From a century on Lake Street to Perth’s horror house, chapter by chapter.
Before
Forty-Eight is heritage-listed and more than a hundred years old. It has stood on Lake Street through most of Northbridge’s history, and it will tell you so.
What it was before it became an escape room centre, it is coy about. The fan club has heard several stories, all of them in Legends, and all of them told by the building, which is not a reliable witness.
Chapter one
Escape This’s first home
Escape This describes Northbridge as its very first venue. Before the basement in the city, the beach in Manly or the towers of Sydney and Melbourne, there was Lake Street.
Escape This’s booking records for the building begin in January 2020, so the memoirs date their milestones from there.
Chapter two
Northbridge
Like every venue in Perth, Forty-Eight spent part of 2020 with its doors shut while the pandemic kept everyone at home. It did not enjoy the quiet.
Then the tenants arrived: Cannibal in May 2020, Dracula that October. The building that had been a little bit of everything began to become Perth’s horror house.
Chapter three
Northbridge
The Haunting moved in in March 2021, Buried Alive in August, The Possession in November and, on Boxing Day, a pirate island that nobody expected in a horror house.
And in September 2021 rooms appeared on the books under Hay Street Mall, five minutes away. Forty-Eight had a sibling. It had feelings about this.
Chapter four
2022 to 2025
Rooms came and went: Bank Heist left in May 2023, the President’s Briefcase in December 2023, The Wizard’s Chamber in June 2024 and Pirates in November 2024, most of them for new homes across the family.
Others arrived: Asylum on Halloween 2023, Zombie Apocalypse in May 2024 and Frankenstein Resurrection in March 2025. Meanwhile the family grew: Manly in 2022, Sydney in 2024.
Chapter five
Today
Today Forty-Eight runs nine rooms, eight of them horror, plus the one pirate island it has decided to keep. Melbourne opened in 2026 and Brisbane is on its way.
It is the oldest building in the family, and the first. It would like that on a plaque. It is heritage-listed, so it may already have one.
The record
Over a century ago
On the record
48 Lake Street is heritage-listed and more than a hundred years old. The exact year is the building’s own business.
January 2020
On the record
Escape This’s booking-system records for Northbridge start here: the first venue’s first pages.
2020
On the record
Like every Perth venue, Forty-Eight spends part of 2020 closed during the pandemic.
23 May 2020
On the record
The Northbridge Butcher’s cold room opens downstairs.
28 October 2020
On the record
Just in time for Halloween, a vampire takes the crypt.
19 March 2021
On the record
A haunted house inside a building that was already a bit haunted.
5 August 2021
On the record
Two coffins, two players, and an Undertaker who will feature heavily in later chapters.
September 2021
On the record
The first rooms appear on the books at Escape This Perth CBD, five to ten minutes’ walk away.
26 November 2021
On the record
The Haunting’s sequel opens here first. Sydney and Melbourne get copies later.
26 December 2021
On the record
Pirate Island opens on Boxing Day. Forty-Eight decides to keep it.
July 2022
On the record
Escape This Manly, formerly Room Eight Escape Rooms, joins the family by the beach.
31 October 2023
On the record
Forty-Eight insists the timing was its own idea.
31 May 2024
On the record
Perth’s zombie world moves to Lake Street, where it belongs.
August 2024
On the record
Escape This Sydney CBD’s first rooms appear on George Street.
20 March 2025
On the record
The youngest horror room, and the only horror room a 13-year-old can book.
August 2026
On the record
Escape This Melbourne CBD opens on Collins Street.
First half of 2027
On the record
Escape This plans its Brisbane CBD venue.
Dates from 2020 come from Escape This’s booking system, whose records for Northbridge begin in January 2020. The building’s age and heritage listing come from Escape This.
