Helen and Mark live on Mainland Orkney, where, through their company Spiritual Orkney, they offer a range of sacred and spiritual services to visitors, guests, seekers and pilgrims, as well as to local communities. “We are the Scottish Pagan Federation (SPF) Local Organisers for Orkney and are active members of an interfaith dialogue group here,” says Helen. “We facilitate open rituals for the eight major Pagan festivals at The Ring of Brodgar, all of which are open to anyone with a warm heart and open mind.” But from early in the 19th century, these contributions were forgotten, and Gothic became celebrated as an intrinsically Northern European style. In Britain, it was only in the revival of this medieval style of architecture that it started to be called “Gothic.” The Revivalists no longer dismissed the Gothic as a crude or barbarous form, and instead repurposed it as a national, patriotic style. During the long building campaigns of the Middle Ages, the style evolved from simple pointed forms, with plain windows, to the highly elaborate vaults and decorative tracery seen from the 14th century.

Steve Marshall was a professional musician for 30 years and a sound engineer. But now, he is an independent researcher in the field of archaeology, having spent close to ten years researching and photographing the Avebury landscape and monuments. The result is a ground-breaking book, Exploring Avebury, the Essential Guide, which was published in 2016. New areas that Steve explored in depth, are sound and acoustics and the connection between the siting of prehistoric monuments and moving water. This links to the characters of the aristocrat and the innocent victim and can be shown through characters being physically or metaphorically trapped. The gothic genre was really popular during the 1800s with Frankenstein , Wuthering Heights and Dracula . But there were stories with Gothic elements before and there have been plenty since. So could you survive the dark world of a gothic novel? Gothic novels tend to create a feeling of uncertainty, by making the characters and the reader question what they believe and what is real.First up, you’ll need to wrap up warm. There aren’t many tropical beaches in gothic fiction. Expect wind, rain and thunderstorms and things that go bump in the night. Night time settings appeal to reader’s instinctive fear of the dark - and under the cover of darkness things often aren’t quite as they seem. In the late 1970s, I began offering guided journeys around Glastonbury, which then grew to include Scotland, Ireland and Wales,” says Jamie George. “At the same time, Gothic Image began publishing well known authors such as John Michell, Geoffrey Ashe and John Matthews. The next logical step was to invite our authors as guests on the sacred journeys. So, in a nutshell, that’s the story of how Gothic Image tours started.”

By knowing this deeper history of some of Europe’s most iconic buildings, travelers can approach these well-known attractions with new eyes and can appreciate that the “East-West divide” isn’t as deep as we are often led to think. Reviving the Gothic in EnglandWriters typically set their stories in abandoned or isolated locations like crumbling castles, windswept moors, places of decay and death. Places with seemingly no escape. But where there are also plenty of secrets with underground passages and hidden doors. This all adds to the sense of mystery and danger. Jamie George and Linda Marson are your hosts on Gothic Image Tours to Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales. Depending on your destination, you are likely to meet one or more of the guests listed below.