Places you have visited with a strange vibe

I agree that blackheath is creepy. I felt scared going there as a child , I ran a race for life there a few years ago too. I went straight home instead of stopping for a picnic like lots of others did.

Also , the Isle of Wight. We stayed in Totland , which was fine. But the cafes and bars we went to towards the centre of the island were very unwelcoming and I just felt generally uncomfortable there.

Saltburn is my favourite seaside. Never found it creepy but it is quite old fashioned ( which I love) so I guess I can see how that might give it a bit of a vibe.

I’ve not been to Sandbanks in Poole, but don’t ever want to go there as a work colleague told me his granny who lived there rang him up to tell him she was shocked that a “black person” had moved into a big house near her, then a few days later his mum rang him to tell him granny had calmed down as the locals had discovered it was a famous black person.

It would creep me out to go to a place where the locals are keeping watch on non-white people.

Oh and Betws-y-coed was just really odd.
Absolutely beautiful place but we just felt really really unwelcome.

Glastonbury makes me feel sick and headachey.
There is a walk I go on near my house, through a smallish gorge. One section of it, only a few hundred yards, gives me this horrible feeling of fear and dread. I don’t like it even with a group of people , but I have been there with one friend and felt really frightened. I don’t even like driving along there. It is green and beautiful, so I don’t know why I have this feeling, it is peaceful, and not far from my house. I can’t explain it at all. Maybe the land structure ? The road is low down and running between two steep and rocky hillsides. Perfect place for an ambush !
I have wondered if something happened there, or if it is just that animal feeling of being enclosed.

Tenby. Shudder at the memory.

Wtf is wrong with Tenby? Why did it creep you out?

@NewModelArmyMayhem18 can’t blame the weather on my vibe. It was a glorious day!

It’s funny because every time a “should I move to Hastings?” Thread pops up, loads of people are like “noooo! Vile! Have you considered Battle OP? Much nicer!” And I think WTF!? It’s obviously just got a vendetta against me, then. 😂

Can't say where as it's too outing, but the place I grew up in has an eerie vibe to me. It's a fairly small place and pretty desirable too but it just gives me the creeps.

Tintagel. No matter when we go in the year it always has a depressing vibe. I can’t imagine how ppl ever lived there.

Oh, definitely. I also find the big old Camelot Castle Hotel in the middle of nowhere weird, that (imho) seems to be trying to fool you into thinking that it's THE old castle associated with King Arthur (obviously it wouldn't be, but....) I think that's a base of a minority religious group, too IIRC.

When I first stumbled across brief information online about the Winchester Mystery House - and saw that it was open to visitors - I was absolutely desperate to go down to Hampshire for a weekend.... until I looked more closely and realised that it's actually in California

The church where Florence Nightingale is buried - the name of which I cannot, for the life of me now, remember. We visited on the way back from my daughter's 3-generation-family 18th birthday meal (my parents and I share a love of old churches). The first surprise was the fact that there are medieval wall paintings inside the church (rare in our part of the UK), but as my then 10-year-old son and I were marvelling at the different images shown on the walls of the church, my daughter was standing by the door of the church, rubbing her arms as though freezing (it was a hot summer's day, so we were all in tee-shirts and bare-armed). My parents were still outside at this point looking at yew trees (... don't ask).

As we were leaving the church to go and locate my parents to tell them about the wall paintings, my daughter allowed my son and myself to go through the door (old, heavy, thick wood... probably 18th century) before her. As she walked through it, I turned to say something to her and saw a petrified expression upon her face, as the door literally slammed, pushing her out of the church and into its porch. She swears, to this day (she's 24 now), that she felt a hand in the middle of her back shoving her out of the church itself. The church was now completely empty. She fled the church and its yard and waited in the car for the rest of us.

My mother went inside the church maybe 5 minutes later, though, and whilst we'd all found it a bit heavily aired inside, she said how beautifully cool and airy it was. She also wasn't shoved outside with the door being slammed behind her, though...

Then there was Hever Castle where over several consecutive years both my daughter and I've felt as though we've walked smack bang into a wall - where there isn't one (but there was a few hundred years ago).

And Tintagel, where we holidayed when my daughter was 5 or 6. She and I were going to walk the dog from the church, along the cliff's walking trail, to the monastery/castle, where we were going to meet up with my parents and my grandmother. Unfortunately, my father had "a vision" of us all falling/jumping to our deaths (including the dog) and kicked off. Whilst we did manage the cliff path, it was in tears and involved another family very worriedly getting involved, as my father had grabbed my (small for her age) daughter up and was marching off with her, with the dog snarling and going for him, and me yelling for him to give her back. My father's normally very docile and doesn't behave like that in the slightest, so I have no clue - other than his "vision" - as to why he behaved like an absolute idiot that day. My daughter was so frightened she wet herself, too - and whilst I had a change of clothes for her... he had to wear the shirt she'd pissed on for the rest of the day, with no one else talking to him. He was very lucky that the other family didn't call the police, actually. Anyway, still haven't been "inside" Tintagel. We met my mother and grandmother at the entrance, got yelled at for "not obeying" my father (I was 26 at this point), for "not stopping" the dog from biting him (the dog was my mother's), and for "causing a scene" (he was the one who caused it by randomly grabbing my daughter from behind) and for "ruining the day out". My father's only excuse was that as we strolled off to find the cliff-path, he just had this overwhelming sense of dread and "a vision".

Yes! Robin Hood's Bay, East Yorkshire, on the coast. It was deserted at the time and the shops were all quiet, dusty and just a eerie tinkle of a bell from the door when you walked in. It felt like we'd gone back in time... Like something from a 'spooky' story from a 1981 Mandy annual!
I still would rather not go there

Dover. It was so depressing and I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

I live close to Glastonbury and do love a day there wandering round the hippy shops but I’ve never been on my own (despite it being 20 mins away!!). I also used to have a recurring nightmare which in my dream was Camden but when awake I knew it was actually Glastonbury. So even though I love Camden and Glastonbury I would never go to either of those places alone.

