London Dungeon

The London Dungeon is a macabre tourist attraction on London’s South Bank. It recreates gory and dark historical events with live actors, special effects and rides. The current building near County Hall was designed in Baroque style and stands opposite the Houses of Parliament. Guy Fawkes tried to blow up these same buildings in 1605. The Dungeon moved here in 2013 after 39 years in Tooley Street. It is worth the journey because it offers nineteen shows, twenty actors and two rides. Visitors travel through a thousand years of London’s past and meet infamous characters such as Jack the Ripper and Sweeney Todd. The experience includes staged events like the Great Plague and the Gunpowder Plot. Guests are encouraged to join in and can even take part in a free-fall ride styled as a public hanging. The attraction was opened in 1974 by Annabel Geddes as a wax exhibition of dark history. A visitor finds theatrical sets, special effects and audience participation throughout. The “drop ride to doom” lifts guests twenty feet before a sudden fall into darkness. Other scenes feature a mock trial, a plague doctor’s surgery and a mirror maze called the Labyrinth of the Lost. The Torturer, the Judge and the Plague Doctor appear among the nineteen shows. The surroundings include the Thames riverside and views of the Palace of Westminster.