Museums

 Project Director Roger Dalton explains how profitable Weymouth Timewalk was when it opened. “Once we'd made that initial investment, it was giving us between 85-90% gross profit, which was hugely beneficial. It only took 2 members of staff to run all 26,000 square feet, and we made additional profits from the shop sales when people came out.”

 Many Weymouth locals struggle to understand why the Timewalk finally close...

With new CD technology in the 1980s, Weymouth's Timewalk attraction had a huge amount of flexibility when it came to audio. Project Director Roger Dalton reveals that by using this technology, they could run Timewalk tours in multiple languages. “This was a great selling point at the time. We could run one tour in English, the next tour could be German and the next tour could be French, and they could all be going around the d...

 Quite excitingly, one of Weymouth Timewalk's main purposes was to present local artefacts in an engaging way, so most of the props were authentic. When visitors walked into the first scene, they were surrounded by objects and documents that really existed back then.

Early 1300s: The Attic and Cargo Hold

Design by John Sunderland

 The cat Wink Wink Roley greets guests in an attic of nautical curios. He describes Weymouth's involv...

 With a clever use of storytelling, Weymouth's atmospheric Timewalk attraction featured some unique hosts. Stepping through various historical eras, visitors would encounter the nine lives of the same cat, Ms. Paws. These different incarnations were often fully costumed and always full of character, revealing each scandalous detail of their surroundings.

Entrance to the Timewalk

 We meet Ms. Paws at the entrance, flyin...

 In May 2018, I was led by torchlight into the gloomy remains of plague-ridden streets, a shipwreck and a long-abandoned ballroom. Where in its glory days, thousands of visitors would enjoy an immersive adventure through the town of Weymouth's history are now vast, silent sets in pitch blackness, decorated with the droppings of their pigeon residents.

Some of what remains of the Timewalk experience, nearly a decade after c...

 The Forbidden Forest at the Warner Bros. Studio Tour is an impressive feat, mainly because it seems impossible that it should exist. In the Harry Potter films, the Forbidden Forest was shot in different outside locations and the original pieces from the studios weren't kept, yet the Tour claims a high level of authenticity in its exhibitions. How is this the slightest bit possible without the original pieces? In this article,...

 Dorchester's Tutankhamun Exhibition enables guests to explore the depths of the famous Pharaoh's tomb as it was when Howard Carter discovered it in 1922: From peering into the treasure room alongside Carter, to delving into the vast burial chamber where he unveils a glistening golden coffin, great lengths are taken to immerse us into that legendary moment of discovery.

Recreating a Legend

 This atmospheric walk-through of...

East Cliff Hall was completed in 1901 to house an exotic collection of artwork and artefacts from all around the world. Sitting upon a cliff at the Bournemouth seaside, the house was a gift to Annie Russell-Cotes by her husband Merton, and is now known as the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum. Unlike many immersive attractions, this one was not designed from scratch but rather painstakingly restored to closely match how it or...