A Groping and Random Fashion: Ghosts in the Harford Hills

Easter Sunday morning skulking in the woods, and I came across the remains of a haphazard campsite / drug den. A thin plastic sheet erected from a few branches, blowing in the wind, put me in mind of a certain M R James bedsheet ghost: "... at once the spectator realised, with some horror and some relief, that it must be blind, for it seemed to feel about it with its muffled arms in a groping and random fashion..."

Haunted Bottle

I found this half-buried in the dirt whilst tramping round the old Harford Farm site. I'm assuming this is an old medicine bottle. As well as being the area of a former farm and Anglo-Saxon burial ground (covered in previous posts), it is also next to an old (now capped) landfill site. I've spoken to a chap who said his brother used to go exploring there as a kid and collect any medicine bottles that had been buried there.

However, as I'm still on a big M R James trip, I'm convinced it is in fact some cursed artifact of Lovecraftian evil. A witch bottle, at least. Unlikely, but still.

Beneath the Streets - Harford Hills Calk Mine pt 2

Beneath the Streets - Harford Hills Chalk Mine pt 1

One of the many long-abandoned chalk mines in Norwich. Disused since the end of the Second World War, some go back to the twelfth century. Apparently, this mine was the last to be discontinued.

Deep, cold, and black as death down there. On a warm day up top, I could see my breath in the torchlight down there. A few times, I would switch my torch off, just to allow the sheer underground darkness to overwhelm me. Unsettling, but cool.

Hill House and Harford Farm pt 5

Hill House and Harford Farm pt 4