Ghosts, ghouls & gulls: A horror experience on a haunted island in the Bristol Channel

A Bristol-based production company shipped a group of lucky players off to an island in the middle of the Bristol Channel for an overnight “psychological horror” experience, dubbed ‘The Static Sea’. HANA News Bristol reports on the event and the impact on environmental and heritage conservation.

We sped away from Cardiff Harbour, the wind buffeting everyone’s hair and salt spray licking the side of our faces. The sound of raincoats thrashing and the roar of the engine deafening, a speck of land appeared over the bow of the boat. The lighthouse of Flat Holm Island loomed, like a piece of white bone protruding from the rest of the land. 

Here in the Bristol Channel, with the second-highest tidal range in the world, many sailors' lives have been lost in the rapid current. The rocks of Flat Holm Island have claimed quite a few, hence the ominous lighthouse. In 1817, a passenger ship foundered after striking the coast in rough seas. Fifty of the recovered bodies are buried on the island.

After unloading our bags we trekked up the cliff onto the island. The ground is of course flat, but pockmarked with rabbit holes and shrubbery. We are immediately warned not to be tempted by the juicy blackberries. The lead content of the soil is so high that any crops grown there are too toxic to eat.

In the late 19th Century, sailors arriving into Cardiff with cholera were confined at the quarantine hospital on the island, which now lies in ruins. The last recorded death was from bubonic plague - the Black Death.

The current lighthouse, from 1737, stands guard over the many graves of those buried there, some dating back to the Viking Age. After being shown to our living quarters, night fell over the island and with it an eerie quiet, except for the whistling of the wind and the faint crashing of the waves against the rocks.

Elsewhere on the island, there are massive Victorian anti-naval gun placements, abandoned gunpowder stores, a forgotten Anglo-Saxon monastery and smugglers’ caves from the 18th Century. In 1897, Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi sent the first wireless radio transmission from Flat Holm to the Welsh mainland.

Other hazards on Flat Holm include cliffs, crumbling ruins, hemlock and being stranded due to adverse weather. Scientists recently found a flesh-eating beetle on the island.

Our group numbered ten, and warm in our accommodation, we began to peruse the maps and cryptic clues hidden around our shelter. We fell deeper and deeper into the mystery of the island and the story about to unfold.

Suddenly, there is a great rap on the door and in bursts the warden. Our minds whirring, we are quickly ferried along the maze of dark paths to an old artillery battery.

There the game is explained to us: The year is 1924 and Sebastian Turner, the warden of Flat Holm, has been experimenting in using radio technology to communicate with the dead. The Warden has, through his experiments, inadvertently trapped our souls on the island.

We must race across the island and encounter the souls of monsters and the dead - each with a lurid tale linked to Flat Holm - and roll the dice for our teammates’ lives in order to leave the island.

We came across Vikings, the murdered wife of a forgotten lighthouse keeper, and soldiers from the Great War. We had to duck under cobwebs in the underground bunkers, race to the furthest stretches of the island, and unlock secret locations broadcast through Morse code.

Stormjar Studio

Behind The Static Sea was Bristol-based production company Stormjar Studio. Co-founders Jim Wheale and Sophie Shaw, husband and wife, crowdfunded the event, which they believe is the world’s first immersive experience on an island. Donors to the crowdfund were then chosen by ballot for a ticket to the event.

Sophie Shaw said: “The island itself posed its own challenges. With rugged terrain, poisonous plants, and protected wildlife, Flat Holm is wild and untamed.

“On the mainland, we’re used to environments being shaped by man-made features to ensure our comfort as humans. But, as Flat Holm is a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), the priority is to protect its natural environment.”

The Static Sea event employed mostly volunteers to operate, and all the profits from crowdfunding went towards the scientific and heritage projects on the island.

At certain times of year, Flat Holm is host to large breeding colonies of great black-backed gulls and herring gulls - alongside slowworms and rare plants such as rock sea-lavender and wild leek.

Jim Wheale said: “This was an opportunity for us to show our ethics and intent towards heritage sites. Climate change is putting pressure upon every walk of life and the little thought-of victims are heritage sites.

“Our view is that if we can work with heritage sites we can create incredible experiences that take place in the real deal - not a set. This lowers our carbon impact (no set, no transportation, storage, etc.) and allows us to make amazing experiences in-situ. We can attract new audiences and revenue for these places.”

Sophie Shaw added: “While we hope to develop products and experiences that could be commercially viable off the back of this, the main goal for this project was to raise funds for charity and take a chance on this wild, ambitious idea.”

Simon Parker, the real warden of Flat Holm Island, is the sole permanent inhabitant of the island. He lives there year-round, working on the environmental and heritage conservation projects on the island.

“We are totally off-grid here,” Mr Parker explained.

“About 95% of our energy comes from the sun and all of the water on the island is rainwater. We treat it, and that does the flushing of the toilets, the cooking, the drinking.”

Mr Parker explained that a good deal of their funding comes from Cardiff Council, but that “all council’s are struggling and the budget is really tight”.

“(The Static Sea event) was a very unique thing. It is tapping into something great that the island has, which is this really cool heritage, and it has raised a lot of money for the island.

“There are the opportunities here for people to come and use Flat Holm as a base for their own events in a way that hasn’t been thought of before.”

Stormjar Studio will be running a prequel production to The Static Sea on their Discord channel in time for Halloween on 31 October. You can catch up on the live event here.

All photos credited to Louis Inglis unless otherwise specified.