The Chamber of Horrors

Growing up in London, there were certain places we went to regularly - London Zoo, the National Gallery, the Science Museum, etc. One of my favourites was Madame Tussauds. From an adult perspective, it's a cheesy, overpriced, overcrowded tourist trap, and when I was 16 and obnoxious I used to take great pleasure in strolling down Baker Street past the queues of American and Japanese tourists and blowing cigarette smoke in their faces. But as a little kid, I loved it purely because of the Chamber of Horrors.

I remember the almost unbearable excitement of approaching and entering the dark, ghoulishly lit underground room, which rang with distant screams and the rattle of chains. And within were a series of figures that left me breathless and thrilled. I can't find many pictures online (and probably the waxworks from the eighties are long gone) but I can still recollect them in detail. Some of the highlights were:

The man being garrotted. This one is the most vivid in my mind. I can visualise all the details: his hands helplessly clawing at the solid metal band; the expression of agony on his face, gritted teeth, eyes squeezed shut, tendons standing out; the impassive face of the man standing behind him, studiously tightening it around his neck.

Death masks. Possibly of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Robespierre, etc. But the historical aspect wasn't important to me at the age of 6 (funnily enough). It was their green, dead faces, the bloodied mouths, and their streaming hair.



Bride in the bath. I think she was a victim of George Joseph Smith. It was her agonised face and naked body that enthralled me.

Although, in fact, none of that is quite as creepy as this picture of Tussaud's storeroom which I just found online:


Other similarly gruesome attractions that I loved as a child included the Torture Museum in Carcassonne. Among its fascinating exhibits was a chair which had hundreds of sharp metal spikes sticking inwards:



I also have strong memories of a Chinese torture instrument made up of interconnecting metal bars that locked your wrists and ankles together and kept you in an agonising, hunched position. And medieval engravings of a woman being pulled to pieces by four horses (quartered, I suppose), and of a man hung upside down naked, legs apart, being sawn in half.

Another favourite haunt was Mountfitchet Castle, a reconstructed Norman castle/village which we often visited in the school holidays. Gory highlights here included a man on a surgeon's table, his mouth wide open in agony, his torso split open with blood pouring out, and decapitated heads stuck on spikes over the entrance, complete with bloodied neck stumps.

I have photographs of all of these somewhere, and will come back and add them when I have time to dig them out. In the meantime I just wanted to post some happy reminiscences of my bloodthirsty, torturephilic childhood.