Britain is home to a collection of eerie landscapes and unusual sites that seem made for Halloween, including derelict buildings, hidden caves, ghostly ruins and artworks with unsettling appearances. Some are linked to local legends, while others create their atmosphere through isolation, history or unusual design.
Near Chichester, West Sussex, the roofless Racton Monument is a 24-metre redbrick and flint folly commissioned by George Montagu Dunk, the second Earl of Halifax. Its original purpose remains uncertain: it may have been intended as a summerhouse or a viewpoint for watching ships on the Solent. Stories associated with the site include a ghostly woman and sudden manic laughter. The monument is on private land, unsafe to enter and best viewed from nearby footpaths.
Pontsticill reservoir in Bannau Brycheiniog National Park was completed in 1927 and can hold up to 15.5 billion litres of water. Its bell-mouth spillway resembles a huge plughole, while droughts can reveal the remains of a flooded village, including a 15th-century church. The reservoir’s striking appearance also featured in Richard Ayoade’s 2010 film Submarine.
Chetney Marshes in north Kent has an appropriately ominous setting, with nearby names including Deadman’s Island, Slaughterhouse Point and Bedlam’s Bottom. The marshes contain slowly decaying barges and boats that are increasingly difficult to distinguish from the surrounding landscape. Their history is uncertain: Historic England identifies them as former Thames barges, while older maps suggest they may have been Victorian prisoner transport ships.
Kelvedon Hatch in Essex offers a very different kind of unease. Built in the early 1950s, the bunker was designed to accommodate up to 600 military personnel and civilians, including the prime minister, in the event of nuclear war. Beneath an apparently ordinary bungalow is a three-storey underground shelter roughly the size of 25 average British homes. It now houses a Cold War museum.
On a hill overlooking Burnley, Lancashire, the Singing Ringing Tree produces an eerie sound when wind passes through its tuned galvanised steel pipes. The three-metre sculpture, created by architects Mike Tonkin and Anna Liu, resembles a stark, windswept tree. It is one of four Panopticons installed in the area, although these artworks were designed as public attractions rather than symbols of surveillance.
Hodge Close in the Lake District is an abandoned slate quarry whose cave openings and dark pool can resemble a skull in the right conditions. The site, in the Tilberthwaite valley between Coniston and Langdale, was abandoned in the 1960s and still contains industrial remains. Its appearance may be familiar to viewers of The Witcher, although the skull-like shape is less obvious in person than on screen.
In London, Crossbones graveyard near Shakespeare’s Globe and the Shard was once located outside the city’s boundaries in an area known as the Liberty of the Clink. It served as a paupers’ graveyard and the burial place of medieval sex workers and others denied Christian burial. More than 15,000 people are estimated to have been buried there. Today, the site is a garden of remembrance open at certain times for guided walks and talks.
Cateran Hole, on Bewick Moor in Northumberland, was once used by bandits to hide smuggled goods. The entrance to its 35-metre underground chamber is difficult to locate, and the passage becomes increasingly dark and narrow. Visitors should take care, as the cave has no safety barriers, lighting or warning signs.
In the Galloway Hills near Newton Stewart, faces carved into a drystone wall appear to watch passers-by. Artist Matt Baker created Quorum – the Stone Faces in 1997 during a residency in Galloway Forest. Since then, the heads have become part of the landscape, with lichen forming new eyebrow-like markings. Nearby is The Eye, a 10-metre cone sculpture beside Black Loch.
Finally, St Matthew’s Church at Normanton on Rutland Water can seem to rise from the lake when mist covers the water. The church was built in the 1820s on the site of a medieval chapel and was threatened with demolition when the reservoir was created in the 1970s. A public campaign saved it, and it can now be viewed from the shoreline and visited on scheduled days or for private events.
Sources: The Guardian Travel.