Places that make you feel uncomfortable.

[SingingKettles]

And those that make you feel very comfortable, too!
I mean in the UK, or could possibly be outside it too.
I don't mean tourism exactly, just places where you felt uncomfortable or were eager to return home from. It doesn't have to be a bad area, it could easily be somewhere known to be beautiful and thriving.

For me it was Hebden Bridge, a sort of looming gloominess I couldn't shake off. I know people who live there so visit a few times per year, and that sensation never changes. It isn't easy to explain.

As much as I adore Shrewsbury (it has a cat cafe, so it's a winner!) I have felt a bit off there, too. A sense of manic energy, insanely loud traffic in the town centre, I found that I couldn't seem to rest, even in the suburbs.. A shame because I loved so much about it and it is a very friendly place with gorgeous buildings.

Liverpool didn't work for me either. I find the local people to be so helpful and lovely, but something about the Mersey and especially the docks made me feel unutterably depressed (yes, I know it's history, but it wasn't simply that).

Ambleside made me on edge also, and unlike the rest of the areas amongst the fells I felt drained there. It didn't help having single file sized pavements so everything felt slightly dangerous and overwhelmed.

Now for my favourites:

I do love Ludlow though, I felt so calm and at peace there. The light was mellow and soft. There wasn't all that much to do, apart from the good grub and castle, but I could live in an attic there and paint all day forever. If only..

I also loved Edale in the Peak District. A very tiny village with one shop if I recall and a great pub called the Nag's Head. I used to feel as if my heart was being torn out when I had to go home. I felt as if the landscape there had it's arms around me, softly.

I was happy in Penrith, although this was 10 yrs ago so it may have changed somewhat since. I hadn't wanted to go as it looked miserable and grey but I felt so at home there.

I also adore just throwing myself into the heart of London. I always come alive there. Not sure I'd move in, even if I could afford it (!) but yeh.

We stayed in a holiday cottage in the Peak District, a very olde worlde place and on first impressions it was lovely but in the night I kept waking up with the worst anxiety. Really uncomfortable, foreboding feeling that I can't really pinpoint but I wasn't comfortable there.

Blackpool. Soon as i got there i wanted to leave...luckily louis tussauds was there which was brilliant and very funny. However Blackpool is a cesspool

I hate Aberdeen and Dundee.

I always feel like I'm about to fall off the streets of Edinburgh. I get this weird sensation of being on top of the world and not in a good way! It's all just too high up somehow and too steeply angled, and the buildings are so tall they give me mild vertigo. And I say this as an experienced climber and skier, so heights don't usually bother me!

I hated Settle, which is a shame as it's usually the kind of gorgeous village with huge viaduct that I'd love. I just got a really uneasy...unsettled (ha) anxious feeling and wanted to leave as soon as I'd parked up. I kept looking at the perfectly ordinary people walking past and thinking they were baduns.

Blimey that's quite a long list!
Where do you go for a day out?!

Like another PP I've never really been anywhere that I've noticeably felt uncomfortable. Loads of places that I've loved though. Most recently was Belfast. Felt immediately comfortable there for some reason. Will definitely be going back.

Dundee. Really just not for me and sorry to anyone who lives there!

Places that made me feel uncomfortable:
Dover - it felt so bleak and I felt this visceral helplessness when I was there. Took me a few days to get my equilibrium back after going there.
The Medway towns - at the risk of sounding like an appalling snob, they give me the heeby jeebies. Partly because there is an undercurrent of racism there and my family is mixed race.
Eltham, SE London, is somewhere I never quite feel at ease
There's an area near Eltham called the Coldharbour Estate which gives me the chills just thinking about it. Imagine the most eerie, desolate social housing. Every time I go through it on the bus it feels like the temperature has dropped a degree or two
CORNWALL!! I feel so vindicated that I'm not the only person in the world who feels ill at ease in this supposedly gorgeous part of the world.
There was a bay in Dorset I visited on a school trip called Kimmeridge Bay with these amazing rockpools, but there was something so intensely weird about it I almost had a panic attack.

Where I feel at ease:
London!! I'm a third generation Londoner and I love it with a passion.
West Wales/Ceredigion... The wildness, beauty, ancient Celtic heritage... Even the air and the water just feels...magic

Stroud - the whole Stroud Valley from Chalford to the M5 junction at Stroudwater. Suffocating, hemmed in, grey, dreary, depressing, built up and oppressive. Born there and couldn't wait to escape!

Conversely, my favourite place is The Valley Of The Rocks at Lynton, wild, tranquil and soothing.

