The Mowbray Fields Nature Reserve, currently looked after by Northmoor Trust, is near where I live. To me it has always been a spooky place; there is an old railway - which was probably closed at the end of the Edwardian era - and on summer days walking along it sometimes you feel a strong gust of wind coming from nowhere. Could this be a ghost train? The old railway has now been made into a cycle path and has sculptures. It leads to the Ridgeway, the ancient roman road, and because it is an embankment it looks like part of the Ridgeway. There are stunning views of the local countryside.
I have yet to see the Classic film Ghost Train, by Arnold Ridley of Dad's Army fame, although I am fascinated by the legends of phantom carriages which we have in abundance. The more modern legend of the ghost train seems an interesting alternative.
I also intend to visit some of the abandoned railway stations in London, particularly Crouch End with its sculpture of a "spriggan".
I took the pictures of the nature reserve after several days of heavy snow. The snow features prominently in many of my favourite supernatural tales, such as On the Brighton Road by Richard Middleton and The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
- On the Brighton Road by Richard Middleton
- Nathaniel Hawthorne at Tartarus Press
- Mysterious Railway Stories by William Pattrick
If you're intending to visit Crouch End station on the Northern Hights, you might want to look at (you can't get in, sadly), Highgate High Level station. It sits directly above Highgate Underground station. It was abandoned in the late 1940's, and the tracks have been pulled up. It is tremendously eerie, as it sits, overgrown, in a cutting between two sets of tunnels. Despite this, local residents have reported hearing trains passing through, even though this is impossible, with the tracks being removed, and the trackbed infilled to prevent water ingress to the Undeground station below.
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