Old Haunts is an interactive audio experience – part local history tour, part ghost hunt! A fun adventure into the past uses of Spring Gardens, its inhabitants and its role in shaping Buxton’s future. Local writers, Tom Crawshaw and Alice de Cent, together with theatrical technology whizzes Claywell Digital, have created a trail with a difference …
Bought to us by Buxton Our Street, part of Buxton’s High Street Heritage Action Zone project.
Follow your guide, Matt (Michael Grady-Hall), an aspiring local historian who has returned to his hometown to record an audio walking tour. But things don’t go quite to plan with his spooky sister, Claire (Suzanne McGrail), along for the ride.
Setting off from outside The Pump Room (Buxton Visitor Centre), the tour uses smartphone location technology to autoplay each stop of the tour when you reach the correct location. Matt wants to bring some of Buxton’s lesser-known history to life, but Claire is more focused on Buxton’s ghostly goings-on. Local actors from Buxton Drama League and REC Theatre provide the voices of some of Buxton’s spectral residents, who all seem to need someone to listen to them, while Matt desperately tries to keep the spirits’ silliness at bay, and everyone’s mind on the historical facts.
HOW TO PLAY 👻
On your smartphone, click this link to download the app: oldhaunts.uk To start your adventure, begin outside the Pump Room and pop your headphones in – see map below. Tap the ℹ️ icon in the top right hand corner of the screen in the app. The audio will begin!
What is Buxton Our Street?
Buxton Our Street is part of the wider, nationwide project – High Streets Heritage Action Zone, lead by Historic England. The project was devised to bring us nationwide cultural activity to help to make high streets more attractive, engaging and vibrant places for people to live, work and spend time.
‘Buxton Our Street’ is part of Buxton’s High Street Heritage Action Zone (HSHAZ) project. Funding has come from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, local government’s Future High Streets Fund, the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts Council England. It is administered by Historic England, with support from High Peak Borough Council.
In place until April 2024, there are lots of community events taking place in Buxton as part of the project here in our town. Get involved! Find the events here: buxtonourstreet.co.uk/what-s-on
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