Join Spooky Isles on a tour of Kensal Green Cemetery to learn about its connection with Vincent Price and Theatre of Blood!
Ever fancied visiting the real-life London locations used Vincent Price’s 1973 black comedy horror
Theatre of Blood? Well, here’s your chance, as long-time Price fan and award-winning
film blogger Peter Fuller takes you on the first of a series of free
walking tours tracing the iconic actor’s life-long love affair with
London.
For his inaugural Vincent Price’s London walking tour, Peter Fuller
will visit the magnificent Victorian Kensal Green Cemetery in London
NW10 during its annual
Open Day on Saturday 5 July 2014, the setting of a
key scene in the cult film and the only one in which the entire cast
was in attendance.
This free tour, which will run for around 30-40 minutes, will start
at 11.30am at the Sievier monument, and retrace the route of the film’s
key scene down Centre Avenue, before moving on to the Dissenters’
Chapel, where this year’s Open Day will be held.
You can book for Peter’s Vincent Price Tour by joining Spooky London for free.
The scenes that Peter will cover in his talk will be the burial of
murdered critic George Maxwell (Michael Hordern), Edwina Lionheart
(Diana Rigg) visiting her supposedly dead father’s tombstone (which
actually belongs to Sievier family), and the gruesome discovery of
Hector Snipe (Dennis Price), whose lifeless body is dragged by horse and
witnessed by the critics attending Maxwell’s funeral.
Following the tour, you will have free time to take advantage of the
Open Day tours on offer (see below), visit an (empty) coffin in Catacomb
Z beneath the Dissenters’ Chapel, where a selection of funerary
artifacts will also be on display, and check out a motorcade of classic
hearses from the Classic Hearse Register.
Time and weather permitting, Peter will also be available to take
interested parties on a 1.5hr walk from Harrods in Knightsbridge to Tate
Britain in Pimlico to view two other Theatre of Blood locations: the
sites of Chloe Moon’s hairdresser (now replaced by a modern building)
and Peregrine Devlin’s Thames-side apartment. Along the way, he will
pass Vincent Price and Coral Browne’s love nest in Belgravia and the
final residence of Dracula writer Bram Stoker. Let Peter know you are
interested on the day.
The Open Day Tours
- Cemetery tours with an introduction to the history of Kensal Green, its notable personalities and monuments
- Specialist tours including The Great and the Good, and Ne’er-Do-Wells
- Tour tickets are sold on the day at the Dissenters’ Chapel. They cost £4 and last about an hour.
Visitors are reminded that Kensal Green is a working cemetery which
still conducts funerals daily, and that the bereaved may be visiting the
graves of family or friends during Open Day: as such you are requested
to dress and behave with respect and consideration for all those who may
be in the cemetery on the day.
Listen to Peter Fuller talk about Vincent Price on The Spooky Isles Podcast
