Over a few months, Doska from Tinderbox has been collaborating with young people from Granton Youth to explore the concept of escape rooms and how they work. Our goal was to create an escape room inspired by the history of North Edinburgh, to take to North Edinburgh Community Festival on Sat 11th May!
At one of the Granton Youth escape room workshops, we visited Granton Hub and met with Tamsin, who showed us the Hub archives. We looked through old photos, newspapers, and historical records. A few stories from these archives became the starting point for our escape room.
We discovered which buildings and landmarks still stand today, like the shop Jubilee. We learned about the history of trains that transported goods from Africa, which sometimes had unexpected travellers – tortoises that later found homes with families in Granton. We also discovered that the Granton Hub was once home to Modelvic, the oldest purpose-built car factory in the UK!
One particularly fascinating story we uncovered was about the Otter Boat, which highlighted more recent events in Granton that connect to its past. In 2022 Granton Community Garden & Madelvic History Group, in collaboration with The School of Ancient Crafts, Edinburgh, recreated a 9m Iron-Age log boat using traditional ancient tools!
The group decided to base their escape room theme on these stories, especially focusing on the tortoises and the Otter Boat. The theme was “Journey into the Past,” where participants are transported back in time and must solve a mystery to return to the present.
During our time at Granton Youth, we brainstormed ideas and tested puzzles, which led to an incredible showcase of our escape room at the North Edinburgh Community Festival! The competition was fierce, with 18 teams taking on the challenge to solve the Granton mystery!
This project has undoubtedly left a lasting impact and we hope may even become part of the Granton Hub archives.
A big thanks to the Granton Youth team and Doska for a fantastic collaboration!
