I acquired a Mystery Adventure Guide for York and on the first sunny day I went out and solved the mystery.
The Mystery Guide series spans out to all the cities in the UK and touch on the history of the selected city, some cities have multiple guides due to the amount of history like London.
The York edition is all about Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot, the puzzle is that you must figure out who wrote the ‘Monteagle letter’ by hunting the streets of York for clues.
A part to note is that the story throughout the guide is fictional but the places you visit and information you collect are “based on detailed research into true tales and folklore of local characters & events”.
The first clue the guide takes you to is theHole in the Wall pub. The story behind this is that in 1816 builders found a hole with a secret dungeon with chains, the builders said they heard “ghostly footsteps” and as a result they covered up the hole.
To this day people say they can hear these footsteps … mind you York is considered to be the most haunted city in Europe.
After a few more clues while walking the city walls and getting lost we found ourselves in front of the next clue, the statue of Emperor Constantine.
He was from Rome and spread Christianity throughout the empire and he made Christianity the dominant religion. This was really interesting to learn about as I didn’t know about this before.
The puzzles in this guide do require quite a bit of brain power as you need to look around the area and decode the clues however there are pub stops along the way which allow for a relax and time to go over the clues you’ve solved and to read about the history you’ve come across.
A cool clue we solved was from the headstone of a highwayman, Dick Turpin. He was put into York Castle under a fake name which was then revealed after someone recognised his handwriting, Turpin was then hanged and his body was shockingly put on display for people to get a glimpse of him.
We finally made it to the last stop, The Guy Fawkes Inn. The pub name is due to the fact Guy Fawkes was born where the pub now stands, Fawkes came up with the Gunpowder Plot which was a plan to assassinate King James I.
He gathered 12 other men to help him and Guy himself was caught with 36 barrels of gunpowder underneath the House of Parliament on November 5th 1605. Fawkes was captured and sentences to being hanged, drawn and quartered but he jumped from the gallows and died from breaking his neck, avoiding the gruesome execution.
The Gunpowder Plot leads to the UK celebrating bonfire night, but the Guy Fawkes Inn likes to create a quiet atmosphere in respects of the death of Guy Fawkes.
We did figure out who wrote the Monteagle letter, but I won’t spoil it, the guide was quite tricky to figure out at times but it caused for a fun and a long day out in the sun. I would recommend this to anyone wanting to visit York and get to know the history in a fun way.
