ESCAPE rooms have soared in popularity over the past few years.

And in August, Project Escape opened its doors here in Hexham, on Hallstile Bank.

The ProjectEscapeUK brand already had a premises in Middlesbrough, but decided to open up another venue in the North East.

Becky Liptrott-Pollard, social media account manager, said at the time: “We were looking for somewhere else in the North East. We found the Hexham space just by chance. When we had a look in the town, we fell in love with it.”

Escape rooms are immersive experiences which see a team of players discover clues and solve puzzles to escape the room in a limited amount of time.

There's two games available - Sherlocked: Case of the Hexham Heads and The Cursed Attics. Between two and six people can play each game.

Here at the Hexham Courant we were invited to go and try out one of their rooms.

We were given a warm welcome from our games host Chrissy, who briefed us on the Sherlocked game.

READ MORE: Primary school visits Westminster as winners of national competition

The story was that Sherlock was investigating the Case of the Hexham Heads, looking into the possibility of the supernatural and mention of Celtic rituals and wolf men.

We had one hour to use our observation and teamwork skills to discover clues and solve puzzles to escape.

Although we started off slow, once we figured out the first puzzle our confidence grew and we solved the challenges with slightly more ease.

Without spoiling the game, there were surprises along the way and we really enjoyed it.

Two of our team had never had a go at an escape room before, and while it was challenging, we all found it manageable and escaped with 11 minutes and 42 seconds to spare.

We all agreed we'd love to try out 'The Cursed Attic' room, which we were told was more difficult and definitely more spooky!

They have two identical Sherlocked rooms, meaning teams of players can go head-to-head against their friends or family, which would be perfect for larger groups.

Project Escape Hexham is open seven days a week.

To find out more, visit https://www.project-escape.co.uk/