EF Academy Torbay halloween party and cave tour

Also known as Allhalloween, All Hallows’ Eve, or All Saints’ Eve, is a celebration observed in a number of countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows’ Day. It begins the three-day observance of Allhallowtide, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed.

According to one view, All Hallows’ Eve is a Christianized observance influenced by Celtic harvest festivals, with possible pagan roots, particularly the Gaelic festival Samhain.

Halloween activities include trick-or-treating (or the related costumes), attending Halloween costume parties, decorating, carving pumpkins into jack-o’-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing and divination games, playing pranks, visiting haunted attractions, telling scary stories and watching horror films. In many parts of the world, the Christian religious observances of All Hallows’ Eve, including attending church services and lighting candles on the graves of the dead, remain popular, although elsewhere it is a more commercial and secular celebration. Some Christians historically abstained from meat on All Hallows’ Eve, a tradition reflected in the eating of certain foods on this vigil day, including apples, col cannon, potato pancakes and soul cakes.

Today Halloween is a bit of fun with as much to do with movie culture as anything else but its clear that we are still fascinated with the spooky world of Halloween.

Torbay celebrated Halloween in style this year with a visit to the Halloween themed Kents Cavern in Torquay. Kents Cavern is a cave system in Torquay. It is notable for its archaeological and geological features. The cave system is open to the public and has been a geological Site of Special Scientific Interest since 1952 and a Scheduled Ancient Monument since 1957.

The caverns and passages were formed in the early Pleistocene period by water action, and have been occupied by one of at least eight separate, discontinuous native populations to have inhabited the British Isles. The other key paleolithic sites in the UK are Happisburgh, Pakefield, Boxgrove, Swanscombe, Pontnewydd, Paviland, and Gough’s Cave.

This is a spectacular venue for a Halloween party especially as the school had organized a ghost tour of the caves with stage actors playing spooky parts. We all walked around nervously in the dark being told the spooky story of a minor who had been killed in the caves and now haunted it and the spooky tale of a horrid doctor. As we walked around the actors appeared in dark corners or jumped out at us and the lighting changed to reflect the change in the story.

After the tour we had some great food and compared costumes which where all fantastic and so much thought had gone into them, as you can tell from the pictures. We then moved into the main cave for a DJ set , which was really strange and such a great location for a disco with Halloween music.

Great night full of spooks, goblins and spooky teachers.