The Essex Witch Museum's free pop-up opens in Shire Hall on Monday 26 October, 10am to 4pm daily to 1 November, telling the stories behind Essex's witch trials.

The Essex Witch Museum opens a free pop-up exhibition in Chelmsford’s Shire Hall on Monday 26 October, the first day of Chelmsford Witches Week. It runs every day until Sunday 1 November, 10am to 4pm, with no booking (Chelmsford For You).

The museum is a community interest company that does not yet have a building of its own, and the pop-up is its way of bringing the county’s witch trials to the city centre in the meantime.

The quick answer

  • When: Monday 26 October to Sunday 1 November 2026, 10am to 4pm every day.
  • Where: Shire Hall, Tindal Square, Chelmsford CM1 1EH.
  • Cost: free, no booking needed.
  • What: why Essex became known as “Witch County”, life during the witch trials, and the difference between cunning folk and witches.
  • Also there: the free Witches of Chelmsford Tarot Trail spellbook, which you pick up from the museum at Shire Hall.

What the museum says it is doing

In an invitation sent to the newsdesk on Thursday, the museum described itself as “a community-led project bringing the history of Essex’s witch trials out of the archives and back into the places where these events took place.”

“Through local research, historical interpretation and public engagement, we aim to share these stories in a way that is accessible, engaging and respectful of the people whose lives were affected,” the museum said.

It called the pop-up “an opportunity to explore this often misunderstood and misinformed part of Chelmsford’s history, discover the individual stories behind the trials and learn more about the work being done to preserve and share this important local heritage.”

Emma Wardall, founder and managing director of the Essex Witch Museum, smiling, head and shoulders
Emma Wardall, the Essex Witch Museum's founder and managing director. Photo: via the Essex Witch Museum

The museum’s founder and managing director is Emma Wardall. On its directors page the museum says that, “as a queer, disabled, woman, she feels passionately about telling the stories of those othered from society during the witch trials” (Essex Witch Museum).

The trials in numbers

The museum’s own count of trials held in Essex stands at 836 indictments, 107 executions and 47 deaths in prison, and it says those figures “may well increase as we continue our research.” It also plans to cover people accused who never reached trial, because they were lynched or died in prison, though it warns that “sadly their details may have been lost to time” (Essex Witch Museum).

Its home page names three of them: Joan Cony, Joan Prentis and Joan Uptney, hanged in Chelmsford in 1589. Witchcraft that caused harm or death was a crime in England from 1542 to 1736, the museum notes.

Facts panel: the Essex Witch Museum's count of trials held in Essex is 836 indictments, 107 executed and 47 died in prison, figures it says may rise. The pop-up museum is at Shire Hall, Tindal Square, from 26 October to 1 November, 10am to 4pm every day, free with no booking.
The Essex Witch Museum's count of Essex witch trials so far, and the pop-up's dates. Graphic by The Chelmsford Times
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Part of the Witches of Chelmsford week

The pop-up is part of The Witches of Chelmsford, the half term programme run by Chelmsford For You, the city centre business group, with the museum and the Chelmsford Science Festival. The business group describes the museum’s mission as working “to collate and preserve the history of the witch trials held in Essex between 1560 and 1735” (Chelmsford For You).

Illustration of a witch in silhouette stirring a cauldron with orange flames in front of the facade of Shire Hall, Chelmsford
The Witches of Chelmsford artwork, a witch at her cauldron in front of Shire Hall. Image: supplied by Chelmsford For You

The Tarot Trail starts at Shire Hall at 10am on Monday 26 October. Families pick up a free spellbook from the museum’s pop-up, then hunt for 10 numbered tarot cards around the city centre and put them in order to reveal a spell word, which earns a set of stickers. Chelmsford For You says the spellbook will also be downloadable from Monday 19 October.

The orange Witches of Chelmsford My Spellbook cover with a cauldron, reading Find the clues, collect the letters, solve the spell
The free Witches of Chelmsford spellbook, collected from the museum at Shire Hall. Image: supplied by Chelmsford For You

On Sunday 1 November, the last day, Shire Hall also hosts Witches’ Cauldron Slime Making, a free drop-in from 10am to 12.30pm and 1.30pm to 4pm. For adults, the panel “Witches: Fact, Fiction and Fascination” with Professor Marion Gibson, Professor Alison Rowlands and Emma Wardall at Patch on Wednesday 28 October is already sold out. The full day-by-day list is in our Chelmsford October half term page.

Where it goes next

The pop-up is temporary. The museum is fundraising for a permanent home and says it is looking at buildings in Chelmsford and Colchester that can take large numbers of visitors (Essex Witch Museum). Ways to help are on its support page.

Corrected 15 October: an earlier version included details of the museum’s future plans that are out of date.

What it means for you

It is free and open all of half term, in the city centre, so it fits around the rest of the trail and a shopping trip. The museum lists four car parks within a short walk of Shire Hall:

Car park Address Walk to Shire Hall
High Chelmer Bellmead, CM1 1LE about 5 to 10 minutes
Bond Street Bond Street, CM1 1GD about 8 to 12 minutes
Waterloo Lane Waterloo Lane, CM1 1BD about 8 to 12 minutes
Q-Park Meadows Baddow Road, CM2 0WP about 10 to 15 minutes

It suggests checking charges and access before you travel, because they can change. Our parking in Chelmsford page has more, and the council’s car park list is the official source.