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.

A couple of people have mentioned St Andrews, I've never felt uneasy in the town but there's a country park just outside it that gives me the absolute creeps. The tree lined walkway in the picture feels really weird and oppressive to walk through and the dilapidated Dutch Village in the middle of the boating lake is creepy as hell. There's an old disused hospital on the site that's reported to be haunted too.

Eyam in Derbyshire. It is known as the plague village as it isolated itself in the 1600s when plague came. Many of the residents died. There are plaques on many of the houses telling you who died there. We were there by chance on the week they "dress the wells". It was all really bid vibes for me.

Another weird place is St Nectan's Glen in Cornwall. We took pictures of our daughters in the famous waterfall there- this was back in the early 2000s when we were still using a camera and getting the film developed. And on the prints, one of our daughters was surrounded by orbs. We had the same at one of the stops on the Ffestiniog railway in north Wales. Same daughter.

Eccles is grim and I'm fairly certain has a disproportionate number of people with three eyes. I once sat in the branch of Halifax on Church Street having to overhear the conversation in one of the interview rooms - someone had lent her debit card to her teenage son and he'd racked up a huge overdraft, and she was raging that Halifax weren't going to compensate her. I've heard some pretty industrial language over the years but very little on this scale.

That said, Eccles doesn't weird me out. I just find it sad. It's hard to believe that you can walk from there and be in Monton in 25 minutes.

Camping is fine though because you're only there for a short while, my PIL live right in the New Forest have done since the 1970s, they love it otherwise they wouldn't have lived there for so long but even they say they see strange things on a regular basis, only recently there were strange lights coming from the woods in the dead of night at the back of their house, they find animals mutilated too. they're not too far from Burley which is a well known Witches village..

I no longer live in the UK, and what I find odd is I haven’t had that ‘this place feels a bit off’ feeling anywhere I’ve been in the country in which I now reside. It’s not because there aren’t objectively weird places here (there are!) but I don’t know the place as well as I know the UK to even detect that ‘off’ feeling. It’s very strange and I’ve only just realised it reading this thread!

To answer the question, for me it’s Bristol. The sense of dread I felt there really took me by surprise. I thought this must be a vibrant, relatively affluent, artsy student city and was expecting to love it. Instead I slipped into a weird depression for the 2 days I was there. 😕

Interesting so many mentions of the Forest of Dean. I had a creepy experience there when I was a teenager, camping in the early 2000’s. Is it known for being creepy? I’m scared to google now 😂

Yes agree with this . Very strange place

Bold street!

@Motherknowsrest - I think that’s on the A31 or A35? With the dark brown brick wall which goes around the edge of the road for miles?

That’s the estate where the former Tory MP Richard Drax lives. The family made their money from sugar plantations in Barbados. (There was a protest outside the gates a year or two ago with people wanting reparations).

I had some guys doing some building work on my house: they did some work on the Drax estate. They said that the large stag on top of one of the gateways has five legs (it’s true) because the view from the main house only showed three legs due to the angle the stag was positioned in. A fifth leg was added to make the view from the house more attractive!

Yes! I felt a very strange depressing atmosphere when I visited Masham. I learnt the main square is basically an old burial ground.

That Druids temple isn’t too far away either and that had one strange sinister atmosphere for a supposed folly!

I hate driving past the clootie well but like the rest of the Black Isle 😂

For some reason Newton Abbot gave me the heeby jeebies and I had that fight or flight feeling. I also ran out of the catacombs in Budapest. There was a bar there and everything but I RAN out of that place.

Harwich. Fond memories. Went back recently and the level of open drug abuse was really sad and frightening.

Burntwood and Chasetown in Staffordshire

That feeling as if some force is pulling you to the sharp, sheer edge or you get a sudden, compelling urge to run right over it?

This has commonly been reported by many people. Sounds akin to the sense of danger Burke would have called the sublime - something in our primeval selves seems to want to flirt with danger even against our best inclinations.

I live close to a notorious suicide spot. Oddly enough I’ve always felt at peace there. But something about the atmosphere on Beachy Head fills me with a sick sense of dread I can’t even describe.

I don’t care if I never set foot on that place again.

Also feel the same as the poster upthread about Chesil Beach.

I used to drive through Avebury every day to work. Whilst I felt the stones somehow energised me, it was a bit creepy. The pub there is haunted too.

Yes hastings
Felt uneasy for days after coming home. Very odd. Chillingham castle is grim too.

Poplar. Crossing the footbridge over the road from Canary Wharf and it felt like the whole mood changed, I didn't like walking there at all.

So glad you mentioned Whitehaven.

I visited and didn’t like it at all. Virtually dead town with very little going on.

I loved the children of the stone and moondial.

@Crushed23 that's exactly how I felt in Bristol. It can't be that it felt "rough", as I was living and teaching in South East London at the time. Someone suggested it might be because of being the centre of the slave trade. I definitely felt "off" and very uneasy - I was more than happy to go and visit my friends in Bath instead!

I’m from the south and live in Liverpool. It took me a while to settle here, there’s a certain arrogance (can’t think of a better word) about many locals around how they’re so friendly, the city is unique etc. I’ve lived and worked in a few places and it’s really not that different. There’s certainly some cultural uniqueness and qwerks here. The people are friendly but that tends to be to “their own” and they’re not so friendly to a lot of outsiders and a lot of people have very backwards, outdated views. All that said, I do really like living here now!

I recently went to Holland Park area (which I miraculously managed to avoid for 15 years living in London) and got freaked out by the crowd - all people there seemed to be either extravagant tourists or rich Russians.

Also, always weirded out by the strange concentration of Italian tourists on Portobello Road. Every second person seem to be Italian. Is there something that makes them flock there?

Yes, we stayed in cowsgate last year and a decapitated head was found just outside our hotel. The place is creepy

I'm also local to Mansfield and your not wrong!
The peak district is creepy I love it though it has a witchy vibe.
Not sure if I've posted this before but me and Dh visited Buxton once, we both are interested in different shops so he went one way I went another both of us had the same creepy experience in different shops both came upon a basement area in a shop that had stock in that normally we would be rummaging through without hesitation but the door was a heavy wooden one with bolts on the outside and no other person in the basement area and we both had an overwhelming feeling that if we went in the room the door would be locked behind us and we would be trapped!! Found the whole place off tbh waiting for the bus home and was so anxious it wouldn't come and we would be stuck there!
Wirksworth is also very creepy the big church does not feel like a church at all you feel watched the whole time. I've had loads of creepy things happen in the peak district.
Matlock bath is lovely I love the feeling of the seaside inland one thing though they really need to work on the chippies all the ones I've tried are awful!!