HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
Nightly Haunted History Walking Tour Through Shockoe Bottom and Church Hill, Plus a Daily Hollywood Cemetery Tour
16 N 17th Street (alley beside Havana '59), Richmond, VA 23219
Research updated August 2026
Age
All ages for the standard tours; content includes historic violence and is best suited to older children and adults
Cost
$
Pricing for the Haunted History of Richmond Tour is not published directly on the operator's site (booking runs through an embedded FareHarbor widget); third-party booking platforms list comparable Richmond ghost tours in the $27-$30 per person range.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Easy, accessible outdoor walking through the Shockoe Bottom and Church Hill neighborhoods, covering roughly 8-12 stops over an hour to 90 minutes.
Equipment
Photos OK
Shockoe Bottom, Richmond's historic warehouse and slave-trading district · Lumpkin's Slave Jail / Devil's Half Acre · Hollywood Cemetery (Richmond)
Strange Richmond Tours is run by Jeffrey, a New Orleans-trained tour guide who has spoken at multiple JFK-assassination-research conferences and previously operated a haunted bed-and-breakfast, alongside a small team of guides that includes a museum-trained historian and a Virginia Commonwealth University art history student who volunteers at the Poe Museum and interns in the archives of Historic St. John's Church. The company markets itself on guide quality over gimmicks, stating 'It's not the company, it's the guide.'
The flagship nightly walking tour covers Shockoe Bottom and Church Hill, two of Richmond's oldest neighborhoods, and includes a stop at the site of Lumpkin's Slave Jail, one of the largest slave-trading operations in the antebellum South and now preserved as part of Richmond's Devil's Half Acre historic site. A separate daytime tour covers Hollywood Cemetery, the Victorian rural cemetery overlooking the James River.
Sources
The operator's own site describes the Haunted History tour as 'a deep dive into the macabre tales of the Shockoe Bottom, the Devil's Half-Acre, the Ghoul of Richmond, the Richmond Vampire, Edgar Allan Poe, and more.' The Richmond Vampire is a well-known local legend tied to a 1925 train tunnel collapse near Church Hill; the operator's tour recounts the legend as part of its Shockoe Bottom and Church Hill route without claiming independent verification.
All of this is the tour operator's own marketing material, not documented history independently verified for this listing; it is included here as a description of what the tour covers, not as an endorsement of any specific claim.
Notable Entities
A nightly walking tour through Shockoe Bottom and Church Hill covering Richmond's darker history, including Lumpkin's Slave Jail (the 'Devil's Half Acre'), the Richmond Vampire legend, and Edgar Allan Poe's Richmond years, led by the operator's team of history-degreed guides. Meets in the alley beside Havana '59 on N 17th Street.
A daytime walking tour of Hollywood Cemetery, the Victorian-era Richmond cemetery overlooking the James River, covering its notable burials and monuments.
Some links on this page may earn HauntBound a small commission when you book, at no extra cost to you. Our editorial picks are independent. Full disclosure
Named stop on the Haunted History of Richmond Tour, presented history-first as a documented Richmond slave-trading site.
Named stop on the Haunted History of Richmond Tour, tied to Poe's years living and working in Richmond.
Featured site and meeting area for the dedicated Hollywood Cemetery Tour.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Free Guide
9 verified stops, rated for families, mapped in order. Free.
One email to confirm, then the guide link. Unsubscribe anytime.
Charleston, SC
Nightly Spirits is a multi-city ghost-tour and haunted-pub-crawl operator running public and private programs in about 20 U.S. cities, including a Historic Downtown Charleston route with a kid-friendly pirate-themed option. The company has been recognized as a top-rated U.S. ghost tour by USA Today in multiple years.
Alexandria, VA
Nightly Spirits is a multi-city ghost-tour and haunted-pub-crawl operator running public and private programs in about 20 U.S. cities, including a Colonial-era Old Town Alexandria route since at least 2020. The company has been recognized as a top-rated U.S. ghost tour by USA Today in multiple years.
Denver, CO
Nightly Spirits is a multi-city ghost-tour and haunted-pub-crawl operator running a Denver program centered on LoDo, meeting at Celtic on Market and covering Denver Union Station and the Oxford Hotel; a second South Broadway route is currently private-booking-only.