Creepy, odd places you have been

[JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff]

I have been dying for a good creepy thread for ages so thought I'd start one

Two stand out for me -

Doing the Dales Way with DH, we stopped one night in a tiny Dales hamlet. 2-3 houses, pub, church. That was it. Not much to do and it was a summer evening so we followed a public footpath through a kissing gate and went for a dip in a deep stream.

When we came back the same way about 30 mins later, someone had nailed 3 freshly dead voles to the gate.

Also, on holiday in France, staying in a rural villa, I went for a run early one morning. Ran past a back road signposted to a quaint sounding village. Decided to take a look. Down a narrow wooded road for a hundred yards, quite a dark road, then out into bright August 8am sunshine in a naice little village.

It was the vacances and the place was deserted, but it was just.... off. The cars were on the drives in most cases, but the shutters were all shut. No dog or cat, not even birdsong, just dead. There was a local noticeboard where the most recent notice was from the previous October. It was a lovely day but the whole place just felt dead. I tried to be brave for about 5 minutes and then cracked and fled, back down the dark road, with the strongest feeling that something was right behind me, just like when you're a kid going downstairs in a dark house and you daren't turn round to look back at the landing.

Anyone else have a creepy place story to share?

My mum has always said the German underground hospital on Jersey has the worst feeling she's got from a place. I see a couple of other posters have mentioned it.

Op the experience you had in France sounds like one of those time slip things that have been reported about. I'm sure there was a thread on here once where they were discussed. Google the Versailles one - whether you believe or not it's still fascinating! I think I remember reading about one in some mining village or something which two men visited. A common characteristic of them is that the world suddenly becomes eerily silent and almost 'two dimensional'

I visited Hatshepsut's temple in the Valley of the Kings and couldn't get away from there quick enough. It felt sinister and unwelcoming. There had been a massacre there previously but it was almost as though the unwelcoming feel was some kind of ancient vibe.

We were driving through Swaziland a few years ago and noticed a 'ghost town' mentioned briefly in the guide book. It had been a small mining town (possibly an asbestos mine) which had been completely deserted, but was left in tact.

Thinking this sounded interesting, we headed off up a small path which became less and less like a proper road and eventually turned into a small track. We drove through a forest for a while, not coming across any other vehicles until the trees ended and we emerged into a screen of smoke with a few goats wandering around. Then we saw mounds of smouldering wood by the side of the track and nearly jumped out of our skins when a rusty old tractor creaked out behind us. We guessed it was some kind of logging area, but it was so eerie. We carried on driving up a 'road' which went over some kind of slag heap, mostly because we couldn't turn back due to the tractor behind us and ended up cresting a hill on little more than a goat path.

Over the side of the hill was a cheerful looking settlement of multicoloured prefab style buildings, leading down to a pretty little village that very clearly wasn't abandoned. It turned out that since the guidebook had been published, the village had been taken over by a charity who had turned it into a kind of orphanage community. The colourful prefabs had been workers accommodation, but now each one housed a 'mama' and a few orphans. There was a nursery school and some arts places in the centre. We had lunch in the cafe and ate a delicious pasty. The whole experience was surreal. We exited the village by the other road which was a completely uneventful experience.

So, something we expected to be creepy, but turned out to be quite the opposite. Writing that down now makes me feel like I imagined it all!

Another who found the German underground hospital on Jersey very unsettling. I was in my teens at the time and am now ancient but have never forgotten it.
Did a tour of the closes under Edinburgh a couple of years ago - all very interesting but there was one area where I had a very bad feeling and couldn't wait to move on.

Can anyone find the timeslip post? I love reading things like that but I can't find it on google?

Mine would be that cottage in Glen Coe, Blackrock, the one from calenders etc. Stayed the night there as a teen, didn't sleep all night, huddled myself in blanket and didn't open my eyes. Fucking terrifying feeling but too scared to move.

When I was doing my mental health nurse training (early 90,s) my first placement was in the old part of the old asylum at the time they were in the process of knocking down all the old buildings and moving long stay patients out ,now the site is were the trust HQ is situated and all the "new specialist departments " but at the time it was very old and creepy they had a room on site where old artefacts and medical notes dating back to the 1800,s were kept I spent a morning reading through them fascinating stuff .

Hack Green Nuclear Bunker in Nantwich, or somewhere in that part of the world. I was out with my parents one Sunday afternoon and we just stumbled across it and decided to go and have look at it. It's bloody terrifying. Lots of creepy old manaquins dressed in anti contamination suits, and helpful information telling you that basically if there is a Nuclear then we are all fucked.

I was also really creeped out by Conwy Castle in North Wales. I had this overwhelming feeling of terror just looking at it, and couldn't wait to get away. Been to other Welsh castles like Caernarfon and Harlech and never felt like that.

Warwick Castle .

It was a summer's day so the weather didn't lend any additional atmosphere, but I'll never go back.

Where I live its quite common to see moles hammered onto a fence ( an earlier post mentioned it ) The mole catcher does this in order of being paid. Proof to the farmer on how many have been caught. So not woo after all.

NotPennys, here's the most recent thread about timeslips, www.mumsnet.com/Talk/the_unexplained/2982837-Time-slips?msgid=70951995. It's in The Unexplained!

The Quarry Garden at Belsay Hall in Northumberland always makes me feel simultaneously oppressed and jumpy.

I also hate driving down the A22 near Caterham - there's something eerily forbidding about the stretch between the M25 and Warlingham. I'd hate to break down there.

