What places in the UK have weirded you out?

[Oollliivviiaa]

I know Glastonbury and Bath always come up but where else have you been that just felt "off". Not scary or unsafe as such, just made you feel unwelcome and want to leave. And logically, WHY do you think they do?

Mine are

• Glasgow Centeal station. I've been to lots of stations at all sorts of times but this station always makes me uneasy even during the day when it's busy. Maybe it's because it's such an odd station and easy to get disoriented in.

And

• Berwick on Tweed. Really, really weird vibes there. People were nice enough but it felt a bit like there was some sort of sinister undercurrent. Why? I actually don't know. All I can think of is that it feels quite isolated and a bit like the edge of the world. Maybe the history of the place, means it feels like a no man's land? I know lots of people really like it.

And

• Holy Island. The history, bleakness and again, isolation I think. Plus when we went, all you could hear was the wind and seals which is a bit spooky. I liked it there though.

Great Yarmouth 🤣🤣 I love Bath and Camden!!

Wasn’t there a program about this once? Or have got a Mandela effect thing going on?? Where a woman was outside and suddenly was taken back years ago when she walked through the door…. I cannot remember what it was I watched but something is familiar! I know all the roads that lead away from little old Bacup are hot spots for UFO activity! We also get the northern lights a lot! If I wasn’t from here I’d find it very odd!!!

Wow!
Can you expand on why?

Surely that's the same as someone upthread mentioned Culloden, you know what happened there and it's in your mind. My late OH dragged us round numerous American Civil War battlefields and I felt the same there, as though we were encroaching on the grief of others.

My Grandma owned a dress shop in stacksteads back when the high street was king ,she sold it in the early 70,s it was a video shop at one point.

My Aunt lived in a tiny village, in a beautiful Georgian cottage that looked out onto a quiet lane and open fields. Quintessential little England.

There was something very wrong with that lane. In daytime it just made me feel uncomfortable to stand in the lane, but in the dark it was unspeakable. A malevolent atmosphere that just felt so menacing and aware.

I never told anyone because I felt embarrassed (family and friends are very non woo too).

Then I caught a local taxi and was half listening to the driver when, apropos of nothing, he mentioned he wouldn't do evening pick-ups from the pub in my Aunt's village. The reason? Because you had to park in that (very same) lane while waiting for your fare, and it 'absolutely creeped him out'. He didn't elaborate and I said nothing.

But there's something very wrong with that lane.

lol, I’m on the phone to my mother at the moment asking if she remembers this! My nana lived across the road from what used to be the video shop!!

I used to horse ride as a child around the Chanctonbury ring area. The horses used to go crazy when we went up there. There is a lot of local folklore about the place. Very eerie.

That's unusual, in all the churches I've been associated with we try to make strangers feel very welcome, they may stop being strangers and become regular bums on pews and we need that!

Warwick Castle gave me the shivers.

The dam that burst in Dolgarrog North Wales the evidence of huge rocks still scattered across the landscape.

"Dolgarrog dam disaster memorial - History Points" https://historypoints.org/index.php?page=dolgarrog-dam-disaster-memorial

London Science museum a bit like Selfridges - once we'd seen enough and wanted to go, we couldn't figure out how to get out at all. I don't think it's a marketing strategy to keep you there longer but who knows!

I certainly have been to Bacup! We'd met up with a friend for lunch in Todmorden on a beautiful clear summer's day. For reasons best known to Maserati the satnav took us back to Manchester through Bacup and a thick fog that just descended out of nowhere. The temperature also plummeted by about ten degrees while the rest of East Lancs basked in glorious sunshine.

Me too! my colleagues and I were being driven past there in the evening, I had no idea where we were having landed at an airport earlier and chatting most of the journey - I asked the driver what the area was to the left - It seemed bleak darker than dark and menacing I’d never had a feeling like that before, he said oh that’s Saddleworth moor” I literally shivered, really odd

I can’t even think about Burnham Market without feeling cold and dark and sad. We went for a holiday there about ten years ago and left after three days because I felt so weird. I’m not normally a woo person at all.

