Isolated Bristol Channel island to host 'immersive horror game'

Flat Holm Island is less than half a mile wide and four miles off the coast of Wales

Flat Holm Island in the Bristol Channel has a mysterious and macabre past, which it is hoped the public will be able to explore through a "psychological horror" experience next year. Bristol-based production company Stormjar Studio is crowdfunding for an overnight immersive horror game that will also help raise funds for environment and heritage projects on the island.

It is billed as a twisted ghost story that combines forgotten World War One history, the birth of radio and the ghosts of Flat Holm Island.

Named The Static Sea, the horror-mystery experience focuses on a fictional radio engineer from the 1920s who served as a trench radio operator during WW1.

However, since the end of the war, he has lived in solitude on the haunted Flat Holm Island.

The horror-mystery experience focuses on a fictional radio engineer from the 1920s

The story will bring together the real historic elements and architecture of the island with the studio's creative ideas, raising new revenue for heritage and environmental projects in the Bristol Channel.

Flat Holm has been inhabited since at least the Bronze Age.

The notorious tide of the Bristol Channel has hurled many ships against the island's rocky coast, and much of the island's past has been marred by tragedy and death.

A 19th Century map of Flat Holm Island in the Bristol Channel

In 1817, British sloop The William and Mary foundered after hitting rocks in rough seas.

The ship's mate and two other sailors escaped in the only lifeboat, but 54 other passengers drowned. Fifty of the recovered bodies are buried on Flat Holm Island.

In the late 19th Century, sailors arriving into Cardiff with cholera were confined at the quarantine hospital on the island.

The last patient to die in the hospital died of bubonic plague, known as the Black Death.

Now the hospital lies derelict and crumbling - a solitary testament to the last lonely days of these sailors' lives.

The quarantine hospital was built to confine sailors arriving into Cardiff Harbour

The current lighthouse, built in 1737, looms over the island, watching the many graves of those buried there, some dating back to the Viking Age.

The lead content in the soil on the island is so high, that any crops grown there are too toxic to eat.

With only one permanent inhabitant, Flat Holm Island sounds like the ideal setting for a horror story.

That is what Stormjar Studio co-founders Jim Wheale and Sophie Shaw believe.

An 18th Century lighthouse and Victorian gun placements are some of the features on the island

"When I heard about Flat Holm Island, I was just gobsmacked," said Mr Wheale.

"To have something so close, right on our doorstep, with so much rich and weird history, it's incredible.

"It's only five-minute walk from one side to the other but every step has something weird and wonderful about it."

The pair have been given permission from Cardiff Council for the one-off event and from those who run the island.

Other features on the island include massive Victorian anti-naval gun placements, abandoned barracks and smugglers caves, where 18th Century pirates would hide contraband from the Cardiff Port authorities.

In 1897, Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi sent the first wireless radio transmission from the island to the Welsh mainland.

This was a revolutionary invention that would save countless lives.

Marconi broadcast the first wireless transmission from Flat Holm Island

Stormjar Studio will launch The Static Sea in March next year. It combines immersive theatre, film and digital experiences.

The production company is crowdfunding for the experience, and donors will have their names entered into the ballot.

The lottery will close on 14 December and then in January, six entrants will be picked for the overnight experience to stay on the island.

The immersive experience will be interactive for online and in-person participants

The online audience will also be able to participate in the experience for free.

Ms Shaw said: "With an immersive experience, you are in the performance. There's no wall between the world and the spectator.

"You get to interact with things, performers, props and sets."

The online audience will be able to interact with the story in several ways, and will be able to uncover the mysteries surrounding the island as the story unfolds.

Mr Wheale said: "Our vision for Stormjar is to work with heritage spots around the UK. These are amazing places that need the funding."

The Static Sea will follow a fictional radio engineer, another nod to the history of the island

He explained that all the performers involved are volunteers and all crowdfunding revenue exceeding £5,500 will go to the environment and heritage project on the island.

Flat Holm Island is now a designated nature reserve and site of special scientific interest (SSSI).

The island has significant breeding colonies of great black-backed gulls, herring gulls, slowworms, and rare plants such as rock sea-lavender wild leek.

In 2021, following a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, plans were announced to restore the island's quarantine hospital as an educational site and visitor attraction.

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