14 Awesome Escape Rooms in Essex UK
I love escape rooms! I find that once you’ve done a couple and you get used to the type of clues you’re looking for, they are very enjoyable! After all, it’s not much fun when you pay to stand in a room and have no idea where to even start! There are several escape rooms in Essex, I have done a bunch of them myself! Rooms are correct at the time of writing, but please check individual websites for details as they do sometimes switch out themes!
Essex Escape Rooms
What Is An Escape Room?
Escape rooms are 60 minute hands on puzzle and riddle games aimed for groups of usually between 2 – 8 people. Personally I find that 3 – 4 people is a good number. That way you should have a nice range of skills without there being too many people all trying to talk over each other. Often there is an ‘aim’ of the game. You are ‘locked’ in the room and have 60 minutes to uncover a mystery by solving a series of clues and then escape!
There are various different puzzles from finding numbers, letters, patterns. Most of the time you have to find the codes to unlock multiple styles of padlocks which are hiding parts of the story. Sometimes you may even end up finding secret rooms hidden in behind cupboards or fridges!
The games have a ‘live’ games master. This is an escape room worker that is keeping an eye on you via cameras and sometimes microphones. If you get stuck they may give you a little push in the right direction. Games will usually have a difficulty rating, so it’s best to try a couple of the lower levels first, to get the hang of them. Try not to overthink or complicate things!
At the end of the game, many locations will have a photo opportunity where you have a picture with your escape time and props related to the rooms theme!
Personally I haven’t tried any of the ‘LIVE’ or scary themed escaped rooms. Some have a live actor in the room with you. I don’t enjoy horror or being jumped out on and I’d probably be crying in the corner. If a room includes this element, it will be listed on the websites in the theme details.
*Out of 5 rating is the rooms difficulty score where available*
Tricky Escape
🗺CLACTON (175 Old Rd, Clacton-on-Sea CO15 3AU)
‘Magic & Mystery’ Wizard Room – 3.5/5
‘A Rage Against Time’ 80s Room – 4.5/5
‘The Damned’ Horror Room – 4/5
🗺HARWICH (Central House, 2, High St, Dovercourt, Harwich CO12 3PT)
‘Dr Duplicate’s Evil Lab’ Hi-Tech Room – 4.5/5
‘Prisoner X’ Prison Break – 3.5/5
🗺WALTON (Unit 2 Portobello Buildings, High Street, Walton-on-the-Naze, CO14 8BB)
‘Unhappily Ever After’ Fairytale Room – 4/5
I visited Tricky Escape when it was new to Clacton and I was very impressed. The room was done very well and the staff were great. As you can see from the photo above, we did the ‘Magic & Mystery’ room (think Harry Potter without the copyrights…) and we escaped with just under 2 minutes left on the clock! Tricky Escape now have 3 locations across Essex.
💰Prices start at £44 for 2 players, additional players cost extra.
💻For more information visit Tricky Escape.
Know Escape
🗺MALDON (22 White Horse Ln, Maldon CM9 5QP)
‘Deep Trouble’ Submarine Room – 4/5
‘Rob The Bank’ – 3/5
‘The Cage’ – 3/5
🗺CHELMSFORD (Moulsham Mill, Parkway, Chelmsford CM2 7PX)
‘The Last Testament’ – 3/5
‘The Governor’ – 4/5
‘The Crazy Cat Lady’ – 3/5
🗺WITHAM (Newland House, Newland St, Witham CM8 2AP) OPENING MIDDLE OF JUNE
‘Patient Zero’ – 3/5
‘Sausage Surprise with Punch & Judy’ – 2/5
During the lockdown, some of the escape room companies offered online escape rooms that were done via a zoom like platform. We did an online escape room with Know Escape, with a games master who usually works at the Maldon branch.
Not only were we calling in from 3 different houses (excluding the live games master), but I was living in the US at the time, while the rest of my family were in England! It works a little differently to the physical locations, as you had to tell the games master where you wanted to ‘look’. They then clicked on the different parts of the room and read a script. We did ‘Alex’s Bathroom’, which we found quite easy.
We have since been to the physical location and completed Rob The Bank. It was possibility one of my favourite escape rooms, it was very immersive and our games master was brilliant!
💰Prices start at £60 for 2 players (online rooms are cheaper).
💻For more information visit Know Escape.
Escape Live
🗺CHELMSFORD (65a Duke St, Chelmsford CM1 1LW)
‘Star Quest’ – 5/5
‘Escape The Jungle’ – 4/5
‘Sword In The Throne’ – 4/5
🗺SOUTHEND (95 High St, Southend-on-Sea SS1 1HS)
‘Dr Wilson’s Office’ – 4/5
‘Pirate Plunder’ – 4/5
‘Room 13’ – 5/5
The ‘Escape The Jungle’ Chelmsford escape room is similar to the ‘Harry Potter’ ones, in the way that the theme is loosely based on the film ‘Jumanji’! I’ve also heard great things about ‘Room 13’…personally it sounds terrifying but other people have said it’s the best Southend escape room!
💰Prices start at £54 for 2 players.
💻For more information visit Escape Live.
Escape Southend
🗺93-99 Southchurch Rd, Southend-on-Sea SS1 2NL
‘Carnival of Curiosities’ – 4/5
‘The Magic Prison of Alcatraz’ – 3/5
Escape Southend is another Southend escape room. However it is slightly smaller than the Escape Live location. Both escape rooms are fairly close to each other, one is on the High Street and this one is closer to Southend Victoria train station.
