- Hex
- "The Legend of The Towers". Walk around a derelict part of the Towers to discover the artefacts unearthed during the restoration of part of the Towers buildings. Learn about a local legend, a tale of a beggarwoman, an oak tree and a curse. Visit the secret room behind the bookcase, hidden for two centuries. But beware, your world is about to be turned on its head and your senses scrambled, in this unique ride that ends on the 'other side'.
Hex is the result of painstaking research into a 200-yr old legend connected with Alton Towers. This, reproduced from a 1986 guide book, is the original legend.
At the opening ball in the Banqueting Hall, the 15th Earl of Shrewsbury hosted nobility and royality. Into their midst came an old man, hoping to earn a night's keep by telling their fortunes. Mocked and ejected by the company, he turned to the host and said: "Every time a branch falls from the giant oak by your entrance, so will a member of your family fall and die". The next day, the Earl had all its branches chained.
skip the following Chained Oak photographs
This is a 'true' legend, as far as legends go, and the tree with its chains can still be seen today at a location between Alton Towers and Alton village. However, for the purposes of Hex, the story has been altered and extended somewhat to relate the story of an old woman begging for money on a stormy night, and the consequences of not affording her any charity.
skip the following general Hex photographs
The attraction is housed inside the Towers buildings themselves. It was a stroke of genius to do this as the visitor is totally immersed into the story. There is no tacky theming here, everything you see is genuine. Well, almost everything! The entrance is through the old Armoury, which in recent times used to be a gift shop. Huge banners hanging on the wall above the gigantic wooden doors proclaim the name of the ride. However, the only clue that this is not simply a walk-through exhibition is provided in the statutory warning notices outside!
The queue line zig-zags its way through the long and narrow room that is the Armoury. It is not a long queue - it takes about 15 minutes from the door. If the queue rack outside the door is full, you can expect to wait a further 30 minutes. Ignore the notice by the door which says that you have 30 minutes of queueing inside! Dotted here and there are artefacts that have been discovered by the team during the huge Towers restoration project. Of course, this is all part of the story, and while the restoration of the room looks incomplete, it is meant to be that way! Statues can be seen on stone plinths lining the walls, but they are covered in dust sheets. Scaffolding can be seen in various places and you can hear the distant sound of chiselling. If you walked through any room in the Towers, this is what you'd find. It looks, feels (and smells) like a genuine room in the process of being restored.
The queue line inside the old Armoury contains video monitors around every corner, on which a rolling 15-minute video plays. It's a documentary and contains interviews with members of Alton Towers staff, such as Les Davies, who was the brains behind the research into the legend for this attraction, and Damian Varney who led the restoration project. They relate the patchy bits of knowledge about the legend, we see Les visiting the site of the chained oak, and Damian tells of how the restoration team found a room hidden behind a bricked-up archway that was not detailed on the plans of the buildings.
Whilst the people on the video are certainly genuine, note that what they are saying was made up for the ride. The only true bit of the legend is as shown above from the guide book. There was no restoration project, they didn't find rolls of old Victorian cine film, and they didn't unearth a secret room. But I hope that hasn't spoilt it for you! Another point of interest, especially if you've been in this ride once before, is that the video does give subtle clues about what happens in the ride itself. Watch how the camera angles change, and watch the stained glass windows...
On reaching the front of the queue, you pass through a turnstile which is controlled by an LED clock, counting the people down from 78 to 0. The chosen few gather in the gloom at the far end of the Armoury, and a short introduction welcomes everyone and informs them that they are about to learn about the strange tale of the chained oak. A portrait of the 15th Earl of Shrewsbury becomes magically illuminated on the wall, and then two doors silently open and everyone moves forward into the next room.
This contains a 5-minute video show on a large screen which shows a dramatisation of the strange events of 200 years ago. The Earl is shown arriving back at the Towers one dismal Autumn evening but his horse-drawn carriage is stopped by a old woman, next to the fabled oak. She begs for a coin, but the Earl refuses and tells his driver to carry on. The woman whispers a curse, that for every branch of the oak tree that fell, a member of the Earl's family would die. That night, a ferocious storm and a bolt of lightning severed a branch, and sure enough a death occurred in the family. The Earl, in his infinite wisdom, had all the remaining branches of the tree chained and he dragged the fallen branch back to the Towers and locked it into his secret vault where he performed experiments on it to try and rid it of the curse. "A battle of science against the supernatural".
At the end of the video, doors open at the far end of the room and everyone moves forward into the next room. This is the Octagon, and certainly was subject to a real restoration project in order to make it suitable for accommodating people. A gigantic stone pillar extends from a hole right in the middle of the room way up out of sight to the roof. A very large open window can be seen over to one side of the room, while one the other side perched on some scaffolding can be seen a mysterious figure dressed in a cloak. The lights go out, horses can be heard in the distance, lightning flashes and thunder is heard, and the curtain draped over the window billows out. The figure in the cloak is illuminated and a mysterious Latin chant can be heard. Finally, some sort of a Jules Verne piece of machinery springs into life at the far end of the room. A curtain is raised and exposes the bookcase behind which the secret vault was discovered. The expectant people are invited to move forward. "A vault....sealed for two centuries.....".
But what happens next, you'll have to find out for yourself!
When you visit this attraction, make sure you absorb the atmosphere, make sure you immerse yourself in the story, pay attention to the amazing decoration detail contained in the vault, let the amazing synchronised shiver-down-the-spine music that accompanies the ride carry you away, and you will experience something really stunning.
If you would really like to see what goes on, visit the incredible Mad House Guide site. It explains how these attractions work, has interviews with the manfacturers, on-ride videos of similar rides across Europe, and behind-the-scenes footage of construction and the mechanism behind the ride. There is even a discussion forum for fans!
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