October 31st, aka Halloween, is just around the corner, with the UK’s biggest tourist attractions and destinations already painting the town black, orange, green and purple.
All Hallows Eve, the official name for the autumnal event that has its origins in the Celtic festival of Samhain, is a little more commercial in 2025, with a host of spooktacular events for every generation on offer in the days ahead of October’s end.
The theme parks go all out for the calendar’s scariest date, with Merlin’s major players – including Alton Towers and Thorpe Park – laying on indoor scare mazes that promise to give thrill-seekers the fright of their lives.
Those who fancy marking the event with something grounded a little more in actual history might prefer a nerve-jangling walking tour – from Jack the Ripper’s haunts in East London to encounters with the centuries-old ghosts that haunt Canterbury.
Elsewhere, there’s plenty of more gentle Halloween activities that blur the lines with autumnal fun, from wandering around pumpkin patches picking up squashes to decorate to afternoon teas packed with delicious – or deadly? – treats.
This 31st October falls in half-term this year for many, so it’s the perfect time to plan a Halloween extravaganza. Here are some of the terrifyingly terrific events you shouldn’t miss:
THEME PARKS AND ATTRACTIONS
THORPE PARK’S FRIGHT NIGHT
Come on in, don’t be scared! Perhaps the most terrifying of the UK’s Halloween attractions is to be found at Thorpe Park; the park’s 13+ attractions include four ‘scare mazes’, where thrill-seekers must make their way through a terrifying indoor maze, filled with petrifying characters
Dubbed the ‘home of fear’, Surrey theme park Thorpe Park takes its Fright Nights very seriously and scooped Gold for Europe’s Top Theme Park Scare Event at the 2024 ScareCON SCAR Awards, thanks to its realistic depiction of horror.
There are four disturbing scare mazes the brave can venture into this year – Deadbeat, Stitches, Survival Games and Trailers – and all of them come with a health warning, such is the frightening tomfoolery that unfolds inside.
Fright Nights are open until 9pm, with most of the park’s usual rides – including Stealth and Hyperia – running in the dark.
Teens will love it – it’s 13+ – but anyone with a nervous disposition might be better up the road at Chessington World of Adventures. Running until November 2nd, tickets from £36pp, thorpepark.com.
ALTON TOWERS’ SCAREFEST
Meanwhile, Staffordshire theme park Alton Towers has three scare mazes on offer this year as well as a host of other Halloween attractions
The Staffordshire theme park favourite has three scare mazes to get spooked in this autumn, all of which feature as part of the attraction’s annual Scarefest.
The newest is Edge of the Forest, which sees a character named Leshwall meddling with the minds of those who dare to venture into the woodland.
Or those made of strong stuff can head for Altonville Mine Tours, which centres around a skin-snatcher named Tiny.
The third scare maze follows a sci-fi storyline based around the Nemesis Reborn rollercoaster, and the questionable company Phalanx which is supposed to keep the monster of Nemesis under control.
Alton Towers is open until 9pm in the coming weeks…but be mindful that the mazes aren’t included in the general £34pp admission price, with access to all three from £72, altontowers.com.
CHESSINGTON WORLD OF ADVENTURES
It’s a slightly gentler day out at Chessington World of Adventures, with parkgoers able to wander around Enchanted Hollow picking up treats as they go
Aimed at younger children, Chessington World of Adventures, an hour south of London in Surrey, has plenty of scary fun on offer as part of its Howl’o’ween attraction.
All of the usual rides – including Dragon’s Fury, Vampire and Mandrill Mayhem are open, with new-this-year spooky shows and Autumnal attraction, Enchanted Hollow.
The latter, which costs £8pp on top of the usual ticket price, sees parkgoers wander through a themed woodland knocking on doors and meeting a suite of fantastical characters on the way. There are Haribos and Maoam sweet treats galore to be collected too.
From now until November 2nd. Tickets for Howl’o’ween start at £32 per person, chessington.com.
LONDON DUNGEON
Bram Stoker’s fanged character has found his way to London Dungeon this Halloween
Garlic and stakes at the ready, for Dracula has taken over at the London Dungeon on the city’s Southbank, the main protagonist in the attraction’s first-ever, fictional, character-led show.
Running until November 2nd, those who dare will be trundled back through time to 1886, for a ‘spine-tingling face-off with The Count himself’ in an ivy-strewn cemetery.
The Dracula Halloween show is included with general admission, which starts from £30 for adults and £24 for children, thedungeons.com.
