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?

Vale Royal abbey (now a posh golf club and apartments).
Years ago we visited it when still closed/not done up as a friend was working on the tower clock. It was a bright Feb day and I was hanging around outside as there wasn't room up the clock tower. Walked around the back and stood by the window you can see very bottom right in the attached pic and all I can describe was an overwhelming sense of dread and unease, despite this being the sunny side. Back around the dark front door/wing on the left was fine.

Interesting that a couple of other have mentioned Boa Island. I immediately thought of it when I read the OP. I´ve been there many times over the years, but the last time I was there, it was creepy. I was there just before sunset on a nice summer´s evening. As I was walking towards the graveyard, I felt an odd sense that I shouldn´t go there. But I ignored it as I wanted to take a photo. The feeling got stronger as I entered the graveyard, so the point it was really unpleasant to be there. I ended up taking a photo from a distance and leaving as quickly as I could. It was odd, because like I said, I´ve been there many times before and walked all round the graveyard.

The second most memorable place is not creepy but just sad. I was in Washington maybe ten years ago and I visited the Korean War monument on the Mall. Opposite the statues there is a memorial wall with all the names and often there are flowers and other small memorials put their by families. As I was walking up the wall, looking at the names, I was absolutely overcome by a wave of grief. I think the grief of so many people who had stood there had somehow become imprinted in the atmosphere.

Most Creepy place I've ever been to was the top rooms at the school dm taught at.
It had been a big thriving boarding school, but numbers had plunged from over 200 at its height to less than 30 in the school. They'd had two big Victorian houses. one for the boarders, one for the classrooms, but for some reason when they shrank they chose to use the boarding house.

One time when dm was doing parents' evening us children decided to explore. We ended up at the top of the house and found it hadn't been changed since the boarding times. There were posters on the walls, stuff left in the wardrobes, stickers etc. And it was really "someone watching you" creepy.
Found out later that the headmaster, who was a really practical sensible man, eventually admitted that he wouldn't go in on his own if it was still dark in the morning, he'd wait in his car until someone else came. He swore things had moved/been thrown.

Nice "someone's there" feeling at Rufford Old Hall in Lancashire. There are meant to be ghosts there, but I've never seen them. The old hall in particular feels like people being happy there. I may be misremembering, but when I was about 7 or 8yo we were there and dm was talking to one of the staff there, I saw something scratched into the window in that room, and pointed it out. Not only had the staff never noticed it, but there was no evidence of anyone noticing it.

Strange one was an Edwardian town house in Kent we stayed at on holiday.
It had been bought as a house to move into but the family hadn't managed to move, so rented it out (rarely) to friends for holidays. It had a basement kitchen (with Aga), first floor lounge, 2nd floor big bedroom, 3rd floor 2 bedrooms.
Me and dh and ds (baby) shared the big bedroom and the dd's shared one of the 3rd floor bedrooms. They wanted to be together which was fine. Dd1 had recently been quite ill, so I as quite pleased they would be together.
It had an odd feeling when we came in. Very sad and not really wanting us to be there. Ds kept waking up and finding his covers totally off him (so he'd come into our bed) and on the floor away from his bed.

About half way through the week dd1 became ill again and I spent several days just me and her there. Over that time, the feeling became acceptance then friendliness.
Then one afternoon she wasn't good and wanted me near her, but the curtains closed, so I went into the spare bedroom next to her and the feeling really hit me upon going in. Really strong sadness and hurt, which took me totally aback as the rest of the house was fine.
I stayed in that room and sang, and gradually the feeling left.
When we started packing up the sadness returned, and doors kept shutting as we tried to move things out (having not done that at all the rest of the week) as if it was trying to keep us there.

We live in the US we own a camp up north, it's 120 acres of woodland where we plan to build a log cabin holiday home.

All over the property are dry stone walls and remains of when it was a farm back in the early part of 1900's.

While exploring our new purchase we found a small graveyard, it's hidden in the woods, overgrown, with stone wall and rusty old gate. The grave stones are all knocked over and covered in leaves.

It was a cold October evening when we found it it was dead silent apart from a nearby crow.

Kamloops is definitely not a nice place, very weird vibe.

Find Blackpool very depressing.

Clawdy, which village was it? Near Pendle, obviously.

Anyone stopped at the Silent Inn in Howarth? Now that is a spooky place, there was someone knocking on our door at 3am!

I was going to say The Bull Inn Is Sudbury - I had a really uneasy feeling when I stayed there, and ended up going to sleep in my cousin's room. Just looked it up to check I had the right place before posting, and it seems someone was murdered there, in the room I stayed in. Lovely!

I visited Culloden as a teen and found it utterly bleak and it left me feeling very sad and down for a few days after.

Mainland jail in australia, Ivan milat's cell and the old wings with modern graffiti from recentish prisoners was so eerie especially as barely any visitors there and only an audio guide meant you were often in rooms by yourself

Interesting that's it's not just me & dh that had the feeling in Kamloops - just remember that we woke up as early as possible to leave. And we both felt it. It really freaked us out.

