TUCKED at the edge of Preston Park is one of Brighton’s lesser-known museums.

As my teammates and I make our way through the trees and up the dark, winding path to Preston Manor, it feels like just the right time of year to be visiting the historic house – especially as Preston Drove was recently named the spookiest street in Sussex.

But we are here not just to see the museum, but to try out a new escape room-style challenge in the house.

Escape! Mystery At The Manor is a collaboration between Museums Brighton and Hove and Pier Pressure Escape Rooms for the October half term.

Charlotte Desjarlais, head of events at Royal Pavilion and Museums, tells me part of the thinking behind

the project was to open the museum up to new audiences.

This has certainly worked with our team, as none of us has ever set foot in the manor before.

As with all escape room games, there is a story.

Our challenge is to locate the missing will and treasure belonging to the lord of the house, Sir Charles Thomas-Stanford, who has just died.

In reality, Sir Charles was a Conservative politician who lived in the house until he died of tuberculosis in 1922.

After our briefing, in which we are told to be careful around the antique furniture, we are whisked off by our bespectacled detective, Victor, to start the game.

Victor is a great host: fast-talking and quick-witted.

In a game which feels a bit like real-life Cluedo, he guides us through five rooms in the house as we try to work out which person Sir Charles secretly passed his will to.

Is it the maid, the cook or the butler?

The challenge is similar to other escape rooms in that there are puzzles in every room with codes to crack, boxes to be unlocked and the usual red herrings.

There are also clues to find and take on our way.

Thankfully, with a full team of eight players, we have the collective brain power to whizz through the kitchen and washroom challenges, but are more scuppered by the maid’s room, which involves a lot of very particular clothes-folding techniques.

Helpfully Victor does give us tips, unlike in other escape games, where groups are locked in a room and left to work things out on their own.

Mystery At The Manor is definitely more child-friendly than other escape experiences, even if there are a lot more valuable, breakable objects around.

In the bedroom of Lady Ellen, who has also died, we must be extra careful and have to ask before touching anything in the room.

Lady Ellen’s crackled voice speaks to us from beyond the grave, but it is hard to make out a word.

This is the only technical glitch in the game and we are later told the interference must be due to the real ghosts in the manor, of which there have been many sightings.

The rooms become more majestic as we near the end of the game and it is hard not to be distracted by the interior as we sit around the grand table in the dining hall, taking in the Edwardian splendour and pretending we own the place.

The final challenge is in the drawing room, beneath a massive chandelier.

Thankfully we manage it, and without having broken anything.

We are rewarded with a team photo, badges and some special stamps from Victor for our teamwork, which sends us off towards the pub feeling extra smug.

All in all, it makes for a fun, family-friendly Halloween activity, in supposedly one of the most haunted buildings in Brighton.

Escape! Mystery At The Manor is at Preston Manor until Saturday and tickets are available at www.pierpressure.co.uk.