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?

A play park in central France about 15 years ago. Bouncy pillows, ride on bikes, miniature train, etc. But we were the only ones there. Middle of summer. Everything looked a bit tired, grass growing up through the paving etc. Kids had a great time mind 🤷

Lorna Doone Valley. Went to look at a property on a warm sunny day, I couldn't wait to leave. The whole area had a heavy, dark, depressing feeling about it. It made me feel physically ill and very distressed.

@CorvusPurpureus

A house I lived in with in the U.K. when the kids were small had a decidedly creepy vibe to one whole 'end' of it. Massive Victorian doer-upper money pit.

Dining room - spooky. Various efforts to get dc to use it for crafts etc completely failed...they'd just drift back out on any pretext.

Bathroom above it - also 'Nope'. It had an amazing roll top bath which we renovated around. No one ever soaked in that bath .

Bedroom next to the iffy bathroom - originally a study for me, because whilst it was a lovely, quirky room, which we thought then 5yo Ds would love, he was having none of it & demanded a box room at the other end of the house instead.

I used to work in there late at night. I'd generally be quite absorbed, but every so often I'd take a break & have a strong, & not entirely friendly, sense of Not Being Alone. I bolted out of there once or twice...

In the course of the renovations, dd1 took a fancy to the study & bagged it as her bedroom so she wouldn't have to share with dd2. She occupied it happily for a couple of years.

Chatting to dd2, now a teenager & several years after we moved out of that house, & apropos of nothing she informs me that 'oh yeah, that was when I had the haunted bedroom. I was mostly ok with it, it was the corridor outside I really didn't like. It was looking down towards that horrible bathroom.'

Me: 'what?! You're the least woo person I know!'

Dd1: 'yup, but that house didn't care that I wasn't woo. Right? You aren't either.'

Me: 'bollocks!'

Dd2: 'That bath, though.'

Me: 'well, ok...'

It genuinely was just creepy down that end of the house. We had people crash after parties in the dining room who really didn't sleep well & were quite sheepish about it.

No idea what the background was!

We lived in a house like that for a while - it was originally 2 cottages, but had been knocked together into 1, so there was a really obvious divide between the nice side and the creepy side. They were both really old (Tudor) and I'd sometimes find myself pondering things like how many people had died in our bedroom - despite these thoughts I was never afraid in that part of the house. When dh was away overnight I would shut all the doors that led to the creepy bit and just exist in the nice bit! I didn't see or experience anything I could describe, other than a different atmosphere in what was the two separate cottages.

@SmidgenofaPigeon

Having never suffered a day of what others describe as depression in my life, I was awful in Berlin. I honestly felt like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders, I kept bursting into tears and was crying in a bloody restaurant which was embarrassing and very unlike me indeed. I couldn’t understand it. I felt like this black fog had attached itself to me, I felt so heavy and sad. Weird, because I think it’s an awesome city, but I could not get rid of that feeling.

Never felt like that before or since.

This ! I was exactly the same in Berlin . I found it overwhelming the sense of misery I had.

@buildersteagirl

Lorna Doone Valley. Went to look at a property on a warm sunny day, I couldn't wait to leave. The whole area had a heavy, dark, depressing feeling about it. It made me feel physically ill and very distressed.

Interesting. I live very near Exmoor

Can I add Lundy Island. Very beautiful but staying there was terrifying....

I grew up in Lincolnshire on the edge of the fens. The farm was literally in the middle of nowhere. It was really oppressive, so much sky. All these years later I still have disturbing dreams of the surrounding lands.

breadlebane. got out the car and felt -horrendous -like my soul was drained from me.

As a student, I went to another town with a friend to visit her friend. The house they lived in belonged to the church. The house was filled with icons and there was a room that was a mini chapel. There was also a dining room with a huge table. Once a week the students who lived in the house had to dine there with dignitaries from the church. The whole place had a weird vibe.

Dungeness!! And dymchurch. Just odd. Especially out of season!

As others have said, Auchwitz.

Also Lima, Peru. It felt sinister. The whole time I was there I kept looking over my shoulder in case anyone jumped out at me. I’ve never felt like that anywhere else (in Peru or elsewhere).

@ratatat66 I went to Sarajevo and find it hard to describe to people who haven't been. Although the people were lovely, it felt so cut off and traumatised.

@BreakingtheIce

The Jersey underground hospital always comes up in these threads. I don’t know what went on there!

It was the hospital for the German occupying troops during WW2. It was built by slave labour. Ditto Guernsey (which has been left much more as was and feels more eerie than the one in Jersey which has been turned into more of a museum).

