Places you have visited with a strange vibe - Part 2

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Places you have visited with a strange vibe http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/amiibeingunreasonable/4260839-places-you-have-visited-with-a-strange-vibe

I felt horrible the second I set foot in Ludlow, where a parent had decided we'd move to. Dread, uncomfortable, nervous. Hated it. I was 13, and we moved(she wouldn't have cared what I thought about it anyway) By the time I left, a lot of horrible things had happened to me there, I wonder if I somehow picked up on what would happen to me there, if it was in the air somehow, or if I'd had a previous life there(that would have been bad luck!). All the time I lived there, returning from somewhere, I would see St Laurances's spire in the distance, and have that same feeling of dread everytime.

Bourton-on-the-Water

Felt like a movie set

@gelert5619

I was a nursing student at the Whittington Hospital in the 70's. There were 3 wings, Highgate, another story, St Mary's, yet another story and Archway. Archway looked like a cathedral with a high bell tower in the middle and a spiral staircase inside going right up to the top. You had to pass this to get to the lab to collect blood for transfusion. This was locked at night, you had to ring a bell. You know where I'm going with this. It was very dark and had a very uncomfortable atmosphere. I used to fly up the stairs, past the bell tower to ring the bell as fast as I could! I heard later that someone had hung themselves in the bell tower...

If you thought Whittington was spooky, you should have trained up the road in Friern, where I trained. Now that was spooky!

I can remember being introduced to "Ginger", when I was a very, very small child (4, maybe 5 years old? Maybe younger? Certainly more than 40 years ago). A British Museum keeper in a blue uniform told me about him, and I've always regarded the mummified man as a bit of a friend. He makes me happy when I see him. Yes, I am a bit weird.

Whitby abbey

At the top looking over the sea, really unsettling feeling and I actually got a wave of suicidal thoughts up there and I was in a really happy wonderful place at the time in my life.

Thoughts stopped once we left

@LoveMySituation

I felt horrible the second I set foot in Ludlow, where a parent had decided we'd move to. Dread, uncomfortable, nervous. Hated it. I was 13, and we moved(she wouldn't have cared what I thought about it anyway) By the time I left, a lot of horrible things had happened to me there, I wonder if I somehow picked up on what would happen to me there, if it was in the air somehow, or if I'd had a previous life there(that would have been bad luck!). All the time I lived there, returning from somewhere, I would see St Laurances's spire in the distance, and have that same feeling of dread everytime.

Sorry about your experiences, @LoveMySituation! Yes, Ludlow is creepy. That story of Marion de la Bruyère....

Yosemite. Everything about it creeped me out. I couldn’t wait to leave.

@TellmewhoIam Me and a friend and a group went on a guided ghost walk round Ludlow on Halloween in the dark with just torches, we went round the back of the castle, and all looked up at the window Marion jumped from. That was probably one of the least scary things I saw in my time there

@LoveMySituation it is strangely a relief to hear about the cheesy tour! I foolishly walked into the room alone on a quiet afternoon and looked out the window space, as I always do with windows! Don't try it that way round!

@TellmewhoIam The room she jumped from? I've never been in the castle, wouldn't pay the entry fee! It would have been a horrible landing for her, with those rocks at the bottom. I'm curious about which other parts of Ludlow you felt were creepy?

@LoveMySituation it was mid 2000s, maybe 2005, and the castle was either free or cheap, and bare, not done up. Inside the room was a kind of tingling quiet, like if you walk past classrooms where students are sitting serious exams, or like very faint tinnitus that makes quietness heavy. Despite the sunlight. I was only there 2 nights but was too freaked out to have dinner in the town at all and went for pizza in the also creepy Shrewsbury. I don't remember specific places a lot but there was an indoor place near the market square that felt exposed and weird and so did the market. Then a young man only in boxer shorts, with cabbage leaves on his head like a helmet, came running through the market square chased or accompanied by a few clothed lads.

@TellmewhoIam I'm familiar with that 'heavy quietness' you talk about. That's how Ludlow feels to me, and always did, although it's worse these days, after all my history there. Maybe you felt bad in the market as it's so close to the castle? I've just read that apparently Marion was singing 'Goodbye cruel world' as she fell(I don't think I believe this!) I can only think the cabbage man was something to do with the festival if it was June/July? (I saw similar in Cardiff once, but it was clearly a fresher week stunt)

Poundbury.

Yes, Poundbury.

Poundbury is weird

@Grilledaubergines

Olney- so unwelcoming.

Lymm, weird feeling, very oppressive, unfriendly.

Saxmundham. Couldn’t wait to leave, not a pleasant atmosphere.

Used to live in Saxmundham, moved after a few months. Hated it.

York. I was walking down the Shambles, stopped to look at something and realised that on one side of me was an antique shop with a load of Nazi memorabilia in the window and on the other side was a toyshop with a display of golliwogs. I suddenly felt very unsafe, as if I was in a parallel universe or a time long ago.

@Chocaholic9

Poundbury is weird

Agree totally

Milton Keynes

Shut up CurryLover55, Bodmin jail is now a hotel?!! Its the 2nd creepiest place I've been in, why the hell would people sleep there!!

Looking online its gorgeous, they've done an awesome job of fixing it up, but still!!

The creepiest place I've been in is tgd underground hospital in Guernsey BTW.

@Mrsfrumble

Milton Keynes. We stopped off there a few weeks ago while driving from the midlands back to London. The whole “Midwestern American city plonked down in the Buckinghamshire countryside” vibe was weird and unsettling, and that big, landscaped park had a really unwelcoming, sinister feel. We’d been keen to stop and stretch our legs, but I really wanted to get back in the car and get the hell out of there. Plus all the traffic roundabouts made me travel sick

My DC are obviously immune to this. They've been going to stay with relatives there since they were 3.

What was The Palace Hotel in Manchester - had the most terrifying night there with a presence in my room.

Heptonstall and Hebden Bridge

@sashh, ooh we took our 2-year-old DS with us to Oradour years ago. He went from happy to sombre the instant we went through the entrance. There is definitely an atmosphere there. He wasn’t scared, just very solemn (which was the opposite of how he usually behaved). Once we finished the trip, and as soon as we left the area, he was back to his normal happy self.

@Sunbeam18

Seconding Hebden Bridge. We stopped there on a friend's recommendation for a mooch after leaving Haworth en route to York. I thought the high stone houses as you approach the town centre gave it a very oppressive feel, and apart from 1 or 2 pavement cafes/bars the town centre felt run-down and unfriendly.

I went to Batley once, that was a strange place with something that just felt wrong about it. It just oozed despair and deprivation. The people were weird, friendly and unfriendly at the same time. There was a constant feeling that something was about to happen and it wouldn't be good when it did.

Also walking along the A445 from Leamington to Warwick. Only did it once and there was a series of unconnected peculiar events. A kid in a halloween mask - in spring. A child of about four sitting on the ground in a puddle. A new Tesco with people inside but no way to get in (turned out it wasn't open yet and they were doing a test event to make sure everything was running correctly). Turning into a side street of terraced houses that was straight out of the 1930s, haggard women on their doorsteps turning to glare at me. Several people commenting on my t-shirt, one that nobody had ever commented on before nor would do again. A pub that was basically a front room, packed with (presumably) regulars sitting in silence, again just glared at me as I went in.