Rising in the East

Compass direction east.

With a population of close to 6 million, the East of England is severely under served when it comes to escape rooms, so it’s great to see a few more opening up (and even better that at least three more venues are in the pipeline in the next few months). This time round we look at escape rooms in Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.

1) If you’re an ardent royalist then the game that appeared in Ely at the end of September may fill you with equal parts loving and loathing. While it’s in Oliver Cromwell’s House, the Lord Protector’s family home, the story does see you having to escape from his clutches. This site has long declared its love of escape rooms that build upon local stories and heritage and particularly ones in museums with the crossover between education and games, so was pleased to find out that the initial run was quickly extended to the end of the year. Perhaps that initial success isn’t surprising, given that the brains behind the game is Steve Blake, founder of the itinerant escape room Puzzle Room.

In the game, a group of Royalist supporters have been captured by a detachment of Cromwell’s troop and are being held temporarily under armed guard in the Tithe Room of Cromwell’s former house. However, one of the guards is a Royalist sympathiser himself and has hidden a set of clues in the room along with a key.

You can play on Saturdays and Sundays at a cost of £80 for 4-8 people.

2) Another game from the Puzzle Room stable opened last weekend at Suffolk Food Hall, just a couple of miles south of Ipswich. It’s an interesting venue with an upmarket market at its centrepiece including the usual farm produce but also chocolate and wine stalls. On top of that it has a restaurant, runs various workshops and has a garden centre. Increasingly we’re seeing escape rooms opening up next to bowling alleys and laser tag sites – perhaps there’s a similar effect in operation here with families drawn to the Food Hall wanting additional entertainment?

The game, entitled Escape the Gamekeeper’s Bothy, is set in the Victorian era and leans heavily on the local area for inspiration – drawing on the chronicles of a local curate who later became a chaplain to Queen Victoria. In the story, Sir Reginald Rackham, owner of the Wherstead estate and whose rabbits you have been poaching, is renowned for his ruthlessness far beyond the boundaries of his land.  His gamekeeper has detained your group in the locked estate workers’ bothy while the police are summoned from Ipswich.  It will take them an hour to arrive so use that time to make good your escape… Be sure to remember the punishments for poaching could be a heavy fine, months of hard labour or even transportation to the colonies!

The game runs Wednesdays to Sunday and costs £60-90 for 2-8 people.

3) Puzzlescape is located in the small town of Dereham. For those of you who don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of the UK’s towns, that’s about 15 miles west of Norwich and 25 miles east of King’s Lynn. Still confused? It’s on the big bulgy bit on the right hand side of England.

And, well, that’s about all the information available on Puzzlescape. They opened without fanfare in late September, have three five star reviews on Tripadvisor and other than their website don’t seem to have a huge presence on the internet – presumably getting their business mainly though local advertising and word of mouth. They accept booking for between two and six people and charge £40-84

If you know more about the venue or the storyline, why not post something in the comments below?

One thought on “Rising in the East”

  1. Thanks Ken for your well worded and balanced reporting. Both the Suffolk Food Hall and Oliver Cromwell House installations are doing great business at weekends. But how to fill those midweek gaps?

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