People travelled from across the country and queued for hours today to get into a cult York shop.
At one point, queues for the York Ghost Merchants on Shambles stretched from the shop, around the corner and into Shambles Market.
At its longest, customers were warned that they would have a three-hour wait to get into the unique shop, which sells individually decorated ghost figures.
Eventually, co-owner David Bloodworth had to stop people queuing, asking them to come back later.
“We’re very grateful that people have come such long distances – we’ve had people from St Andrews, Plymouth, all over the place,” David told YorkMix.
“It is Ghost Week, it is October, and we did expect it to be busy – but perhaps not this busy.”
It’s not just Halloween that has brought ghost hunters flocking to the shop. Viral social media has played its part.
Recent videos of the shop on TikTok have been viewed millions of times.
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‘They’re cute’
Georgina Edwards was queuing with her family. They had travelled to York from South Wales. “I saw it on TikTok. And I just thought they were cute,” she said.
She expected to queue for two hours to get in to York Ghost Merchants. “But it’s going to be worth it.”
Jess, 21, from Dartford in Kent, was a bit further behind in the Shambles queue. Why did she want to visit the shop? “TikTok. On TikTok it’s very big. They’re quite spooky things, and cute too.”
As all the ghosts are created in the workshop, it meant that David was making them till 1am today to satisfy demand.
“It’s very much a bakery model – if people buy more, we have to make more. But a bakery can just shut the doors and say there’s no more bread.
“If people have driven from Plymouth, we can’t actually do that. So it’s very difficult to keep everybody happy with this.
“At the moment, the queue is far too long. So we’re having to close it.”
He was aware of the viral videos. “I don’t really understand TikTok. But somebody posted during the summer, and it’s had nine million views or something like that.”
David said the idea behind York Ghost Merchants was to create homemade, affordable keepsakes for visitors – “and it’s proved to be popular.
“We have collectors all over the world. Some of them have 600 or 700 ghosts. Because every one is different, they’re eminently collectible.”
York Ghost Merchants opened in August 2019. David and Angus McArthur fitted out a 1780s Shambles property in true Georgian style to house their spooky merch.
And when it reopened after lockdown in April this year, people queued outside from 5am to get back in.