Who was Jack the Ripper?
A history of Dark & Secret London
AUDIO Walking Tour by Steven Dark
A history of Dark & Secret London
AUDIO Walking Tour by Steven Dark
Enter the Shadows
& follow in the footsteps of the KILLER who was...
(LINK)Download the full AUDIO Walking Tour 'Who Was Jack the Ripper' by Steven Dark(LINK)
Introduction
Autumn 1888 and a reign of terror begins in Whitechapel, London. An unknown killer stalks the cobbled streets of the grimy East End where prostitutes, drunks, vagrants and criminals mingle in ale-houses and huddle in sleazy, semi-derelict boarding rooms.
Jack the Ripper, as he came to be known, the terror of the East End strikes 5,6 maybe 11 times. 11 women brutally murdered, ripped open and horribly mutilated. Unknown, unnamed and never caught by the police. The bloody trail of Jack the Ripper has exerted a fascination for many for well over a century.
Who was Jack the Ripper? Why did he kill? Why was he never caught? And why did he stop killing?
These are just some of the questions we pose and attempt to answer on this fascinating FREE walking tour of authentic sites and locations of the Ripper, his victims, the police and the people who lived in the Whitechapel area in late 1888.
Supported with photos, documents, letters and newspaper cuttings this is not 'just another walking tour' but a journey of discovery and exploration. Imagine strolling through the dark cobbled alleyways of Whitechapel and experience the FEAR.
The White Hart pub
The dark smoky atmosphere evokes a bygone age when lewd women plied their trade in fuggy alehouses and dingy gas-lit East End alleyways. Martha Tabram was in The White Hart pub on Friday August 3rd 1888. Just three nights later on the night of Bank Holiday Monday August 6th, early in the morning of Tuesday 7th August she was found murdered in a nearby alley - perhaps the first victim of the notorious killer Jack the Ripper...
It is here that we enter the very alleyway where Martha Tabram's body was discovered lying on a landing above the first flight of stairs in George Yard Buildings, Gunthorpe Street, Whitechapel in the early hours on the morning of Tuesday, August 8, 1888. The landing was so dimly lit that a resident of the apartment building mistook her for a sleeping vagrant, and it was not until 4:50am when a second resident realized she was dead. A third resident had not noticed anyone lying there while using the stairs three times around 1:50am, indicating Tabram was killed between 1:50am and 3:30am. Residents saw and heard nothing between those times. Martha Tabram had been stabbed 39 times in the body and neck, her lower abdomen and genitals; nine times in the throat, five penetrated the left lung, two the right lung, one the heart, five the liver, two the spleen, and six the stomach.
... And so the FEAR begins!From here we continue and then visit each of the murder locations in turn, discussing the clues, the red herrings, and try to separate the reality from the plethora of myths. Wending our way through they alleys and streets to the scene of the final killing, the tour finishes at a Tube station but you are welcome to stop for a beer or two and discuss the evening's events.