Castello Eurialo in Sicily. It's a ruined Greek fort with tunnels underneath that may never have actually been used.

I'm not easily creeped out but I couldn't get away fast enough. It felt that every one of the slaves that built the place were following me through the underground tunnels. Horrible horrible place

I just looked up the girl buried on Dartmoor. Kitty jay, sad story. She became pregnant, father wasn't going to take care of them. She hung herself. Because she committed suicide she couldn't be buried in a church so was buried at a cross roads. Apparently at one time her remains were dug up and confirmed to be that of a female and reburied.

Apartments that used to be a psychiatric hospital/TB sanitorium
It was always eerily quiet and I hated being on my own there (pre dc)

But the worst part was the swimming pool that had remained unchanged - there were only very small windows near the ceiling so it felt very closed in, I only used the pool twice the whole time we lived there as it gave me thw creeps

That time slip thread is brilliant, as is The Unexplained forum which I had no idea even existed! Thanks for the heads up on that.

Fair that stretch of road is apparently haunted. All the local tradespersons seem to have a story of seeing her cross the road early in the morning. I did the school run along there for years, and always looked for her, but never got lucky

Mine was a local beauty spot near there known as View Point. There is a very spooky footpath surrounded by trees which makes me feel like I am being watched.

Holiday cottage we rented in Shropshire - English Frankton, I think (maybe?).

Anyway, it was really nice in the daytime but the feeling changed at night. Every time I looked in the bathroom mirror I saw a shadow move across behind me. We stayed the week but then when we left, I couldn;'t shake the feeling that whatever I'd seen/felt had come with me. For about a week I felt a bit oppressed and every time I looked in my home bathroom mirror i saw the shadow. Then the feeling just lifted one day and I never saw it again.

Scrappy - can't say I'm surprised. It has horrible spooky bridges that are overgrown with vegetation. Not to mention the Ann Summers HQ at the top of the road

Nothing as creepy as this, or as sad, but while in France we visited Merlusine's tower and that was creepy in an of way.

You get a key from an office, which is odd. we were the only people up there and then the light is on a timer, so you turn it off at the top and have a short amount of time to get down before the lights turn off.

The legend behind the tower is just as creepy.

I went to Pluckley once in my teens - dark night, autumn - in the hopes of experiencing something spooky. Nothing. The dog barked non stop but that was all. Disappointed.

When me and my friends were in our teens, we found an abandoned house. Was absolutely terrifying, there was broken glass inside the house, in cupboards(?) and in the garden and blood on the windows/walls. There was a children’s climbing frame in the garden, it was dry which was strange as it had been raining about half an hour before we found it. No idea what happened, still creeps me out to this day!

A small, rocky beach near my hometown. It's hard to get to, big jagged rocks all around, and only locals really know or bother going there. Groups of us kids used to go there to have bbqs and snog. Always fine.

I came back one summer during uni and took my parent's dog for a walk at this beach. Beautiful summer evening. As I climbed down the little track to the beach, it was as though the sun had gone behind a cloud, even though the sky was pure blue and I could see the light shining all across the beach. It was deadly silent. The dog, a yappy terrier who thought he was tough, sat at the end of the track and wouldn't move. I felt an almost physical sense of revulsion and reluctance to walk on, but decided I was being silly, so I whistled for the dog and walked along the beach. With every step I took, my legs were physically trembling - if anyone has been on a long run, or mountain hike, it's that sort of sensation where you have to physically make a choice to put one foot in front of the other. Everything was absolutely silent, but in a muffled sort of way. Even the sound of the waves seemed to have this delayed reaction, like an out of sync vhs. As we approached the rocks at the end of the beach, they just looked so dark and menacing. Usually you climb over the rocks and reach a slightly higher path along a bit of heathy coastal path, but I just couldn't. I was suddenly just terrified of going over those rocks. The dog was stuck to me, totally silent, not even whining, but I could tell he didn't like it either. I said out loud "Ok Max, let's go home then" and we turned and just ran like fuck out of there, scrambled up the path away from the beach. I felt total panic, like something was genuinely chasing me, and I've never seen the dog run so fast

By the time we were well away from the beach, it was as though the invisible fog had lifted, birds singing, tractors in the field, dogs barking, the usual country noises.

I find it really hard to explain the atmosphere down at that beach, it was almost indescribable and I've never felt it before or since. I haven't been back though.

Some time later, I told a local friend's mother about it. She did say that back when our town had been a proper fishing port, obviously there were boats coming in and out, and a lot of men ended up being lost at sea. That beach was notorious because the way the currents flowed meant that the bodies would usually wash up there. So if a boat went down on our stretch of coastline, they'd wait a few days, check the tides, go out to the beach, and there would be the bodies.

This sounds ridiculous, but the upstairs corridor where I work is genuinely one of the most unsettling places I've ever been. The way the stock room and staff room are laid out means you can either go through the 'front' door into the staff room and access the stockroom from there or along a side corridor and use the 'back' door to go straight into to the stock room. Walking from the stairs into the stock room is fine, but walking from the stock room to the stairs gives me goosebumps, I always feel like something is following me and everything in my body is screaming at me to run. Thought it was just me being stupid but two colleagues have both of their own accord (and without knowing eachother - one had left before the other started) mentioned they get the exact same feeling! Thinking about it, I think I've only ever seen one member of staff use that corridor regularly so maybe everyone else is creeped out by it too!