YOUNGSTERS and staff at Chippenham Museum dressed up in their spookiest outfits for a family fun day on Halloween.

Museum volunteers donned capes and witch hats for a dark day of scary fun at the museum in Market Place, which was its first ever community Halloween event.

The free freak-tastic family fun day, billed a special Spook-tacular, included learning how to make some gruesome warts and wounds, as well as a trick-or-treat cauldron-making session.

The museum’s wicked witches - volunteers Peggy Burgess and Miranda Brown - told some ghostly stories. A Halloween trail invited visitors on a trip around the museum to find clues, and in the education room, they learnt how to make grisly wounds and scars using tissue paper and stage make-up.

On the way out, plucky youngsters even dared the Unlucky Dip - winning such seasonal horrors as spiders and wiggly worms.

Museum curator Melissa Barnett said the event was a huge success, with more than 300 people visiting over the course of the day - and lots of youngsters dressed up in Halloween costumes.

"It was one of the best events we've had," she said. "The children really enjoyed themselves.

"For many, it was the first time they had visited the museum. It helped that it was half term of course, so it was good timing."

She also paid tribute to the work and enthusiasm of the volunteers, and their fabulous costumes.

"They will dress up at the drop of a hat!" she said.

Staff are now busy preparing for Remembrance Day events, including the unveiling of a special tapestry on November 11.