A scheme to create an exciting actor led Dungeon Experience within an existing historic church. The brief required an interactive visitor experience to recreate the more gruesome elements of history. The project is closely linked to real local events and aims to entertain and inform. The whole is accommodated within the fabric of the existing building without harming the host building while emphasizing its gothic structures.

The experience is centred on visitors being drawn into a historic pharmacy from which they are led via an apparently downward plunging antique lift to bottomless dungeons. Passing through stone vaulted catacombs, they witness the horrors of medieval torture methods. Lost in time and moving through history, visitors learn about press-gangs and hardships endured on Dutch East Indian ships. The brutality of sea battles and crude excesses of ship’s medicine are barely less horrific than the torture.

Escaping the sea, callous religious inquisitions and punishments are brought to life with mock trials of visitors by actor judges. Following a disorientating mirror maze, the experience is brought to a dramatic close with a ‘plague ride’ through the vaulted gothic hall of the main church.

Working closely with local architects and specialists, KEA coordinate and provide the concept and theme design for the scheme. The challenge is to create an exciting environment inviting visitors to suspend disbelief while emphasizing the historic elements of the existing building. A sensitive design approach was necessary to satisfy local planning and conservation authorities as well as Kay Elliott Architects’ desire to retain the character and quality of the historic church while giving it a new vibrant role in the city.