If you’re into the paranormal then look no further than the Haunted Museum in Stoke which is officially opening at the end of this month.
Set up by the Ghost Hunters of Stoke team the 200-year-old building in the heart of Fenton now houses various artefacts and curiosities.
The venue will also be offering guided tours at £5pp, tarot card readings, a seance and spirit board sessions and haunted sleepovers – with the chance to sleep in a body bag.
Business owners Craig Longson and Jason Dean have had a passion for the paranormal for many years now and thought the opportunity was right to build something so intriguing in the local area.
Craig told Stoke on Trent Live:
I’ve always wanted to open something like this. I’ve collected items over the years but during the lockdown it went a bit crazy, so it’s nice to have a place to store everything properly.
We took on the building five weeks ago, and a lot of hard work has gone into turning it into what you see now. We want to give people the wow factor.
Whether you’re part of an investigations team, or a member of the public, there will always be team members on hand to help. We’ve got the most advanced equipment from all across the world, so we can give everyone the ultimate experience, all under one roof.
The museum will contain artefacts from all over the world with each item thoroughly researched and believed to be genuine with documented activity linked to them.
The venue is strictly for over 18’s only and various paranormal nights will take place at the Stoke location.
Items within the museum are such things as a coffin used in World War 1 and World War II to bring bodies back to the UK and not to mention a doll that moves around, rocks on her chair and has had reports of her eyes moving too.
Whether you’re a sceptic or not it’s certainly a unique addition to Stoke on Trent.
We were lucky enough to visit the Haunted Museum in Nottingham which was the first Haunted Museum that opened in the UK and was inspired by the incredible Zak Bagans Haunted Museum in Las Vegas.
Sadly the Haunted Museum in Nottingham has now closed down permanently from their Mapperley located building but will be moving to a city centre location in Nottingham very soon.
What I didn’t like about the Nottingham location is that over time it slowly started to become a home for horror movie memorabilia and toys that replaced genuine artefacts.
Cupboards of Annabelle toys and Chucky dolls and not to mention a Saw doll replica made the venue seem like a glorified horror shop than an actual Haunted Museum.
The items within the museum were superb but there was too much reliance on theming and theatricals than the items themselves and it absolutely ruined the authenticity of the venue for me as time went on.
I can’t wait to visit the Haunted Museum Stoke and pray they haven’t gone down the same route and made the same mistakes that the Nottingham venue made.
Genuine items within a genuine museum setting would make for a great addition to the local area.
A place to go for the curious minded and the strange folk like me who want to sleep in a body bag for a night.
If I can lie on a used hospital morgue slab for a night I’m sure a body bag will be a walk in the park!
The Fenton based Haunted Museum will be opening on August 28th.
Find out more about the Haunted Museum Stoke on their Facebook page HERE
Check out our tour of the museum when we were invited down to check it out!
