I’d never been on a spooky tour or even a ghost walk before, so when my friend suggested we sign up for one for Halloween I instantly said yes. We went as a group of six…and we all held each other’s hand at some point throughout the tour.

The spooky tour took place at Burghley House, which is a stately home located on the outskirts of the town Stamford, a beautiful and rather posh little location that I once called home. Work began on Burghley back in 1555, when Queen Elizabeth’s Lord High Treasurer William Cecil procured the land, and took 32 years to complete. Therefore, it’s a location steeped in rich history, with plenty of stories taking place within its walls.

Now the building is open to the public, with a restaurant and regular tours taking place. There are also beautiful gardens and a park where you can walk your dog which have resident deer grazing nearby.

The spooky tours have been taking place for the past few years now and are run by local actor and director Martin Tempest. He and his troupe of actors tell the ghost stories of the historic grounds but it’s not your average ghost walk.

Burghley House is the perfect setting for a ‘fright night’, you could easily get lost in it’s dark corridors and the location is so dark at night with just candles to light your way you feel scared pretty easily.

There were lots of jump scares throughout the evening, lots of screaming and nervous laughter and plenty of hurriedly shuffling away from the people in costume but you felt safe the whole time, which is something I was a little worried about. You don’t want it to be too real.

However, it wasn’t tacky like I imagine those horror nights at Alton Towers or in the purpose built haunted houses are. There were no weird killer clowns brandishing chainsaws or axe murderers chasing you.

The actors do get close, but they don’t touch you. Although there was a moment when a girl was crawling her way towards the group and I did freak out a little because she was creepy and far too close for comfort.

I don’t want to say too much, because I don’t want to spoil it if you have tickets for this year’s tours, but we’ve already decided we’re going to go again next year. Tickets were £15, which I think was very reasonable for the hours ‘show’ and they sold out pretty quickly. Groups are taken round every hour from 6.30pm until 9.30pm.

I will say, it was great fun, perfect for a group get together in the run up to Halloween and I couldn’t recommend it more.

Have you been on Burghley’s Spooky Tour? What did you think?

Jade