Museum of Ghoulster: Tours of the Kings Bastion

The Museum of Gloucester is running Halloween-themed tours of The Kings Bastion on Thursday 29 October, from 10:30 to 15:50. The tours are part of the Museum of Ghoulster programme, and they take you into one of the city's best-kept secrets: the Roman and medieval remains that sit right beneath the streets.

To get there, you step through a trapdoor under the King's Walk Shopping Centre and head down into the bastion itself. It's a strange feeling, going from the middle of a shopping centre straight down into the city's ancient foundations. Nearby, the Eastgate Viewing Chamber lets you look out over Roman and medieval gate-towers and a moat, so you get a proper sense of the defences that once stood here.

The museum as a whole is worth a visit even if you're just popping in for the tours. It's a fine Victorian building with more than 750,000 objects that trace Gloucester from its Roman origins through the Dark Ages and the Medieval period. The art collection includes paintings by Richard Wilson, Thomas Gainsborough, John Atkinson Grimshaw and Thomas Dibdin, while the ground floor has a Roman kitchen playhouse, a medieval street and part of the original Roman wall to make the history a bit more hands-on. The archaeology collection holds the world-famous Birdlip Mirror, some impressive Roman tombstones and the Gloucester Tables Set, which is the oldest complete backgammon set in the world.

The Kings Bastion tours run from 10:30 to 15:50 on Thursday 29 October, and entry is by donation.