Places you have visited with a strange vibe

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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?

i have heard tales of bleak low, i am not keen on the 7 sisters... there are some patch of the peaks that just feel so very off and others that almost welcome you with open arms. it is very odd.

I agree. Its not even particular towns or villages, sometimes just certain spots within the landscape.

Bleaklow trip was on a lovely sunny autumn day - hills have their own weather. Also a crash site WW2 I think, up there. A lonely place.

But like you say, plenty of places up in these here hills that are quite friendly and welcoming. Many more than the weird places.

Devizes.

Forest of Dean

@QueeniesCroft

There is a road which runs through our land, which is just above the shore. I used to have to walk down the road to visit the old lady in the cottage at the other side- it should have taken about 5 minutes to walk, but it never took me more than 2! The cottage was odd too; when I was inside, I would often hear the sound of a car pulling up outside, and sometimes see headlights. Then there would be the sound of a car door slamming. There was never a car there though.

There is the strangest feeling of being followed, and of being watched, or maybe escorted off the land. About halfway along, you hear the sound of some sort of fabric flapping in the wind (but only, for some reason, at night). When I first came here, I assumed a sack had got stuck on a fence, but one day when I remembered about it and went to get rid of the sack, I found there was nothing there. I asked my husband about it and he said something like "Ah, that. You won't find anything, nobody ever has".

Years later, I never walk that road if I can help it, and certainly never after dark. The cottage is now a holiday home and the atmosphere has lightened a little, but it still isn't a place I would ever be able to truly relax.

This reminds me of a couple of M R James stories, A View from a Hill and A Neighbour's Landmark. Both are enjoyably spooky.

There's a castle in a village nearby in which Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned for a while. There are regular ghost tours there in normal times, but sadly, I've never felt any spooky vibes.

[quote Lincslady53]642 people killed at Oradour. Here is a link to the wiki page en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane_massacre[/quote]
I read an article years ago in Paris Match -- the firsthand account of one of the six males to survive the massacre. He lay under the bodies in the barn pretending to be dead. The SS kept monitoring the heap and shooting anyone who moved. They then set fire to the barn, and he stayed put because obviously if you fled, you got shot. So he was burned. In the end he had to escape the flames and dodge another hail of bullets.

One of the most chilling things about it was how the SS kept such a close eye on the place to make sure everyone was dead. It wasn't at all possible to just wait for them to leave so that you could crawl away.

KisstheTeapot14
I didn't sleep! I wish I'd thought about poking a pencil in the eyes but probably wouldn't have done it. I was really naive and not good at standing up for myself. After posting about it on Mumsnet I told my husband what had happened and I think you could say he was a bit surprised!

A couple of years ago my sister and I drove to Grasse ,

Not long ago we stayed in a holiday home in quite a remote area in Scotland. Across a river behind the house we could see a cottage which looked derelict. Full of curiosity, I waded across the river as there seemed to be no access from the road that I could see.
The house was clearly lived in to some extent as there was wood in the shed and signs of a recent fire. However, all the curtains were drawn apart from in one window where we could see very old dusty furniture. In the window was a calendar with the date 1977. It looked like no one had lived there since then. Yet the fire, logs etc in the log store was puzzling. Really creepy and weird. I know I sound very nosy but I was so intrigued.

Vestastilly It's quite a while since I visited the Chalice Well Gardens, but I have a happy memory of sitting there in the sunshine with my family and watching a Merlin-like character washing some large quartz crystals in the flowing water. Then he played the didgeridoo. Not everyone's idea of an afternoon out but it made me happy.

It's interesting about your friend, as it usually seems to be people already frightened of witchy stuff who are the ones who get bad vibes at places with Pagan associations. I don't find stone circles scary - in fact, I go looking for them - though I don't like Stonehenge because it's so ring-fenced and commercialised.

Same goes for the unusual people who are drawn to Glastonbury. I tend to look at them and think, "My people!" I forget that I am a fairly respectable old lady. I walk around the shops in Glastonbury, pointing to the noticeboards and saying, "Look at all the Pagan events I could go to if we lived here!" And my atheist husband looks at cafe menus and says, "Look at the prices! I'm not paying that for a bloody beanburger'" So, maybe Glastonbury has become a bit too commercialised too.

If I had to name a place I found profoundly depressing and would never willingly go there, it would be Canary Wharf. Not spooky but just... ugh.

I thought a lot of Tasmania was a bit weird. It's like nowhere else.. very odd vibe in a lot of areas.

