Devon does Halloween
Pumpkin trails and glass-blowing by day, torch-lit caves and a live Nosferatu score by night — the county's spooky season, sorted by nerve.
27 September 2026
Devon takes Halloween more seriously than the supermarket costume aisle would have you believe. For a fortnight either side of the 31st there's a pumpkin field to get lost in, a candle-lit priory to shiver in, and — if your nerve holds — a cave walked by torchlight. Here's the season, sorted less by date than by how much of a fright you're after.
Pumpkins by daylight — bring the kids
Start gentle. The Donkey Sanctuary turns its grounds into a trick-or-treat trail: pumpkins, donkeys, and not a jump-scare in sight.
The National Trust does the grown-up version of family-friendly at Greenway — pumpkins, yes, but also the plants and poisons Agatha Christie kept in the garden. Handsome and just a little sinister.
For something to take home, House of Marbles runs glass pumpkin workshops — you blow your own, still warm, in an afternoon.
And once half-term lands, Frightlights lights up Torquay after dark — spooky enough to feel like an event, gentle enough for small hands to stay in yours.
After dark — for the ones who want the shiver
Kents Cavern is the setting Halloween would design for itself: a ghost walk by torchlight, deep underground, in caves older than anything above them. Book early and wrap up — it's cold down there in every sense.
Exeter's St Nicholas Priory — a genuine Tudor building — hosts an evening on witchmarks: the scratches people once carved into their doorframes to keep the dark out. History that earns the candlelight.
At Exeter Picturehouse, the 1922 silent Nosferatu plays under a live score built from Radiohead. Stranger and better than it has any right to be.
Or keep it loud and daft: The Rocky Horror Picture Show comes to Exeter Phoenix. You know whether this is your night by whether you already own the fishnets.
Come the 31st itself, Torbay and Plymouth take over the small hours — murder-mystery dinners, 16+ and 18+ raves, the lot. If that's the plan, the weekly email will point you at the right room.
New listings land daily as the season fills, so we'll keep this page honest. Want the spooky — and un-spooky — picks matched to your patch of Devon? The weekly email does exactly that.