Bishop’s Stortford Escape Rooms: An Hour To Kill

A lovely and immersive escape room with great puzzles. The storyline is good and the room flows well.

This is the final game we had to do at this venue and the others have all been decent enough.  This one just felt very dated and old fashioned.  Its more like an escape room we would have done over 5yrs ago and feels pretty tired inside too.  Theres nothing techy at all, its all about padlocks and more padlocks. I wouldnt recommend doing this one and would suggest any of the other rooms in Horley over it (the Govenor is probably my favourite).

The theme is ok and it follows it fairly well.  At least 3 of the puzzles dont really make full sense to us and were a bit guess work but the GM didnt really seem to know full answers to our questions at the end debrief which was very short as she was also doing a welcome at the same time.

Just feels a bit past if it I am honest and whole venue needed a bit of a spruce up.  Christmas tree still up in mid Jan and stickers on the front door from its previous guise as a toy shop. 

My partner and I have a little tradition: before we fly out for our winter sun, we warm up our brains with a game at Gatwick Escape Rooms. This year the Christmas room wasn’t ready, so we switched to An Hour To Kill in Hollywood — and honestly, it was a solid stand-in.

For such a small space, the room squeezes in a surprising number of puzzles. It’s very much a classic escape-room setup, complete with approximately a gazillion padlocks. Nothing revolutionary, nothing we haven’t seen before, but still fun and satisfying to work through. Nothing really stumped us either, aside from the lingering mystery of why the villain had such a passionate hobby for murdering her husbands.

Overall it’s a good, steady room and an easy recommendation if you’re already passing through Gatwick. And with a new room planned for 2026, we’re all set for a few more years of pre-holiday puzzle-solving before we head off in search of sunshine.

No accessibility concerns here, unless you need the loo, which is up a flight of stairs. 

A classic escape room with a lot of familiar tropes.  This game is very padlock heavy and the puzzles are a combination of searching and logical deduction.  Theming is ok and is enough to convey the ideas and story behind the room.  Our host was Brad who clued us when we needed to and ran the game incredibly well.  

While this isn't the biggest room in terms of floor plan, it's a great game with lots of lovely padlocks and some clever puzzles in a really delightful space.