5 of the Best UK Scare Mazes for Students to Visit this Halloween
Traditional mazes can be scary, just ask Newcastle United footballer Joe Willock, who recently got lost in York Maze and had to call emergency services to get him out (it turns out it was a fake story, but a funny one nonetheless!). During spooky season in the run up to Halloween, however, we see lots of UK scare mazes pop up around the country. As with every other time of year, we’re always looking for great days out for students and big events to pop in your diary. Discovering some of the best UK scare mazes is a good way to bond with your new university mates, terrified together as you wander through some spooky scenes!
What is a scare maze?
A scare maze is an immersive and interactive Halloween attraction. They have become very popular over the last decade or so, with plenty of new UK scare mazes opening up every year.
It’s an attraction where a maze is filled with horror themes and actors there to jump out and frighten you! There are jump scares galore, loud noises, fog machines, and different horror sets and themes that cover everything from zombie apocalypse to vampires, werewolves, haunted mansions, and serial killer dwellings.
Scare mazes are incredibly intense, but a lot of fun. If you love being scared and Halloween in general, trying out one of the many UK scare mazes is an enjoyable way to spend a night. Go with your friends and you’ll bond together over making your way through the scare maze unscathed.
Why do we like to be scared?
There is science behind our love of being scared. For some people, there is no joy in being scared. No jump scares, no scary movies on the TV (definitely not in the cinema where other people can see our fear), and definitely no scare mazes. For others, though, it’s an essential part of life and being scared in a safe environment is something that they seek out.
For some people, they are looking for that rush of being scared, in the same way that some thrill seekers love big rollercoasters or extreme sports. Others like the shared experience of sitting around the campfire listening to ghost stories, or in this case, the collective journey through a scare maze.
A combination of curiosity, seeking an adrenaline rush, and knowing that you can have a scary experience with a safety net that you’re not actually going to get hurt, brings people to spooky experiences like a scare maze.
The best UK scare mazes for 2025
Do you want to get scared this Halloween? Here is a list of some of the best UK scare mazes for 2025.
Staines Road, Chertsey. KT16 8PN.
£39 per person.
10:00-21:00 on selected dates throughout October.
A bone-chilling scare maze or three, Thorpe Park brings you your worst nightmares and gets your heart racing. Survive the Assassin’s scare maze, as they are hidden around every corner of this labyrinthine maze. There is also a dancing deadbeat scare maze and an escape trailer with a house of clowns and monsters to keep you occupied.
Thornhurst Manor. Doncaster. DN5 0LR.
£25-£45 per person.
18:30-23:00 on selected dates throughout October.
There are six scare attractions at Doncaster Fear Factory, so if you fancy settling down to a night in a spooky motel, avoiding clowns or demon nuns, there is something for everyone. Diabolus Visum Mortis is the particularly frightening scare maze out of them all. It begins in pitch black with nuns and jump scares throughout. Is that a statue or a real person in front of you? Who knows, you’ve just got to get through it somehow.
Alton Towers Resort. Alton. ST10 4DB.
£37.99 per person.
11th October-3rd November.
A theme park with some scares? What a perfect combination. Get on board some of the scariest rides that Alton Towers has to offer and do it in the dark. There are also some award-winning scare mazes and interactions, such as Altonville Mine Tours: Tiny’s Revenge, where you have to evade capture from deep inside the mines. The Edge of the Forest is another of the scarefest attractions, a decaying maze with some truly terrifying jump scares.
Flatman’s Lane, Ormskirk. L39 7HW.
Dates from late September until early November.
£35.00 per person.
This great scare maze has been around for years. It’s the child-friendly Farmer Ted’s for much of the year but transforms itself into this cobwebbed nightmare for just over a month around Halloween, and with great success (it has been ranked in the top 25 scare mazes in the world!). It’s chilling walking through the maze of death, with actors lurking in the shadows to jump out at you with a chainsaw and scare you. This writer went to Farmageddon years ago and was terrified throughout. It was so scary that I ended up just screaming constantly, so the actors didn’t know when I was actually scared.
Hell Lane, Wakefield. WF1 5SH.
£27.50 per person.
Dates from mid-October until early November.
Find your way through a maze of haunted houses without losing your head this Halloween. There are cornfields with hidden, sinister creeps lurking and waiting for you, a carnival of carnage with mangled circus performers, and a deep, dark forest that’s hard to escape. How will you survive the night?
Happy Halloween
What scares you the most? Have you been to any of these UK scare mazes? We love Halloween, scary movies, and haunting tunes are part of student life. We’ll be out trick or treating, bobbing for apples, and finding our way through every scare maze we can face during spooky season.
Let us know which of the UK scare mazes you find the most horrifying and scream-inducing this year! Once you’ve had all your frights for the year, it’s then time to turn your attention to Bonfire Night and those Guy Fawkes traditions.