💰Prices start at £40 for 2 players.
💻For more information visit Escape Southend.
Escape Colchester
🗺26 Long Wyre St, Colchester CO1 1LJ
‘Witchcraft and Wizardry’
‘221B Baker Street’
‘The Cabin’
‘Escape The Seven Seas’
‘Demon Barber’
‘Boudicca’s Uprising’
‘8 Years Later’
Escape Colchester is located just a short walk from the High St which is handy if you want to combine it with a day shopping! Just like Tricky Escape, we also did the ‘Witchcraft and Wizardry’ room! We did find it quite hard though and didn’t escape within the 60 minutes! There’s also no difficulty scores listed on the website.
💰Prices start at £40 for 2 players.
💻For more information visit Escape Colchester.
The Panic Room Harlow
🗺1-5 Harvey Centre Approach, Harlow CM20 1HF
‘CSI The Mafia Murder Mystery’ – 4/5
‘Strike Force – Missile Launch’ – 4/5
‘The Panic Room – Conspiracy Detective Mission’ – 4/5
‘Carnevil’ – 4.5/5 (15yr+ or 12yrs+ with adult supervision, no live actors)
‘Coming Home’ – 4/5 (temporarily closed)
We originally did an Egyptian tomb themed escape room at The Panic Room which was awesome! It had sand on the floor and you had to crawl through tunnels etc. We escaped in 56.24! This one has since been switched out for other themes.
💰Prices start at £45 for 2 players.
💻For more information visit The Panic Room Harlow.
Clue HQ Brentwood
🗺Kelvedon Hall Ln, Kelvedon Hatch, Brentwood CM14 5TL
‘Bunker 38’ – 2/5
‘The Dungeon of Doom’ – 3/5
‘Sacrifice’ – 3/5
Along with the difficulty rating, the Clue HQ website also lists an ‘escape rate’. Don’t be fooled by the low difficulty scores, the rooms with a 3/5 rating have a 50% success rate! ‘The Dungeon of Doom’ recommends a minimum of 3 players, unless you are experienced with escape rooms. There’s also an option to have 1 person be a ‘murderer’, who then has their own puzzles to solve. ‘Sacrifice’ can be played in both normal mode or VS mode. Larger groups are better off playing the verses mode, where they will be split into teams.
💰Prices start at £55 for 2 players, however it is recommended to play with 3, which is £69.
💻For more information visit Clue HQ Brentwood
Escape Basildon
🗺1 Market Pavement, Basildon SS14 1DD
‘White Witch’ – 4/5
‘Casino Heist’ – 5/5
‘The Illusionist’ – 4/5
‘The Magic Emporium’ – 3/5
Many of the games at Escape Basildon have an approximate escape rate of 50%. The ‘Casino Heist’ only has a success rate of 20% which is crazy!
💰Prices start at £50 for 2 players.
💻For more information visit Escape Basildon.
Hackers Billericay
🗺34-36 High St, Billericay CM12 9BQ
‘The Tomb of the Wandering King’ – 4/5
‘Blood Over Baker Street’ – 4/5
‘The Tower of Sorcery’ – 4/5
Hackers in Billericay have 3 Adventure Rooms and 2 Adventure Games (2nd coming soon). The Rooms take approximately 75 minutes to complete, whereas the Games take 45. Prices for the Adventure Rooms start from £25 per person and a suitable for up to 4-6 people.
💰Prices start at £25 per person
💻For more information visit Hackers
Hertfordshire Escape Rooms
Just across the Essex border in Hertfordshire, there are a couple of escape rooms in Bishop Stortford!
Know Escape – Bishop Stortford (Millars One, Southmill Rd, Bishop’s Stortford CM23 3DH)
Know Escape have a 4th location in Bishop Stortford. It has several of the same games that are at the Essex escape rooms: ‘The Governor’, ‘The Crazy Cat Lady’ and ‘Rob The Bank’, plus a new room ‘At Deaths Door’ will be coming soon.
Escape If You Dare – Bishop Stortford (12 Potter St, Bishop’s Stortford CM23 3UL)
‘The Mad Hatter’ – Easy
‘Nuclear Submarine’ – Medium
‘Governor’s Prison’ – 4.5/5
‘Misson: Spy Catcher’ – 1.5/5 (OUTSIDE Escape Challenge)
‘Brain Terrain’ – Physical and mental outdoor game
‘Road Quest’ – 90 minute challenge with driving OUTSIDE
Escape If You Dare has some pretty cool sounding, outdoor options! These would definitely bring an additional element to the traditional escape room style games! The outdoor games start from £15 per person for a 2 player experience, with prices decreasing with more players.
💰Prices start at £40 for 2 players for the indoor escape rooms.
💻For more information visit the Vire Zone website.
Questo Mobile ‘App Based’ Escape Rooms
An alternative option that is cheaper than a typical escape room, are Questo challenges. These are played on a smartphone via an app. If you catch a game in beta tester mode, they are free to play. Otherwise games cost around £5 and everyone can just use the same phone. They are played outside, take around 90 minutes to complete and scores are totalled up, adding results to the global leader boards.
They mix fiction stories with real life facts and locations in a town. You have to solve challenges by looking for clues in your surroundings, to unlock the next part of the story. So far in Essex I have completed ‘Historic Colchester: A Roman Visitor‘, which as the title suggests, is a walking tour of Colchester. There are a couple more Essex based walks on the app that I hope to complete at some point!
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