One Way Out Escape Rooms opens in Oakham - can you do better than us?

One Way Out Escape Rooms opens in Long Row, Oakham, today (Friday, July 19) and our editorial team had a sneak peek yesterday and the chance to try it out.

The brainchild of former science teacher Tessa Angell, the first room to open is called Gas Alert and challenged us to find the antidote to a poisonous gas leaking in the laboratory of 'mad professor' Professor Wotamesser.

Our team was made up of four people who had never tried escape rooms before and two, including myself, who had tackled various rooms before.

From the outside, the escape rooms is a nondescript brick building, but the rooms are feature an array of special effects, making you feel you're in a secret laboratory.

When entering the room, we were all puzzled about where to start, but we were soon on our way.

Even now, I can't tell you what everyone did - each person disappeared off to solve their own piece of the puzzle before coming together as a group to put all the pieces together.

Before going in, there was some apprehension from the team, especially those who had not tried an escape room before. Chief concern was that we'd need to remember our science from school to get out.

But with some helpful prompts from Tessa - always timed perfectly - we moved along at a steady pace.

As a newspaper editor, I'm used to the pressure of deadlines, but when Tessa informed us that we only had 15 minutes left, the panic started to build. With the team determined to escape, our pace quickened as we raced to find the final clues.

The relief when we found the key that unlocked the door to 'safety' was palpable and, as our picture below shows, we escaped in a respectable 57 minutes and 26 seconds.

Tessa told us afterwards that around half of the teams that had tried out the room before the official opening had managed to escape, so we were delighted to be among them.

And it's certainly safe to say that we'll be back to try the next room when it opens.

To book or for more details, click here

Don't miss this new restaurant that's opening.