I once went to view a flat in Poole (I was already living in Poole) and even though the flat was lovely I just had a real sense of dread. My friend who was with me said she was relieved I didn’t take the flat as she didn’t ever want to visit me there as she felt the same!

Most of mine have already been mentioned: Kamloops in Canada...stopped off for a night when on the Rocky Mountaineer and couldn't wait to leave...In Australia: Townsville as so strange...Uluru really gave me some strange spaced out feeling of spiritual vibes and made me cry but actually I was getting over a break up at the time and felt quite a bit healed after visiting there if that doesn't sound too weird?!.

In UK: Christchurch Abbey freaked me as a child walking around on holiday there...and I'm also truly spooked by The Tower of London. I also went to a school founded in the 1830s and a couple of the buildings felt strange too...like you were being watched in both.

I love Saltburn -But I do get what you mean!

I’ve had when I visited Saltburn- sick sense of dread, a migraine, wishing I was somewhere else. But then again I only ever visited with my now ex in-laws so actually it was probably more to do with them. The morgue is creepy as fuck though and my toddler daughter loved the lift down the cliff.

Novotel in birmingham, I have never felt so “off” anywhere else. It’ probably sitting on the site of the hellmouth.

Lamorna Cove in Cornwall

I'm fairly local but can't recall going there before, we visited out of season on a lovely sunny day but as soon as we arrived I had a horrible feeling, the hairs on my neck stood up and I just wanted to leave.
We got a drink and sat by the beach for a while and DP suggested we go somewhere else, he said it had a strange vibe.

No idea what it was, it's a perfectly nice little harbour, just had a sinister feeling that day

Fascinating thread!

Saltburn is one of my most favourite places in the country. I don't personally see what's weird about the details in the OP, except maybe the morgue - but that end of the town was once notorious for smuggling, which was likely a high-risk pursuit (either being a smuggler or having smugglers as an enemy), so they went for practicality rather than tucking it away somewhere hidden - especially with those hills.

I've read the whole thread and I'm sure I must have missed it, but I can't yet find any mention of Totnes. Shurely shome mishtake?!?!

Whitby is definitely up there, but I suppose the whole Dracula thing was always going to give the place an atmosphere.

I also agree about Beddgelert; the only thing, though, is that all of these eerie-vibe places are the ones I love most - don't have me scarpering at all!!

I would also add:

Penmon Point (Anglesey)

Happisburgh (Norfolk) - just the lighthouse and caravans on the edge of the coast now, as obviously easy to move at short notice before the next chunk of cliff drops off. I think it also has one of those wartime 'pillbox' shelters too, doesn't it, as well as all of the previous barrier attempts (in vain) to try to keep the sea at bay?

Much as I dearly love the beautiful Peak District, a lot of it is a bit eerie and other-worldly - especially Bakewell, Castleton and Youlegrave (and Eyam, as has been said already). Every time I go there, as we drive into it, I automatically (totally subconsciously) find myself humming the League of Gentlemen theme music! Yes as well to Buxton, just over the PD boundary. In fact, if you look at a map of the PD, it's as if, rather than just not including Buxton in it, somebody has deliberately gone to the effort of excluding it, by drawing the map juuust around the town boundaries so as to say "No, you're very close, but you're still not one of us!"

Scrabster and Dunnet Head - I don't know if it's partly the feeling of having crossed all the way through the bleak, misty Highlands and eventually reaching the edge of the world itself (well, Britain)!

Keswick

Corby

Burnham Beeches is well creepy, too (although the cafe is outstanding!). It's strangely owned by the City of London and has a strong police presence there. We received a letter in the post from the police about two weeks later, after visiting, telling us that our car had been seen with a bag on display that could have attracted thieves and warning us to be more careful and crime-aware next time. It was only a carrier bag with a coat in it, IIRC. It very much seemed like the warning wasn't about the bag at all - just to 'let us know' that we were being watched - like finding a horse's head in the bed! Maybe that's just me being paranoid.... There are lots of tales of mysterious goings-on there, some more plausible than others - involving UFOs and allegations involving a former Prime Minister.

I know what PP meant about Watchet in Somerset - I was irrationally freaked out by the existence of a museum dedicated to Bakelite (which is 'niche' in itself), but which was across a field right on the edge of the village. I'd have thought no more about it if the same museum had been in the middle of a town/city, but I just really can't see how much trade they would get. I might have to start another thread about weird, random museums! There's also a link with the Knights Templar in that area, which adds historical interest/intrigue.

As for Roy's of Wroxham, it does seem a strange stranglehold that they have on the whole town (Royxham?!). The first time we went there, we went on the boat tour of the Broads with our DN and I still remember the guide 'amazing' us with the startling revelation that the Roy's presence was actually in neighbouring Hoveton, not technically Wroxham, "So, it should actually be known as Roy's of HOVETON!!!!!!!!!" This seemed to amuse him no end and had him chuckling for a good few seconds like the Hooded Claw.

The actual Scientology HQ is in Saint Hill and consists of a Georgian mansion with a mock castle/conference centre behind it.

As an agnostic, I find it strange that people are so scared of any religion that differs from those of "The Book". Nature religions predate the Old Testament and took a battering in this country which is why 'alternative' places mentioned in this thread (like Glastonbury and East Grinstead) feel weird because they reject the prosecution and accept all. However, knee-jerk prejudice still equates the denial of monotheism with devil worship (which was the preferred method for squashing and suppressing Nature-based religions in the UK).