a few touch screens in the room as well as docents in costume to provide information about the dig and some of the artifacts found, which was pretty interesting, but no ride. I started to think maybe I’d misheard my guide.

Apparently York has the largest collection of Viking artifacts in Britain, and I moved into the next room expecting to see more artifacts, but instead found myself on a platform where I was ushered into a pod hanging from an overhead rail! So there is a ride! I felt like I’d just stepped into a Disney World ride! There were 6 seats in the pod, each with a screen in front of them where I was able to choose the language for my audio tour, which played from speakers behind my head. I was the only one in the pod when the docent shut the door and the vehicle lurched forward.

Here in the basement of this building in York, I found myself riding through a room in which a reconstruction of a Viking village had been built. And it smelled just like you’d think it might. I wrinkled my nose as I was carried along the village street. The people and animals in the village weren’t just mannequins, they were animatronic, and I was so close to them I could have reached out and touched them! At one point I honestly thought a lunging animatronic dog might actually leap into the pod with me!

Then it got slightly creepy. This exhibit had managed to do the closest thing to bringing back the dead. The faces of some of the animatronic humans had been reconstructed from skulls found in the dig! And physical abnormalities learned from the rest of the skeletons were able to complete the reconstructed individuals, like one female animatronic who leaned on a crutch as she tried to cross the “street.” After exiting the pod at the end of the ride, I was deposited at the entrance to the next room where some of the skeletons from the dig were displayed. There was the skeleton of the female with the limp. The information stated that based on her bones, they were able to determine that she had grown up walking with a crutch and a limp for most of her life! Now that I’d seen actual historic Viking humans in movement, I had no problem imagining the ghosts in Talbot’s novel as the main character Charlie sees them!

Dinner at the Golden Fleece Pub

By the time I finished my visit to the Jorvik Viking Center, it was too late in the day for the chocolate tour, and I was feeling hungry, so I did what any respectable bookworm would do, I pulled out my book and looked at the map. Sixteen Souls has a map of old York at the beginning with locations the characters visit highlighted.

One of these was the Snickleway Inn. (Rather than use the word “alleyway” in York, they use the word “snickleway.”) The other location on the map that looked promising for dinner was the Golden Fleece Pub. After a quick Google on my phone for food reviews, I decided to give the Snickleway Inn a walk by and head for the Golden Fleece.

I found the Snickleway Inn and was in the midst of trying to decide if I should go inside in the search of ghostly auras, when I got distracted by a cat cafe across the street. An employee was holding a cat in her arms at the doorway while some tourists stopped to pet the animal. I considered ditching my dinner plans for the cat cafe, but after watching the cats through the window for a bit, I continued on my way.

The Golden Fleece, according to the sign outside, is York’s most haunted Inn. The website of the Inn claims the establishment has 15 spector residents, but only the most notorious five are recognized by a sign out front. I recognized some of the names mentioned on the sign from Talbot’s book. The Inn has a front room and a back room pub. Although I had to order my food in the back room, I liked the older aesthetic look of the front room, so I chose a table there. I’m pretty sure I never saw any ghosts while I ate my fish and chips, but Mr. Holt had told me a story about an old man ghost in this pub that had looked as solid as any human sitting at a corner table in the back room, so I can’t say for sure. I did see a few fake ghosts as the place was decorated for Halloween. Or at least I assume it was, considering it was October.

The natural conclusion of the day would have been an after-dark Ghost Tour, but I’d already walked a lot, and clouds were threatening rain by the time I finished dinner. Not fancying a walk in the rain and then walking solo back to my hotel after dark, instead I decided to finish my evening eating KitKats in my hotel room and reading the conclusion of Sixteen Souls, which I’d been wanting to get back to all day!

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