Egglestone Abbey Explorer Challenge
Free Family History Hunt & Printable Explorer Pack
We’ve Lost the Explorer Certificate Passcode… Can You Help?
Turn your visit to Egglestone Abbey into a free family history hunt filled with medieval ruins, fascinating stories and details you may never have noticed before.
Download the printable Explorer Pack, explore the abbey and solve seven challenges by reading the information boards and looking carefully at the buildings, stonework and remains around you.
There is no fixed route, no booking, no sign-up and no email required. Complete the challenges in any order, collect the first letter or number from each answer and see if you can recover the lost passcode.
Egglestone Abbey has nearly 900 years of history waiting to be uncovered when you slow down and take a proper look around.
Good luck, Explorers!
What’s Inside the Free Explorer Pack?
The downloadable one-page Explorer Pack includes seven challenges around Egglestone Abbey, short historical facts, space to record your answers and the secret passcode puzzle that unlocks your Explorer Certificate.
Print it at home or save the PDF to your phone, then head to the abbey whenever you’re ready.
We created the challenge to encourage families to slow down, explore the ruins properly and notice the small details that reveal how the abbey changed over hundreds of years.
You’ll discover the church, cloister, medieval toilets, tombs and the remains of the house created after the monastery closed.
Whether you explore with children, grandchildren, friends or on your own, the challenge is a fun way to uncover more of Egglestone Abbey.
The abbey church stood on the unusual south side of the cloister, while surviving remains also show the chapter house, warming house, refectory, reredorter and later domestic conversion.
Already Solved the Challenge?
Completed all seven challenges and recovered the lost passcode?
Scan the QR code on your Explorer Pack or visit the certificate page, enter your passcode and unlock your Egglestone Abbey Explorer Certificate.
Continue Exploring Around Egglestone Abbey
If you’ve enjoyed the Egglestone Abbey Explorer Challenge, there is plenty more nearby waiting to be discovered.
Whether you’re looking for a short woodland walk, a peaceful riverside route or more information about the abbey itself, these guides will help you continue exploring.
🥾 Thorsgill Wood Walk
Follow a short circular walk from Egglestone Abbey through woodland, beside Thorsgill Beck and past the old packhorse bridge at Bow Bridge.
Explore the Thorsgill Wood Walk
🌊 Egglestone Abbey to the Meeting of the Waters
Walk from the abbey through fields and woodland to the meeting point of the River Tees and River Greta.
Walk to the Meeting of the Waters
🏛️ Egglestone Abbey Visitor Guide
Find out what to expect before you visit, including access, parking, the main ruins and the history you can still see around the site.
🧭 More Explorer Challenges
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