Liverpool Scare City Has Set the Stage for a Terrifying October in Newsham Park

On the evening of Wednesday 9th April 2014 a hundred guests, including members of the press and local business people, gathered at the old Royal Liverpool Seaman’s Orphanage in Newsham Park for taster of the fearful frights that lie in store for visitors to the foreboding, Gothic building when it transformed into Liverpool Scare City this October.

Previously a hospital and prior to that a home for orphaned children, the building has stood empty since the late 1990′s. This year, for one month only, the almost definitely haunted, most certainly menacing, Victorian building will be transformed into the city’s biggest and best haunted attraction.

Tours of Liverpool Scare City will begin on Friday 3rd October and run six days per week (Tuesday-Sunday) for the rest of the month, taking visitors on a journey into the intriguing past of one of Liverpool’s most impressive, forgotten buildings.

Opened by HRH the Duke of Edinburgh in 1874, at its height the orphanage was home to almost 400 children. Later, when it became Newsham Park Hospital in the 1950′s, there were beds for 400 patients. The next chapter in the building’s history came in 1992, when Rainhill Lunatic Asylum closed down and its operations transferred, filling 90% of the Newsham Park site with severely mentally ill patients. Largely untouched for years, the building still displays signs of its former inhabitants. The ‘punishment corridor’ – a narrow passageway on an upper floor – is fitted with cubby holes where naughty orphans were incarcerated for hours at a time. The wards and the morgue remain intact and the sprawling site is connected by winding staircases with anti-suicide grills that provide a further chilling reminder of its past.

Guests at the launch event were treated to a drinks reception before being lead away for a tiny, terrifying taste of things to come. By the time the dark nights roll around again, Liverpool Scare City will comprise three themed tours, exploring all three eras of the building’s history. Using actors, sets and the dramatic location itself visitors will experience the most hair raising tales that the building has to offer.

Tony Carter, Director of Liverpool Scare City, said:

“We are really excited to be launching Liverpool Scare City and took great pleasure in taking our first unsuspecting guests round to tour the sites and screams on Wednesday!

“The old Seaman’s Orphanage is a huge, impressive building just a stone’s throw from the city centre that has been forgotten for way too long. In October we will be injecting it with a new lease of life – and death – so that the people of Liverpool can experience it in all its glory for the first time ever in its history.”

Liverpool Scare City is haunted attraction surpassing anything that the city has seen before in size, scope and scares! Tickets will be available for purchase from Monday 14th April 2014, when liverpoolscarecity.com is scheduled to launch. Each ticket entitles the holder to take all three tours – The Orphanage, The Hospital and The Asylum – in one night during October 2014. A full bar and various food and drink stalls are available between tours. Tickets are available for the early bird price of £14.95 until the end of July.