A damp cave where our ancestors munched on the flesh of other humans, a memorial to England's last sin-eater and a village where 260 residents perished from the plague - these are just three of the places in a new book about 'dark tourism'.
It's human nature to be drawn to painful or shameful events of the past, which help us appreciate our lives today and contemplate our mortality.
And that thrill you get when an light glints on an axe in a horror film or when a friend describes a possible encounter with a ghost is only intensified when you visit the real life location of one of history's macabre incidents.
Philip R Stone, author of 111 Dark Places in England that You Shouldn't Miss, began writing about so-called dark tourism when a student told him about the practice of visiting "places that portray heritage that hurts".
He said: "Of course, people have long been drawn to sites of death and fatality. In ancient times, gladiatorial games were a leisure mainstay of the Roman Empire.
"Visiting and remembering our dead is a cultural phenomenon - we attach importance to certain kinds of death and the dead."
As well as the 111 locations Prof Stone has written about in great detail, the book contains suggestions for other creepy places to check out nearby.
Here are 10 to whet your appetite for macabre attractions, including some already recommended by the community on our sister staycations website 2Chill.co.uk.
1. Eyam
If it wasn't for the cars and telegraph poles, the Derbyshire Village famous for helping to halt the bubonic plague would feel little different to the 17th century when 260 of its residents died of the disease.
When the sickness was carried to Eyam by fleas in a bundle of cloth, the entire village agreed to quarantine itself despite the immense personal risk.
Today, outside the houses are boards listing the names of those who perished inside. They make chilling reading.
Amy Crowther recommended Eyam Museum on 2Chill , saying: “You can see the boundary stones where merchants from neighbouring villages left supplies, and where the people of Eyam cut holes to leave money ‘disinfected’ with vinegar. A museum details the history of the village, including how it rose to prominence again in the 18th century with the invention of a new way of weaving silk.”
2. Monument to the Last Sin-Eater
Richard Munslow’s unusual profession involved eating a meal over a corpse to consume the person’s unconfessed sins and therefore absolve them.
The ritual is believed to have begun in Wales and was usually practised by vagrants.
Believed to be England’s last sin-eater, Munslow died in 1906 and a plinth dedicated to him can be found in the village of Ratlinghope, Shropshire.
3. Dick Turpin’s Grave
The famous highwayman was eventually, and underwhelmingly, apprehended for shooting a cockerel in Yorkshire, where he had fled to evade capture.
Tried and condemned to death at York Assizes, he is said to have exchanged a few calm words with his executioner before throwing himself off the gallows.
You can find his grave in St George’s Church, York, where his body was reburied in lime after being dug up from its original resting place by body-snatchers.
4. Old Mother Shipton’s Cave
England’s most renowned prophetess was banished to a cave in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, in the 15th century for having a daughter out of wedlock.
King Henry VII was a customer, sending messengers to hear her fortunes, and she was said to have predicted the Plague, the Great Fire of London and the defeat of the Spanish Armada.
She is also said to have turned things to stone in a well at her cave - but rather than magic powers, objects were slowly petrified by the sulphate and carbonate-rich water.
5. Poison Garden
Next to Alnwick Castle, which doubled as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films, inside Alnwick Garden, is a place with a threatening name.
If the moniker The Poison Garden isn’t enough of a clue to its contents then there is a sign to drive the point home, warning ‘These plants can kill’.
Andrew H recommended a visit on our sister staycations site 2Chill , saying: “Lovely spot to spend a few hours. It's not actually that big - but plenty to explore. The water fountains are magnificent. The poison garden is fascinating, and the cherry blossom orchard is set out in a lovely way with many swings.”
6. Huskisson Memorial
Poor William Huskisson only just made it to the launch of the Liverpool to Manchester Railway - his doctor had forbidden him to attend due to a kidney inflammation.
Despite the statesman and financier ignoring his medic’s advice, it wasn’t his kidneys that got him in the end but Stephenson’s Rocket locomotive when he fell into its path.
A striking mausoleum was erected in his memory in St James Gardens, Liverpool, where you can also see many interesting graves.
7. Cross Bones Graveyard
This Medieval burial site in Camberwell, London, holds the mortal remains of some 15,000 paupers - more than half of them children.
Closed in 1853 because it could fit no more graves, it was for centuries an unconsecrated mass burial pit for the capital’s poorest suburbs.
It has now been taken over as a community initiative to memorialise the ‘outcast dead’ and is decorated with artwork as well as flowers and plants.
8. Lincoln Castle
The cobbled streets of old Lincoln may now be home to wine shops, tearooms and antique emporiums but the fortress that has dominated the city’s skyline for nearly a millennium has a dark history.
From the 13th century, the castle housed a prison and burial ground, with an execution site on the roof of Cobb Hall where crowds gathered to watch.
It is also home to one of four original copies of the Magna Carta.
9. St Leonard’s Ossuary
The remains of more than 4,000 people are contained in the best-preserved collection of medieval skulls and bones in Britain.
The ossuary in St Leonard’s Church, in Hythe, Kent, is believed to have been filled with the bones of 13th century residents of the area dug up when extra burial grounds were needed.
Even looking at photographs sends a chill down the shine, but you can also visit in person and stand in front of the walls of skulls.
10. Cheddar Gorge and Caves
When Captain Richard Cox Gough evacuated a cavern within Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, in 1892 he was to discover a nasty little secret about our Ice Age ancestors.
He found human remains featuring cut-marks and butchered breakages consistent with cannibalism.
In some cases, skulls and brain cases had been used as drinking cups in a ritualistic tradition.
111 Dark Places in England that You Shouldn’t Miss by Philip R Stone is published by Emons.
