Stately homes warn over 'Halloween event'

Two stately homes have warned thrill-seekers to be vigilant after discovering Halloween events were being advertised at their venues without their permission.

The events at Burton Constable Hall in Skirlaugh, East Yorkshire, and Temple Newsam in Leeds were listed at hauntedhalloweenescape.co.uk.

Alasdair Hutson, chief executive of the Burton Constable Foundation, said the event had "nothing to do with us", while Leeds City Council said it "had not been organised or authorised by our site team".

In an email to Burton Constable Hall, the company said there had been "some confusion" on its end regarding the listing. The BBC has contacted Haunted Halloween Escape for comment.

Hutson said staff at the hall were made aware of the website advertising an event called Constable After Dark after a customer got in touch about it.

The website claimed the event would take place at the hall between 20 October and 1 November. The tickets ranged from £10.40 to £57.60.

"We obviously had no idea about this," Hutson said.

The website listed "two distinct experiences" – one "family-safe" session across the stables and lower parkland and an event for customers aged 12 and above using "temporary structures further into the grounds".

The first session was said to include rides, a pumpkin trail, a magic show and family entertainment.

The evening session claimed to feature live scare actors, five scare mazes and the Parkland Horror Market.

Hutson said: "They'd obviously pulled a lot of information from our website and other sources and done a really good job."

Staff at Burton Constable Hall got in touch with Haunted Halloween Escape on Sunday and asked for the event to be taken off the website.

Haunted Halloween Escape responded and said: "We had emailed your team a few weeks ago to seek permission for an agreement, so there was some confusion on our end regarding the listing.

"Since we have not received a response and do not plan to go ahead, we have removed everything."

The team behind the website said it had removed the Constable After Dark listing, along with any reference to Burton Constable Hall, from the website and its social media.

It claimed the listing had been added recently and no tickets had been sold, and added: "We confirm we will not use the Burton Constable name or venue details in the future without prior written permission."

Hutson said: "If you have no response you don't therefore assume that you've been booked in."

He added: "It's conceivable for us to potentially do something like this but [on this occasion] it has nothing to do with us.

"We're already diligent anyway but it's just one of those things that we're going to learn from it, and just make sure that we're really clear to all our visitors."

Hutson said he was not aware of anyone who had bought tickets.

Temple Newsam, which is run by Leeds City Council, was also listed on the website.

A spokesperson for the council said: "We were made aware of a Halloween event being advertised at Temple Newsam which had not been organised or authorised by our site team.

"As a result, we contacted the organisers via their website to ask that the event be deleted and have also posted a message on our social media channels making users aware that this was not a legitimate event.

"We would urge anyone interested in attending Leeds Museums and Galleries or Leeds City Council events to always book via our official websites."

The spokesperson said it had not contacted police about the matter.

The Haunted Halloween Escape website now states it is "undergoing maintenance", but its Facebook page is still advertising events.

Burton Constable Hall said it had contacted police about the matter and was referred to Report Fraud, which is a national resource for reporting cyber crime and fraud.

"You wonder what knock-on effect this is going to have," Hutson said.

"I hope that it has no impact and I hope people can, if in doubt, ring us, get in touch with us, come and visit us."

He added: "I think it's just really sad and I'm really glad that we've not heard of anyone that's been affected."

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