Yorkshire Scaregrounds Scream Park: Take an exclusive look inside Halloween attraction

The twisted minds behind the park - coincidentally on Hell Lane in Wakefield - are back with their hellish immersive experience zones for visitors to enjoy, if that’s the right word for it.

More than 20,000 people visited last year and more thrillseekers are flocking to the site this year.

Our reporter Sophie Mei Lan took her rabble to have an exclusive look inside.

“I doubt it’ll actually be scary,” were my famous last words as I left home for my first experience of the much talked about Yorkshire Scare Grounds Scream Park.

Even from the moment we joined the queue, we were screaming with terrifying actors jumping out at us. We knew from that point on we were in for a treat with no expense spared.

It is clear from the lengthy queues and strict ‘no camera’ policy that this is a popular attraction with thousands of people experiencing it each year.

It all started from a family’s love of Halloween parties, said Chris Walton, founder of Fear Masters Studios Entertainment who runs the park.

Chris, 55, who is originally from Leeds and now lives in Wakefield, started the company by organising a small Halloween party at Temple Works in Leeds.

“It’s grown each year. We’ve been going almost 13 years, bar Covid,” said Chris. He then bought the site on Hell Lane to develop into what is now a Halloween party on ‘steroids.’

This party is not short of guests with hoards of thrill seeking visitors paying £21 each for the 40 to 60 minute experience, which culminates into a socialising space to share your stories and grab a bite to eat after enduring five zones of hellish activities.

We ventured through the ‘Face Your Fears’ trail of terror which is all new for 2022, comprising of five scare attractions and two scare zones.

Our scream-inducing journey involved winding through the forest with live actors aplenty steering us through the spine-tingling sets. Our clan found ourselves holding one another’s hands for comfort as we weaved through the dark paths.

It was gore galore and I was surprised at how much effort had been put into each set. I had imagined a haunted house style setting that we would just walk through with the odd fright but this was something else. Definitely not for the faint of heart.

When we finally reached the end of the elaborate experience and saw the light, we naively thought it was all over. Just like when we thought it hadn’t begun when we were innocently queueing to get in. But as we ‘escaped’ out of the last zone, we were about to take a breath until a man with a chainsaw jumped out at us.

When asking my friend, an experienced scream park-goer, what she thought she replied: “I wet myself at the end! But it was brilliant.”

I think there were a few of us who did with the last fright of the night. Definitely a petrifying but memorable experience and in a weird way it was a great way to escape daily life.