Unexpected venue in the heart of York city centre licensed as tattoo studio
Tattoo artist Emma Swanton (Image: Alice Kavanagh)
AN UNEXPECTED venue in the heart of York city centre has now been licensed as a tattoo studio after six lucky ‘victims’ were marked for life inside its doors.
On Wednesday night (October 21), The York Dungeon transformed its infamous Torture Room into a tattoo studio to offer a unique activity for this year’s Halloween season.
The event, which was created to celebrate the attraction’s new show, Mother Shipton: The Great Prophetess, saw six people led through the Dungeons on a unique surprise tour by the Jester to meet their fate with local tattoo artist Emma Swanton of Swan Tattoos.
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Designed in the ‘woodcut style’ (which takes inspiration from medieval woodblock or relief prints), each design took inspiration Mother Shipton and the York Dungeon and included a £30 donation to the Dungeon’s charity partner Merlin’s Magic Wand included within the price.
The idea to create a tattoo studio inside the attraction came about when performance manager Olivia Mortimer was thinking of new ways to promote the new Halloween show and saw Emma’s Instagram, which prompted a lightbulb moment.
Emma said: “Olivia contacted me about this and explained that she thought that I’d be really good for this because I do a lot of medieval tattoos and they wanted to do it here in the torture chamber, so I was just so excited straight away
The York Dungeon is now fully licensed as a tattoo studio (Image: Alice Kavanagh)
“It’s just really cool and it combines my love of tattooing with being a big history nerd.
“My brother is an actor and he actually used to work here years ago, so this is where he got his start. My mum was laughing when I told her I was here – she said there’s always one of you in that Dungeon!
“We had a lot of people want to get tattooed and it’s raising for a children’s charity, so that was so great.”
Jamie getting tattooed (Image: Alice Kavanagh)
The first victim in the chair - Jamie McKeller, who leads tours through the city as Dorian Deathly – explained that he had applied shortly after seeing the event advertised.
He said: “It's so weird being tattooed here in the Dungeons. We were on a train to Disneyland when I sent my application. I thought I didn't get in, it just kept giving me an error warning as they were going through the tunnel.
“After that, they emailed me and said I got it, so here I am.”
The first lines of the tattoo going in (Image: Alice Kavanagh)
He was followed by Megan, a Dungeons fan who had travelled up from Bristol for the day to enjoy the unique experience and to get a tattoo of one of her hyper fixations – the plague doctor.
She added that she visits York regularly and when she does so, she visits the Dungeons each day that she spends in the city.
Mark Mattinson, Duty Manager at the York Dungeon, added that the event was likely to happen again now that the attraction was fully licensed and they had seen demand for the event.
The York Dungeon's Jester was there to bring classic Dungeon theatrics (Image: Alice Kavanagh)
He said: “We’re now fully licensed as a tattoo studio going forward – we’ve been through the application process with City of York Council who were fantastic in helping us with that.
“It’s certainly the first time that people are getting tattoo in the Dungeons, but it may not be the last now. We had 72 applicants and we could only fit 6 this evening, but for everyone who was unsuccessful, we’ve passed on Emma’s details and she’s happy to repeat the designs in her studio.”
Mother Shipton: The Great Prophetess will run until November 1.