GHOULISH AFTERNOON TEAS
Looks murderous, tastes delicious: The Lowry Hotel’s Halloween afternoon tea in Manchester costs £32.50pp (Pictured)
The afternoon tea has become an entire tourism industry with no calendar event seemingly safe from being served up on a three tiered plate alongside a cup of tea – Easter, Christmas, Wimbledon…and, yes, Halloween.
Brigit’s Bakery Bus Tours, for example, will cruise passengers around London’s best sights this month while serving them a Spooky Halloween Afternoon Tea, comprising treats including eerie pumpkin tarts and black velvet cupcakes.
Available until Halloween, the tour leaves from Victoria bus station or Somerset House, and is priced at £45 for adults and £40 for children, b-bakery.com.
Heading north, Manchester’s The Lowry Hotel has a similarly spooktacular offering, at £32.50 per person, in its River Restaurant this month.
Seasonal treats served include Ghoul’s Bites – a pizza choux bun, a Phantom Pork Boa and a Witches’ Harvest – a pumpkin and feta tart, alongside tiers of equally themed cakes, millenniumhotels.com.
SCARY SQUASHES: PUMPKIN PATCHES
Elizabethan estate, Doddington Hall, close to Lincoln, marks Halloween with a vast display of different pumpkins – it’s free to get in, with pumpkins available to buy from £4
Increasingly popular in recent years, Pumpkin patches are a great way to get kids outdoors in nature and enjoying the scariest time of year without terrifying the living daylights out of them.
Cropping up all over the country, there are a few fields of fun that really go to town.
Hatter’s Farm in Bishop’s Stortford, Essex, is a sea of orange baubles at this time of year, with 100,000 pumpkins on display – simply pick a wheelbarrow and go and find your perfect squash.
The attraction also has night entry, so you can spy the pumpkins in the moonlight, entry is £4.29pp, hattersfarmpumpkins.co.uk.
And Doddington Hall in Lincolnshire uses the grounds of its regal estate to show off more than 30 different varieties of pumpkin.
Entry is free to get in, with pumpkins costing from £4 to take home, depending on the size. Open until Halloween, 10am-4pm daily, doddingtonhall.com.
GHOULISH GHOST WALKS
LONDON
Take a walk with Jack? October is a great time to take an atmospheric walk through destinations such as Highgate Cemetery, or in the footsteps of the East End’s most famous serial killer
London teems with spooky places to wander around, with Highgate Cemetery really, erm, coming to life around Halloween.
It’s the resting place of influential figures like Karl Marx, George Eliot and Christina Rossetti – but also the place where numerous folklore myths, including the Highgate Vampire, abound.
The cemetery’s Gothic architecture, abandoned status after WWII, and a legend of cult activity has fuelled the rise of paranormal tales and reports of spectral figures, a woman in white, and even a winged creature in the 1970s. A highlights tour costs £8 for adults and £4 for children, highgatecemetery.org.
Elsewhere, Jack the Ripper tours remain a go-to for those with an interest in the UK’s most famous Victorian serial killer.
Highlights include negotiating some of the barely changed creepy alleys the brutal murderer is said to have made his post-killing escape through, and the pub where believed first victim, Mary Nichols, drank before she was murdered on the 7th August 1888.
It runs on selected nights during the week at 7pm, meeting at Exit 1 of Aldgate East Underground Station. £15.00pp, jack-the-ripper-tour.com.
YORK
York Minster is known as one of Yorkshire’s most haunted buildings and remains a popular landmark on the many ghost tours of the historic Yorkshire city that run year-round.
The impressive 7th century cathedral is widely associated with the gothic aesthetic and many a ghost-sighting has been reported within the building, as well as unexplained phenomena, including Roman soldiers in the crypt, monks gliding through the aisles and a naval officer appearing to a young lady just before his death.
The Original ghost walk of York leaves from the city’s The Kings Arms pub at 8pm nightly. £10 for adults, six pound for children, theoriginalghostwalkofyork.co.uk.
CANTERBURY
Kent is creaking with ghosts, and its stand-out city, Canterbury, is a brilliant day trip for fans of all things macabre.
The Canterbury Ghost Tour has been a favourite with locals and tourists since it first began in 1991, and is run by official ghost-hunter, John Hippisley.
There’s gruesome tales to be heard as you wander the 2,000-year-old city, including the ghosts of a mother and her children who are said to haunt a tea room and a recounting of goosebump-giving sightings reported by security guards who’ve worked at Canterbury Cathedral in the dead of night.
Ghost tours run every Friday at 8pm, meeting at 38 St Margaret’s Street in Canterbury and costing £18.55 for adults and £17 for children, thecanterburytours.com.
Source link
CHECK OUT: Top Travel Destinations
READ MORE: Travel News