I also get the same feeling about Whitehaven and I haven’t been there for 40 years!

My great-aunt had a flat overlooking Beachy Head. There was a creepy lifeboat museum nearby.

Yes there was a tv program about it, can't remember what it was called though.

Went to a park in Gloucester once, parked up on a side road, looked up and saw a sign.. Cromwell Street.. yeah that one. I shivered

I've only ever experienced this feeling once. I was in Leeds visiting my great aunt and went to a park there, it was beautiful but I had what would probably be called a panic attack now - I was very little and I started to sweat and felt faint and violently sick, I ended up having to be taken home to her flat. I found out much later in life that it was the site of one of the Yorkshire Ripper attacks, although thankfully the poor victim survived.
Also, as a Liverpudlian I'm intrigued by those mentioning the city - it does seem to be a marmite city for visitors!

Northampton.

Alarming public display of dogging in a town centre car park at midday on a weekday.

Couldn’t get out of there fast enough - it was like being in one of those weird insular towns in the US Midwest.

Another vote for Hastings here.

This probably belongs in one of those recent threads about the most unreasonable reasons for getting the ick — I once dumped a guy pretty much because he lived in Hastings. I just couldn’t face visiting him there too often… it was sooo depressing.

Yes!

There used to be a back way in and it was very very eerie in the dusk specially if it was misty or there was mizzle. In the old days before it was pepped up it was incredibly sad. Saw some odd things there - a fungus flowering on top of an old tree stump that was the size of a dinner plate and a strange multihued pink. Was like something out of Dr Who.

Bellingham in Northumberland. Boy that place is odd.

The severely misnamed Blyth in Northumberland.

For those of you who aren't in the know, The South officially starts anywhere south of Yorkshire, or so it was agreed at uni 😁

I had quite a few driving lessons up on Saddleworth Moor. It was always misty, but easier to drive around than the Town That Shall Not Be Named where I had to do my driving test (yes, that's already cropped up a few times, and I have no issue with that).

I'm surprised to see how many times Hebden Bridge and Todmorden have been mentioned, as I grew up near there... though seeing that my adopted home of North Wales has also been mentioned, perhaps I like 'weird' places!

For me, my 'weirded out' places that I couldn't wait to leave are:

1. The London Underground. I was 21-ish and had barely left the countryside, so trying to navigate the Tube was interesting...

2.Coventry city centre. I was glad when I didn't have to go there once a month to the bank anymore! 3.Anywhere that is weirdly flat. I grew up in hill country and moved to somewhere with more hills and mountains than you can shake a stick at, so flat areas just look a bit odd to me. 4.The Trafford Centre, but maybe that's because I am more at home in agricultural feed merchant stores than enormous shopping centres!

The Isle of Iona. I'm Christian, I've wanted to go there for ages but it was so creepy. Not a good energy at all. Couldn't wait to leave.

Also very strange vibes in St Mabyn in Cornwall. I wouldn't go back there, it was even "darker" than St Just.

Barrow in Furness, it's like a Poundshop The Hills Have Eyes!

I used to go to motorbike rallies and met a couple from there with a pub, the Rifleman's Arms. They invited a load of us, about 20 went over. One couple were doctors and they said it was really inbred - loads of them had weird teeth and mismatched ears.

The bloke who had the pub described it as,

One road in, 70,000 people and 5 surnames.

(Sorry if anyone is from Barrow...)

Yes it was. I think I couldn’t get that out of my mind when I went there so that probably didn’t help.

its just the whole of Cannock chase that makes me feel odd, we went to visit the German war cemetery and it was lovely tbf, very peaceful but I felt off as soon as we got there and as soon as I got out of there and were walking to the car, this car passed us, slowed down, reversed, this man American sounding guy shouts out of his window for us to get out of here, leave, drive far away from here as possible, there’s something evil lurking here, please for the love of god just go, he went on an on until we got into our car, Dh just laughed and then laughed at me but I absolutely freaked out, to the point of crying. I’m used to my fair share of nut jobs, I mean I lived with my ex for years 😂 but that day…I will never go back there