Treasure Hunt
The Treasure Hunt is known for being a cryptic journey challenging each team. Some years they are so challenging that not all teams finish. The treasure hunt is run by an assortment of volunteers and usually lasts two to four hours on the Sunday afternoon. Turn up with a team, or on your own and we’ll find a team for you to join. Teams then work to solve a collection of themed puzzles; word, picture, codes, ciphers, deduction, induction, sensory, or whatever else the organiser dreams up.
Below is information on past treasure hunts. If you can fill in any of the gaps for past events for us then please do get in touch.
| Year | Organisers | Description | Winning Team |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Giles Bennett | Mr. Jones’ Last Puzzle. Before he died, Steve had unearthed a mole inside Bletchley Park. Five people were under suspicion, but Steve had figured out who the mole was. In true fashion, he hadn’t written their names down but had set a series of six puzzles of increasing difficulty. | Katy & The Dreamers – Katy Walters, Robin Walters, Chris Martin, Mark Fox. |
| 2024 | Phil Hannay | The Fool’s Errand, where teams had to follow the fool’s journey (played by Phil Hannay) through 20 puzzles of the tarot deck to find the missing sun. | |
| 2019 | Team Green – Phil Hannay, Mark Rigby-Jones, Lisa Sanders, Terry Sanders, Adam Carter | ||
| 2018 | Phil Hannay | The Great British Bake Off. Except something went (intentionally!) wrong in the technical challenge and teams (via the medium of an annoying beeping ternary code) discovered the cake was a lie. | The Wooden Spoon – Ian Lynagh, Chris Martin, Mark Fox, Mark Rigby-Jones |
| 2017 | The Firefoxes – Claire Bennett, Mark Fox, Chris Martin, James Richardson, Lucy Richardson, Mark Rigby-Jones | ||
| 2016 | Phil Hannay and Martin Burroughs | “After watching “Escape From New York” and “Escape From LA” one too many times, the government has decided to turn Leicester into a giant prison camp. You, the most brilliant minds in the country, are invited to attend the Grand Opening in the bar at 2pm on Sunday. It will last between 2 and 2 1⁄2 hours. Anyone who has seen the two movies mentioned will know that the opening will be ABSOLUTELY 100% SAFE. You will NOT need to run about like lunatics. You will NOT need to solve puzzles. There will be NO locked briefcases. You will NOT need to work together to escape a fate worse than death. Lunch will NOT be provided (no, really). Thank you.” Teams had to Escape from the new City-Prison of Leicester, the highlight (for me) was a very convoluted live activity involving finding tokens in a room while blindfolded. | 2016 – Dan Lester, Dave Percik, Chris Martin, Mark Rigby-Jones, Robin Walters |
| 2015 | Jerry Elsmore, Mark Fox, Vick Hall, Simon Hornby, Jen Marshall, David Tittle | ||
| 2014 | Team Traitor – Gordon Aickin, Dan Lester, Chris Martin, Phil Williams | ||
| 2013 | Team One – Dave Durant, Mark Fox, Annie Percik, David Tittle, Katy Walters | ||
| 2012 | The Red Team – Mark Jones, Timothy Luffingham, David Norman, Phil Williams | ||
| 2011 | A journey through the Crystal Maze, where you had to solve Mystery, Mental, Skill and Physical challenges in four different zones, followed by a “playing card pickup” variant of the crystal dome | Three Odd Bods – David Winter, Hannah Gordon-Smith. David Tittle | |
| 2010 | One Phil and Five Fillers – Phil Hannay, Mark Fox, Mark Rigby-Jones, Robin Walters, Gordon Aickin, Dan Lester | ||
| 2009 | The red team – And after 8 hours of hunting, nobody cared who was in that team! | ||
| 2008 | A chase around the UK railway network from Leicester, called “The De Montford Code”, where you had to recover the Manorcon Charter | Just Hang on a Minute & Four Hymns and a Hearse – Michael Colao, Timothy Luffingham, Mark Jones, Hilary Jones, Jerry Elsmore & David Tittle, Charles Patrick, John Colledge, Kath Collman, Jeremy Tullett | |
| 2007 | Three Phils and Three Fillers – Phil Hannay, Phil Gardner, Phil Williams, Adam Foster, Robin Walters, Chris Dawe | ||
| 2006 | Juliette White & Jon Culver | Eric Golf’s Suicide Squad: David Tittle, Sid Ramage, Eric Norton, John Colledge and Kath Collman | |
| 2005 | Themed on The Omega Virus (old board game). You had to solve puzzles to get the 3 anti-virus devices, then enter them into the computer to discover the source code and defeat the virus. | Jon Culver, Chris Dickson, Philip Gardner, Kevin O’Sullivan, Juliette White. | |
| 2004 | Dunorroch: John Colledge, Mick Haytack, Ben Haytack, Kath Collman, Richard Huzzey, Philip Hannay, Phil Williams, Gordon Aickin, Declan Waters and Martin Bates | ||
| 2003 | The Dregs: Martin Burroughs, Mike Colao, Philip Hannay, Declan Waters, Phil Gardner, Richard Huzzey and Peter Card. | ||
| 2002 | Martin Burroughs & Chris M. Dickson | Identify the murderer of a fictional games designer, the weapon that was used in the murder and the time of day at which the murder took place, by solving logic, picture, induction, cipher, maze, physical search, origami and musical puzzles. | Pink team: Geoff Brown, John Gates, Jo Flowers, Ben Haytack and Gordon Sweeney. |
| 2001 | Chris M. Dickson | Retrieve a scarab amulet hidden within a distant pyramid, said to protect its wearer from bad luck, by solving word, number, logic, induction, physical search, Diplomacy, Ricochet Robots, Big Brother and curry puzzles. | Seeking Now Our Treasure (SNOT): Nick Parish, Steve Bond, James Hardy, Sonia Blackman and Mick Haytack |