Anyone know why it gives off such a bad feeling?

I was going to post that how can a whole town the size of Kamloops be creepy, but then I remembered my visit to Kiruna in northern Sweden. It´s a mining town that is in the process of being moved as the town is subsiding into the mine. I hated being there from the moment we arrived and was desperate to leave. The atmosphere was really odd. We ended up moving on after one night when we originally planned three days there.

Kamloops has really bad air quality. I wonder if that has something to do with it?

oP the 'freshly dead voles' were probably moles- it's a common mole catcher's practice, said to drive the remaining ones off. Don't let it put you off God's own county- we do things differently here.

I am not remotely woo. Have an interest in architecture, especially old churches. Once spent a cycling holiday in East Anglia touring them, armed with my Pevsner. Went into one - I do wish I could remember which one - pushed open the door, entered the dim interior - so far so normal- I have done that hundreds of times - then was just hit with the most immense fear and literally ran out. Most odd.

Contrast that with a similar visit to a church in Portugal- nosying around this empty church - then I noticed the open coffin and a waxy bare leg... retreated from that too, but more as I didn't want to see the corpse, and was understandably scared and unnerved.

Not the primal fear I experienced in East Anglia.

A few years ago we were driving to London to catch a plane the next day and drove through a small town about 10pm. It was absolutely desserted even though it was pretty early. All the pubs were shut and the houses were all in darkness even though it was quite early on a friday night. It was probably nothing, but it really spooked me.

In my late teens I worked abroad for holiday tourist seasons. Looking back at my time, I took many risky risks. Very trusting of strangers, walking through pitch dark fields at early hours to get home, going off with anyone who invited me to parties, party drugs, casual flings - you get the gist. Nothing untoward ever happened to me though. Best years of ny life actually.

I had just finished a shift and was nearly home. Ot was the morning, about 10/11am. I'd walked into the lane that leads to my house and along there in one house one of my 'neighbours' was having a party. They /he saw me approaching and called me over to join them. I obliged and walked through their gates, looked to the left and saw a few people around and in the pool,music was playing, everyone seemed happy and relaxed, it was sunny and all was very nice. They were beckoning me over but.. I just couldn't bring myself to move forward. I specifically remember a voice inside saying that if I got into that pool, I'd never leave again and I came over so cold. It was the most strangest thing I've so far experienced. Considering how I conducted myself anyway whilst over there, you'd think that I'd have just got stuck in and enjoy the invite, but nope. I backed out saying my sorrys and walked /half jogged back to my house to get away as quickly as possible. Very very weird.

Glastonbury. It gives me a headache. I always feel like I'm humming with tension whilst driving through it.

Savernake Forest - it just feels so ancient and slightly unfriendly.

Does anyone remember the story where a poster was walking her dog in the woods and got an uncontrollable feeling of evil?

I live near the A22 and look for the girl ghost every time I drive on it. Never seen her though! An acquaintance of mine used to go 'ghost hunting' there - driving up and down the road late at night for hours in the hope of spotting her. They never saw a thing either

Has anyone else read The Gift Of Fear by Gavin Becker? He advises Hollywood actors and people being stalked about security. He is very hot on listening to your instincts. One of his main points is that what we think of as irrational instinct is actually our brain and senses working at a subconscious level telling us something is off. He has various examples - eg firemen getting out of a building the moment before the basement collapsed because of an indefinable hunch that something was wrong.
I wonder how many of these posts are describing situations where there might have actually been something wrong - maybe you really were being watched, maybe the people at the party really did have something bad in mind so their body language was off.
Very interesting thread.

Still reading everyone's wonderful spookinesses!

mighty deffo not moles. Could have been mice I guess but we thought voles. DH is a wildlife conservation worker and a Yorkshireman - his job at the time involved doing wildlife walking tours in the Dales so he would definitely have recognised a mole - and he thought it odd as there was no reason anyone should kill them.

Hmm Mighty could your corpse have been a memento mori waxwork? Used to be a thing....

We used to play in a derelict mill as kids. Once, in a history lesson, our teacher showed us school records from theVictorian times which showed a boy had been killed working there when he should have been at school.
There were all sorts of rumours about his ghost and we used to wind each other up and do dares in there.

I know a lot of people who get headaches at Glastonbury but I always put it down to the variety of interesting 'aromas' that permeate the town!

Creepy places I've been include a deserted medium security locked ward complete with hoists and broken furniture that looked like something Nurse Ratchett would inhabit. I had to run a therapy group in it...It was unlocked just for us.

I've also walked hospital corridors at night in a howling storm, totally alone with automatic doors banging open and closed and the lights coming on only as I walked, with tappy footsteps, along each corridor.

And the back tunnel to a Devon pub used by smugglers - apparently people tended to do the walk to the ladies very quickly as the corridor just had a dark, heavy presence!

Another vote here for the German Underground Hospital in Jersey.

stormytherabbit I remember that. It was in the Forest of Dean if my memory serves me correctly?