Places you have visited with a strange vibe

[RevolvingPivot]

Hi. I'm off to Saltburn (near Whitby) tomorrow and I feel sick. I visited last March. The weekend before the lockdown.

The place was so eerie. I was actually freaked out on the pier and had to run off it. I actually managed to sleep at night but I honestly didn't think I would.

The cottage was surrounded by cliffs and there was a Victorian lift and a small morgue by the beach. I'm not sure whether these have anything to do with it.

Has anyone else had this feeling from a place they have visited?

@KisstheTeapot14

Slebech Church. Wales.

You could go through a hole in the barbed wire to get closer but I felt quite unnerved by it.

Gothic churches are always a bit creepy, unlike Norman/mediaeval ones which are quite peaceful.

ps I am currently making a list of some of these places!!!

@contrary13 that church is in East Wellow in Hampshire - just south of Salisbury (so Wilts/Hants border maybe). My mum and her friend rented rooms in the vicarage, right next to the church, when they were training to be nurses in the 1950s and became friends with the vicar (he'd advertised the rooms in the Nursing Times because of the Florence Nightingale connection!) I was christened in that church in the 60s and am seriously considering a little pilgrimage back there. I have been as a child and remember it as idyllic! Now having second thoughts!!

I agree with PPs about Snowdonia, and this thread has brought a fascinating realisation ... a common link seems to be socially-deprived villages and communities set in stunning landscapes. So there's a disjunct visually between the towns and the settings. And the people can often seem wary/kind of resentful of tourists, which doesn't help ...

This is so weird, I opened the thread and I was about to say how Saltburn leaves me feeling really weird. Creeped out now lol

Not a place as such but when we were house hunting, we viewed a fairly standard 1930s semi. It was furnished but didn’t feel lived in at all. It felt grubby but not in the sense it needed cleaning. I still can’t put my finger on it to this day - it just felt like something terrible had happened there, the atmosphere was all wrong. Suffice to say, we didn’t put in an offer!

@contrary13 St Margaret's church, East Wellow, it's haunted I've just googled it !

@kebabmuncher

I found Buxton bizarre. As if there was a tension in the air, or a sense of foreboding. We drove there across the really high moors and I felt quite unsettled there too. Like we were being watched. I suppose it was the emptiness and bleakness of the landscape.

Buxton is a bit bizarre @kebabmuncher

I think it's the fact that it's a bowl within the hills around.
Or a petri dish.

Though oddly lacking in any ghost stories - I have looked/asked.

There is just one house that is continually on and off the market which is locally reputed to be haunted.

I live nearby and work with people who have been here all their lives (and back in generations too).

It's the kind of town where you need 3 generations in the churchyard before you are classed as a local.

I think it was Wallsend museum in my previous post.

Another odd works trip, stopped off in York for a coffee and walk and had never been there before as an adult so didn't know where I was going. Found a cafe, it was busy, ordered a cup of tea went and sat upstairs the whole room went silent when I entered, the decor washed non existant it was like a white box, tiny windows to so no views or ability to people watch... My tea never arrived... I left!

Stayed in a Rock House in Kinver. Didn't like it.

Elmesthorpe plantation woods

@CounsellorTroi I agree. The style is all a bit Victorian/Dracula, but its a a weird angle from the road. It was closed in 1990 due to subsidence and has a local legend that it was built on a 'wrong axis' (there's a particular alignment East to West). I'm not sure there is any factual basis to this, but the architect is supposed to have hung himself in the bell tower when he realised.

(Suitably spooky tale but I doubt you could build a church and not realise this before completion!)

Hull.

Football ground had a sponsor who make toilets, another who make chemicals including those for toilets. No takeaways open at 5 pm on a Saturday.

City of culture apparently. Culture of a Petri dish perhaps. The only time we nearly had a lengthy disagreement at work on one project was over who should visit Hull as no one wanted to go.

Il-de-re, France. Wanted to visit for years. We hired a campervan and planned on staying at Sainte-Marie for 5 nights but stayed only 2. Both of us could not settle and had fever dreams all night. Couldn't wait to leave (shudders)

Can anyone explain how Townsville is weird and creepy ? I've been invited to visit there by my elderly Aunt (she actually lives on Magnetic Island - but if she wants to do anything gets the ferry to Townsville) My Uncle was in hospital there during the final weeks of his life and I was phoning him every day towards the end. They've lived there for years (as did my cousin) and never mentioned any weirdness. My curiosity is peaked :D

@kitnkaboodleI have been to St Margaret's Church hundreds of times over the years both alone and with others and have yet to have a spooky experience so I think you will be ok! I was also married there - hence the namechange!

@contrary13 - the door is even older, I think it is medieval. It is always cool inside because the stone walls are so thick. I love it there. There is actually a "secret" passage from the church to a nearby manor house and I would love to go through it but it is private and (I think) bricked up.

Stayed in a Rock House in Kinver. Didn't like it.
I love visiting them but I wouldn't want to sleep in a cave either!

@AmyDudley

Can anyone explain how Townsville is weird and creepy ? I've been invited to visit there by my elderly Aunt (she actually lives on Magnetic Island - but if she wants to do anything gets the ferry to Townsville) My Uncle was in hospital there during the final weeks of his life and I was phoning him every day towards the end. They've lived there for years (as did my cousin) and never mentioned any weirdness. My curiosity is peaked :D

I thought it was fine.

Rockhampton on the other hand.... one can feel the presence of murderers

Mumsnet

I’ve been to Magnetic Island! It’s lovely. I went to Townsville in the 90s and it may have been spruced up since then. I was backpacking and stayed it the most fearful hostel with very creepy inhabitants, straight out of a slasher film.

One of the MAFS Australia contestants came from Townsville.it might be quite nice now but it gave me the creeps when I was there.

Spandau prison, which was in Berlin until it was demolished in 1987. The Nazis used it to torture and murder people. I've never felt such an appalling atmosphere of evil, misery and dread in my life.

My mum grew up in Wellow. She always speaks fondly of it.

Saddleworth Moor is bloody horrible. I know it has recent history that's colouring my perception somewhat, but it's so big and empty and wind-blasted and oppressive. It would be so easy to get lost there and never be found.
Superficially it's quite similar to the area where I live, but it's a hundred times more creepy.

A few people have mentioned York minster but it's one of my favourite places in the world! I find it peaceful and light! Spent many a Saturday there! (Before you had to pay!).

Used to use the taxi rank outside too after a night out and always used to feel reassured being in the shadow of the minster!

Always got a creepy vibe from the castle museum though-have had many a recurrent nightmare set there!!

Cliffords tower just makes me feel really sad.

My nanas old house in York used to creep my out...hated going upstairs!!

Culloden, couldn't hold back tears!
There were a few places on Guernsey and Jersey to do with the war that had a weird feeling about them but I was young and can't remember exactly what I found so strange about them.

Kupari - the ruins of a former military holiday resort near Dubrovnik. It made me feel really shaky and tearful. You could go into some of the buildings - pic below is of the former ballroom, inside Hotel Goricina.

Keswick always make me feel uneasy and on edge, even when it isn’t too busy. Love all the other Cumbrian towns and villages we visit.
Ravenglass, mentioned upthread, had a strange but attractive vibe. Just the way the street meanders down to the shore.