@wantanotherdog I am just SO glad you got out safely!

Think you and I would both have had to channel our inner Villanelle in order to do the pencil stunt and successfully out psycho the person behind the picture.

I'm sure I did read a news story about someone (or a couple) who owned a hotel and regularly spied on their guests.

Yuck!

Glad someone mentioned St Austell, my mum and I love holidaying in Mevagissey and have to get the train to St Austell then bus/cab to our hotel. Went there for a day trip once and we both hated it, couldn't wait to leave. Felt very "left behind" and deserted. Eerie.

Really like Bath but find the New Forest really creepy and it makes me feel sad everytime i have been!

I've only been to Saltburn once, and thought it was great! We had delicious fish and chips on the pier and DH loved the cloud lift so much he went on several times

My DSis lives in a very old house and I don't feel comfortable there. Her old house had a very different vibe, so I know that it's not just my DSis!

@Vivana

Epping Forest in Essex. I was brought up there most of my life and always get a strange feeling there. Specially by hangman's Hill.

Same here. You realise how very thin is the veneer of civilisation. It felt very ancient (well, it is) and unsafe

Apologies to those that live there but Tilbury. We made the mistake of looking at houses there. It had a very hills have eyes/Eden Lake vibe.

Also Madrid at night time, we made the mistake of venturing to a city park at night and we could not get out of there quick enough. Lots of gangs everywhere and it felt very threatening. It is a beautiful city though.

some of these are interesting but i don’t really get the same feeling - eg osterley, blackheath have all been fine

Anna Frank museum in Amsterdam was very difficult to be in

Sagrada Familia was just the strangest building I’ve ever seen - creepy AF, but incredible - i couldn’t stop looking at it

Glastonbury and other parts of Somerset - Frome - definitely feel uncomfortable. Has a hand maids tail vibe for me!

Bayview outside Houston - looking for a motel - bound to have a great view.... er no - middle of an oil field. Awful. Not comfortable there AT ALL

See for me the new forest is like going home. I once was having a horrific patch of insomnia, took a day trip, found a car park and had the best quality sleep in the form of a nap i had had for a long time. It is somewhere i make the effort to go back to, because it really does lift my spirits. but it is like the peaks where some patches feel really welcoming and some really really don't

@vestastilly

Years ago my friend was at uni and her halls had been an asylum. Each cell had been converted into a room for a student but was still quite visibly a cell and the bathrooms are communal. It was the longest weekend of my life as I just felt awful the whole time. My friend said that she often heard something that sounded like scraping around the walls of her room. Other place of note was the chalice well in Glastonbury. The gardens were beautiful but the well itself I found very disturbing it literally felt like it was sucking me down into it. I had to move away from it in the end.

Seething Wells?

@celiamary

Trebarwith Strand near Tintagel in winter felt incredibly isolated or 'separate'. It was a long time ago that I visited. Another was at Davidstow on the old airfield, I was driving across in the afternoon and saw a huge strange shape in the sky. Daniken's stupid book on aliens had recently been published along with many items on UFOs. I stopped the car watching this thing change shape. It came nearer and I realised it was starlings. A huge flock. Not seen much these days because of fewer birds. If I had been further away and the other side towards Altarnun. I probably would not have known what it really was and still be thinking of it as a mystery.

Just picking up on Davidstow.

My dad was a duty technician looking after the radio masts up there in1955-ish.

He said it was an odd and weird place to be. Strange sudden weather, odd people appearing, weird 'howling' sounds out on the moor in the mid evenings....

Agree with those who say East Sussex. Firle Beacon can feel desolate. I was once offered a whole furnished house and garden to rent in an East Sussex village, for £300/month. The top floor was locked. The old home had the family's things in it, including ancient children's furniture, and coffee tables with legs that were the actual furred and hooves legs of deer. It was rambling with lovely grounds but felt unutterably sad, as if someone were walking up and down and weeping. I needed somewhere to live but said no. A neighbour told me "something like that" (the weeping) "had happened".

@Fatredwitch I am also pagan and a witch and I hate Glastonbury.

I live fairly close to it but like a previous poster I'd rather shop in Yeovil too!

It gives me a dreadful headache if I'm there more than an hour or two. I find it a horrible toxic place full of very damaged people and those who prey upon them.

@Melocoton

Really like Bath but find the New Forest really creepy and it makes me feel sad everytime i have been!

I feel like that but probably as my ex lives there in our old home