Actually the atmosphere was completely ruined last time I was there by them playing Radio 1 in the cafe, completely out of keeping.

The basement of Block 11 in Auschwitz when I saw the Standing Cells & just looking around... I felt panicky & claustrophobic like something was pressing on my chest.
Although I obviously knew about the gas chambers in Birkenau; I didn't know until later that the first deadly gassing experiments were carried out on 100s of prisoners in that actual basement.
I visited Auschwitz & Birkenau with a friend in 2019. Although we knew it would be sad, we didn't expect it to affect us so much as it did.

The Underground Hospital in Jersey was built by 1000s of slave labourers, many of whom died in the tunnels during the construction of the hospital. I visited age 20 & found it very depressing.

@CustardySergeant

"Winchelsea near Rye - deserted and has a Hot Fuzz/birds don’t sing there vibe." I live a few miles away and I agree. It has a very strange atmosphere.

As a child we often went to Dartford heath and I always found it very eerie.

I agree Winchelsea is a strange place but more because there's nothing there. You'd expect such a pretty place to have a nice tearoom or two, but it doesn't (or at least didn't in 2015). It isn't supernaturally weird, just feels like a wasted opportunity. Rye is much nicer.

@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

Just look at the place!!! It’s AWFUL!!

Something else. I've buried it for years but this is fairly anonymous. I was 20 and was staying in a B and B. It was about 10pm. I was in my room, getting ready for bed, but kept having the feeling that someone was watching me. There was a painting of a head and shoulders on the wall. And the eyes were moving. There was someone on the other side of the wall. It was like something from a film. The B and B was in the middle of nowhere. I didn't have a car. I was absolutely terrified. The next morning, my boyfriend collected me. I didn't tell him. Or anyone. No one would have believed me.

It just sounds so bizarre! Somebody also mentioned Bridgnorth upthread and apparently, Hitler wanted to make it his new capital once he invaded and had taken over Britain

I thought he wanted to make Oxford his capital and that was why it wasn't heavily bombed during WW2.

Has anyone on here been to Lidice? It was the Oradour of Czechoslovakia.

Yes, I agree. Horrible feeling.

Pretty gorgeous in Saltburn today

@Lupinhere37

Forest of Dean again but specifically Lydney Harbour. Had an overwhelming feeling of fear and felt like I was being watched. My DD actually felt someone push her and I saw her stumble but the side lane we were walking on was empty.

Also, a pub/ hotel just outside Bath, in a little village called Norton St Philip. A timber framed, Tudor type style place. Goodness; never felt fear like it. My DD, who was six at the time we visited, was also paralysed with fear; white faced and shaking. I was struck by a premonition that there was to be an unexpected death in the family and there was, within weeks.
I can’t even drive past the village now; I have to detour. Eleven years on, I feel sick thinking of it.
I read in an article a few years later that people stay overnight, ghost hunting there.

I feel certain some shocking things must have happened in these places in years gone by.

We stayed in Lydney a few years ago. That harbour made me feel so uncomfortable that I insisted we leave. The tide was out. It was so bleak it made me shudder.

Agree with pp on Ludgershall, Wiltshire - literally dread driving through it just feels so desolate, empty and weird!

Kinlochleven. Horrible place, with a weird eerie atmosphere. I've never been creeped out by anywhere like that, before or since.

The Clerkenwell House of Detention. Old underground prison I visited years ago. I felt so unwell and overwhelmed by the sounds and smells they had installed... crying, muttering, sweaty smells and hot and cold air. Like the trench experience at the Imperial War Museum but so strong. When I got up into the entrance again and mentioned this was told there were none...
Anyone else had a similar experience when it was open?

@EstuaryBird

I’m not easily spooked, I live next to a cemetery, but I can’t believe nobody’s mentioned The Colloseum 😳.

I’d already found Rome a bit ‘uncomfortable’ but put it down to too many people but when we went to the Colloseum I never felt a feeling like it.

Went in and all OK, quite interesting. Had a wander about, went early so not many people, then as we were walking across the middle it felt more and more oppressive. I couldn’t even speak to DH, just pointed to a way out and legged it.

We went to Ostia Antica next day which I quite liked but spent the whole time dreading going back to Rome.

We’d been to Italy several times and always loved it but weirdly that one moment has now to an aversion to the whole of Italy and I doubt I’ll ever go back 😢

In other news I love Dungeness and Romney Marsh 😊. I love bleak, flat marshland with endless skies and very few people.

Oh, I loved Rome, such an amazing city full of interesting things. The only thing I felt about the colloseum was that it was bloody expensive for what it was (considering we couldn't see the underground bits) compared to several other places in Rome.