When the first City Ghost and Horror Walk took place in May 1998 just three people attended. The second walk attracted nobody at all and it looked as if it was going to die a very quick death. Thanks, however, to some great publicity in the Evening News, the following week the walks drew between 30 and 40 people for both nights and the legend had begun.

Since those early days the walks have soared from strength to strength with crowds often exceeding 100 people per night throughout the summer. For a Lord Mayor's special in 1999, 247 people followed Ghostly Dave as he made his way around the haunted sites of the city!

Ghostly Dave Chisnell.

The walks have evolved over the years but the main ingredients remain the same, they start and finish at the most haunted pub in the city (Adam and Eve), they visit the most haunted building in the city (Magdalen Street), they go to the most haunted area of the city (Tombland) and they take in the areas where the most horrific murders have taken place. They also take you to where local witches and lollards were tried, convicted and burnt at the stake.

All this and more awaits the intrepid followers of Ghostly Dave as he takes them to parts of the city they have probably been many times before without realising the nasty little secrets that lie just around the corner or underneath the paving slabs.

The old witch who wanders up and down Bishopsgate, the lonely monk who can still be found strolling beside the graveyard at St John Maddermarket, the Lady in Grey tragically locked up alive in her house during the plague of 1578, and the husband who cut up his wife's body before boiling her over the open fire in his living room, they're all here in glorious detail!

"We all like to be scared," grins Ghostly Dave, although even he admits the odds were stacked against him when he set out on his first walk. "I didn't know what the response was going to be like. It was a gamble, but being a bookie, I was used to taking a risk," he says.

It paid off. The walks have proved so successful that he has packed in the job and is now working as a driving instructor so he can devote more time to scaring people.

"People know that when they join us we're going to make them jump - and this summer we are going to make them jump even higher!"

Ghostly Dave and his ghostly gang.

While shocks and thrills are a main part of the walk, Dave says there is a serious side to spooky Norwich. "All our stories are true. Basically, we're a history walk with a difference," he explains. "While your average history walk may take you to an old Tudor house and tell you when and how it was built, we'll tell you about the guy who murdered his wife upstairs and then threw her dismembered body around the streets of Norwich. Same house, different angle."

And while Dave delivers the stories with his tongue firmly in his cheek, most of them do relate to the more macabre side of Norwich history.

"They do tend to be a bit gruesome - starving plague victims resorting to cannibalism, tortured and disembowelled priests, witches and lollards burnt in the pits, various criminals being hung at the castle and a liberal sprinkling of murders," he says.

Then, of course, there are the characters.

After hearing the grisly tales, you're bound to bump into one of the principal characters just around the corner. After the first five minutes or so, most people do tend to be looking over their shoulders."

The walks take place every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and start from the Adam & Eve public house on Bishopgate at 7.30pm from Tuesday, May 29 until Thursday, September 27.

Walks cost £5 for adults and £3 for under 16s.

Further details from Dave Chisnell at davechis47@aol.com or call 01603 738316

For more details of the City Ghost and Horror Walks visit the website here.