To ask for your experiences with Bath/strange atmospheres

I live near Leicester and it feels fine to me. But both Leicester and my town have low to zero levels of radon, so I'm going from like to like. Interestingly, while my town has little radon, the high levels can be found just outside of town, 3-4 miles away.

I also compared a map of ley lines to the radon map and it looks like there may be some correspondence there.

Yes it was the big old one verbena I don't remember the carvings or font but it was a while ago and I just wanted to get out of there lol. I'm a Christian so usually feel at peace in church not this one though. Now u mention it it did have a bit of a pagan feel to it maybe that's why it felt off to me.

You say that Alice but the best fish and chips I've ever had was in Hastings from a little hut by the sea, and Hastings has come up a lot for it's murderous ambience.

That said a lack of decent fish and chips certainly won't endear me to any place and is somewhat ominous I agree.

Some places just make me want to go home for almost no reason other than a feeling.
I felt like this is scratby too.
Redruth
Reading

I grow up near by and kinda agree. Has a strange feeling. Its slightly disjointed too. I prefer it out of the town at the crescent as in the town feels i dont know...close.. street and glastonbury the same.

I felt like this in Leicester. It gave me a feeling like I was being in damp cold black earth.
We were staying at a hotel outside Leicester and several people who lived in the area said that they also hated the city but couldn't say why.

@AliceInBlunderland13 Great thread and you've encouraged me onto Mumsnet after a year of lurking! Have you considered the effect of being on the uni campus up on that hill? I did one year of a PhD commuting over from Bristol. The place felt desolate and cold and is several degrees cooler than in town. I felt quite lost there (despite being a big girl in my 40s at the time) and also experienced anxiety. I was very unhappy and eventually left. I love Bath for a day-trip but have no desire to ever go back up that hill.

Great thread. I hate the whole county of Wiltshire. Worked in three different places there and every time it ended badly. One place - Devizes - God that felt bad. Like it wanted me dead. Couldn’t wait to get out!
I got engaged and disengaged in Bath in the space of 24 hours. Bath sucks as well 😂

A friend who I used to work with, she said that when she went to historic places she could hear and see people from the past, she wasn't a bullshiting type of person she was straight as a die kind of a person so I'm inclined to believe her, I mean I don't think she was deliberately lying to me🤷🏼‍♀️

I love the South West especially Exmoor which is beautiful and not as bleak as Dartmoor. I like Cornwall but some of the ex-mining towns like St Austell have that about to kick off vibe caused by very drunk men walking around in the middle of the day.
I think Glastonbury is horrible because it feels so fake. Nasty scary people pretending to have some special spiritually when really they are preying on the vulnerable, obviously not everyone is fake but a lot are.
I like Avebury I once walked around the stones in the middle of the night and snuck up silbury hill in the dark which felt very freeing, but I don't like going near the barrows. I don't like cemeterys either

Blimey, it’s not just me! I like Bath, I’ve had nice weekends there, but there’s something about it. Melancholy is a good word for it.

I put it down to the high level of tourism. Buildings feel empty beyond their facades, like there’s a veneer of loveliness and busyness but it’s ultimately empty.

I really like Bath, and have never felt any weird vibes there. I also like Wells, and have never got any weird vibes off Stonehenge (in fact, I felt incredibly peaceful walking along to see it last time we were there). Glastonbury, yes, definitely an odd vibe there, but the place that really gave me the heebie-jeebies was Faversham in Kent. Nope. I just shuddered thinking about it. Not somewhere I’d be happy to see again.

I live in a higher radon area and love it, but North Wales makes me feel desperate to escape. Turns out it’s where my dads family originated from so I like to think there is something a bit woo about it.

Someone mentioned Malvern before, I lived in Malvern years ago and it did get me down, I always think it’s being in the shadow of the hill, it’s over bearing and sooooo cold!

The most miserable place I've ever visited was Castle Drogo (and usually love Lutyens). Horrible feel to it, but it wasn't a 'spooky' feel to the building itself, it was a larger thing. My sensible friend hated it too.

Funny, it's half way between Plymouth and Exeter, both mentioned here. I think it's in high radon country but the map is frozen, we must have worn it out!

I loved st kinda. Amazing place.

Hated Oban.

Agree about Hastings. Very strange feeling.

Teacup was it the big one with some really ancient carvings and font? So interesting to both feel strongly but so differently. (I’m not Christian or religious at all either and I wonder if that’s a factor. It does feel really, really old and a bit pagan somehow to me and I guess that might be unsettling)

It was odd verbena as I thought if we go in the church I will feel better but it just felt off.

St Just is indeed the end of the Earth, glad to see it being acknowledged here. I would add that Dove Holes (near Buxton) is worse than Buxton itself, not quite a rival to St Just, more that it has nothing to recommend it. Again it is very high on the radon map, which is interesting.

I have been to Bath, I don't think I've necessarily felt it to be dark and forboding though. I think I've only visited for a couple of day trips and a later wedding weekend, so been happily distracted rather than drinking in the atmosphere.

Other places I've found unreasonably spooky and dragging me down: Reading (so much so that I burst into tears when later revisiting), Norwich and Camber Sands (near Hastings which lots of other people have mentioned).

Alone, not along

Teacup34 how interesting: I really, really love the church in wirksworth. Feel as if it’s somehow more solid than everything around it, an if-the-world-fell-apart-you’d-still-be-ok-in-here feeling.

Although I do confess to having a wobbly moment when we were in there along and my 2-year-old shouted ‘wakey wakey!’ at one of the stone figures on top of a tomb and I let myself imagine it creaking upright.

@nevermorelenore that's just many norfolk people having poor social skills due to being largely cut off from the rest of England - it's not the place itself.

I went on a mini break to Bath on my first pay cheque as a graduate with my new DP. Had a whole itinerary planned, Roman baths, pump rooms, candlelit dinner etc. Everything felt flat and sad and we couldn’t wait to leave. We ended up paying ££ to get an earlier train back to London. Weird because I remembered loving going there as a child to visit grandparents.

Another trip to Eastbourne was memorable for the feeling of absolute horror and desperation lingering over the whole place. DP and I walked the cliff paths towards Beachy Head, fog descended and a menacing feeling had us running to the nearest pub, where we had a vicious row that nearly saw us split up. On the train back it was like waking up from a bad nightmare and we turned to each other and said “wtf was that all about?”

Luckily DP is now DH despite all the geographically induced rows

Dover. I just felt sad and unwelcome when I was there. Takes decades to get there too and I just wondered why we’d bothered. The castle is amazing but incredibly menacing. The atmosphere in the underground tunnels is intense.

York and Winchester give me the heebie jeebies.