Yes to Kimmeridge Bay, there's something about the landslips unearthing the fossils that gives me a very unpleasant feeling, can't explain it but quite unsettling.

i have a rubbish memory and can’t remember the names of most places I haven’t liked. But I was recently in
Wincanton and thought it was eerie and sad. Hayling island is a medium density wasteland. Cleethorpes, uninviting.

when I was 16 I went to Uzbekistan, I thought it would be an adventure but I felt really unsettled. It felt like the whole country was just really quiet and everyone was just waiting for something…

places I love - London, Woodbridge, Walberswick, Hastings, Bath, Cambridge, Exeter, Edinburgh. I don’t know the North so well, but i thought Manchester and Sheffield both had a great vibe too.

Youlgreve in Derbyshire, my sister lived there for a while. I hated it. But couldn't put my finger on the reason. Even though it was lovely to have her in easy travel distance, I was very glad when they moved away.

@SingingKettles my parents have moved recently to Penrith, as my sister and BIL now live there. I didn't expect to like it as I'm a city girl. But I could happily live there. It really surprised me.

Lockerbie!!
We called in for fish and chips on way back from Glasgow (totally loved Glasgow and the people!)

Really wished we hadn’t!!

Everyone stared at us in the streets and talked openly about us, practically got our fish & chips thrown at us so we hurried to the car and raced away!!
It was a long time ago - 20+ years after the plane came down, I did wonder if they thought we were sightseers - but I would never ever go there again. Reminded me of the pub on the moors in “American Werewolf in London”

Loved Brighton, weather was glorious too, noisy, funny, expensive but brilliant fun!
Waltham Abbey was terrifying… It was not what I thought it would be, had a real air of menace!

Bournemouth was a revelation and not in a good way! Open drug dealing in the streets in broad daylight, drunks shouting and fighting, I was in constant fear of being mugged as gangs of men hung round weighing up people. Weather beautiful but I’ll never go back.

Portree. I love Skye but found Portree very odd. Fort William was much the same.

@Defoasultananotapoocrumb you are “always” accused of stealing in Oban? There must be a back story for it to have happened on more than one trip?!

Why? It's the least uncanny place I've been. It's very matter of fact and planned.

When Harry Hill used to present You've Been Framed, he always picked on Swaffham - made endless negative jokes about it and claimed that it was the location whenever something weird or unpleasant happened.

I wonder whether he just chose it at random, as a small town that most people have only vaguely heard of and isn't particularly known for anything much, or maybe he went there once and had that same sense of foreboding?!

I agree. It was fab in the 80s - so many great shops. Now it's gone the way of lots of high streets, sadly.

Place I hated: Dungeness.
It was like a post-apocalypse, just felt all wrong and threatening

I like most places.

Except the Mersey in Liverpool - a terrifying river

Burnham Beeches in Buckinghamshire always creeped me out. Objectively, it's a beautiful place, but it's (randomly) owned by the City of London and quite prominently patrolled by their police force, which seems very sinister considering the very low amount of crime you'd expect to happen in a place like that.

There are also a lot of weird rumours and tales about UFOs being seen there and alleged nefarious goings-on involving a former Prime Minister (one who shared the same name as an erstwhile band leader).

Buxton is another place that seems a bit 'off' to me. I sometimes wonder if there's a reason why they seem to have deliberately gone out of their way to exclude it when designating the map of the Peak District - look at a map of the area!

Malton is a bit of a weird, forsaken place, as is Scrabster and Holyhead.

That said, am I the only one who finds some places very much qualify for both of the categories mentioned on this thread: a beautiful place that you love to go, but which also feels creepy and unwelcoming?! I think a lot of the Peak District/Derbyshire does actually seem that way to me - especially Ashbourne, Bakewell, Eyam, Castleton and (as PP said) Youlgrave. Other similar places for me are Penmon Point, Beaumaris and Pitlochry, as well as (hitherto mentioned) Totnes, Whitby and Boscastle.

Maybe some of the feelings are just unfamiliarity and/or the distinctive (sometimes grim) history of the particular places; their individual charm could be also what opens up their quirky sides and lays the possible negatives bare too?! That may well make no sense to others, but I know what I mean

Why is the Mersey terrifying - any particular articulable reason, or 'just' a deep feeling?

I've never been there couldn't get tickets for Eurovision but am genuinely intrigued!

I've just realised that I said Scrabster in error and completely unfairly, when I actually meant (parts of) Thurso. Apologies to any Scrabsterians (is that the right local name; if not, imvho it should be?!!)

Luton. The kind of place where if you got stabbed in the street by some random nutter you wouldn't be surprised in the slightest.

Hartlepool, Blackpool, and King's Lynn. Hopefully I'll never visit any of them again (they probably feel the same about me!) Perhaps it's the flatness, or the lack of trees, or just a sort of washed-up backwater vibe.