Hammer House of Horror

Well this was interesting!

We went to Bray studios first, which is a short walk away from Oakley Court. This house which was built in 1859 is the original Hammer House of Horror. When Hammer used it, they were able to hire it cheaply because it was run down and there was rain pouring through the ceiling. It is now being used as a luxury hotel, although you can just go in there for a coffee, which is what we did.

This house featured in the Hammer House of Horror TV series, as well as many of their horror films, and also the Rocky Horror Picture Show where is was Frank-N-Furter's castle. When I went in a recognised many of the features in particular the iconic staircase and the ceiling where the lift comes down, from the Rocky Horror film. The gargoyles are also iconic, having appeared in opening credits for the 1970s TV series. It has been used for many other films including St Trinians.

Dickens' Birthplace Museum

On the way to Portsmouth, I stopped by at this small house which is in the middle of a very modern council estate, and is where Charles Dickens was born in 1812. Although this place is not haunted (as far as I know) I feel Dickens deserves an honourable mention on my blog because he loved a ghost story as much as anyone else.

This museum contains many interesting objects, and is owned by the council. Unfortunately there is no up to date guide book and they do not appear to maintain it as well as could be.

The green couch is where Dickens died.

Portchester Castle

This week I went to the coast, on May Day, and on the way I stopped at Portchester Castle near Portsmouth. I arrived about 10 o'clock which is when the castles opens (although the grounds open earlier) and I was hugely impressed. This is generally considered the most intact Roman fort in Northern Europe. Only the walls and turrets are Roman, the rest has been fortified over the century, but the walls are vast and 6 metres high with the battlements intact.

I was persuaded to join English Heritage after visiting this and now have a guidebook to all their sites.

I especially enjoyed walking around the walls overlooking Portsmouth harbour, as the sea mist was coming in from Portsmouth and this made the castle hugely atmospheric.

Gothic Temple in Stowe Landscape Gardens

Today I went to visit the gardens in the National Trust Property Stowe, and I was very impressed with the gothic temple. I discovered it peering through the trees, and when I climbed the hill to the top I found it was next to an ancient tree with twisty bark, which is the closest thing I have seen to a real version of the tree in the movie Sleepy Hollow. The temple is a folly, but definitely spooky and would appear so on moonlit nights. To add to this, there are bats in the gardens and the National Trust does bat walks.

The gardens are part of the Stowe House, which is now a school. It was once the residence of Baron Cobham who commissioned a landscape gardener to design the landscape around it, and this was done with the help of the poet Alexander Pope.

WHAT beck'ning ghost, along the moonlight shade
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?

Alexander Pope, Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady

The Wyrd Museum

I went to visit Shakespeare's birthplace in Stratford-Upon-Avon, and when I got there I noticed the Wyrd Museum which is almost next door. This is a 600-year old house - genuinely haunted, apparently - which has been turned into a strange museum with a Harry Potter theme (The Creaky Cauldron) but also contains much folklore and history pertaining to witchcraft. It starts with a lot of billowing mist, and curtains eerily moving on their own...I was quite scared as I was on my own too..then I began to tread the stairs upwards, and in some of the upper rooms I reached the Victorian Spirit Room, which challenges the visitor to sit in the dark with the curtains drawn. I sat there in the dark, waiting for the spirit to appear, but nothing happened. In front of me was a sort of crystal ball with what looked like a face in it, but as it was dark I could not tell. After about ten minutes or so I gave up waiting and explored a bit more. I found other rooms, an apothecary's shop selling all sorts of odd subtances. Then a bordello with a spooky mannequin that looked like a vampire from a Hammer film. The mannequins are very creepy. There were also pictures on the wall with eyes that follow you. I read some of the information about the Stratford Ripper, and some of the local witches and the foul deeds which are supposed to have gone on. After a while I decided to leave before I was turned into a newt.

No flash photography was allowed but I did manage to get some incriminating shots of the "Stratford Ripper" I took these without a flash. Overall I was very impressed with the Wyrd museum and the work which has gone into it.

1. seekthemagic.org
   

Portland Isle Sea Caves & a Ruined Church

This weekend we went to visit the Isle of Portland, in Dorset. I wanted to visit the sea caves. When we arrived I noticed the coast was every bit as romantic as that of Cornwall. Portland is what Thomas Hardy called, "carved by Time out of a single stone". It is certainly fascinating from a geological, ecological and historical point of view. I was most interested in going to visit the sea caves. We walked along the South West Coast path, - a long distance route that is more than 1000 miles in all! - to reach the caves, where we found Cave Hole.

It would seem that Cave Hole has a natural blow hole in the cliff, which has been secured with a steel grate for safety but from which you could stand in stormy weather or when the tide is high and get splashed or feel the power of the waves.


In their book Dark Dorset, Robert Newland and Mark North tell the grisly tale of the Roy Dog of Portland, a phantom black dog which haunts Cave Hole. They even use an artist's impression of this for the cover of their book:


In this tale, three men are fishing at Cave Hole. Two decide to go home as the weather has taken a turn for the worst, but the third insists on staying until he has caught something. On their way back, the two men met the lighthouse keeper who told them he thought evil was afoot as the lighthouse would not function properly. Shortly after this, when they went to get a drink of water, the two men met the Roy Dog itself, as big as a man and "like something out of HP Lovecraft." Apparently it has two different fiery coloured eyes, one red one green, and the eyes of the victims plucked from their heads dangle from its black mane of fur. They ran as fast as they could to get home. Next morning they returned to Cave Hole to see if their friend was still there fishing, and found him lying dead with his eyes plucked out on Cave Hole. Attached to his fishing rod was a piece of flesh and a large claw, and they concluded that he had caught the Roy Dog.

Newland & North speculate that the Roy Dog legend could be a corruption of the ancient Germanic myths of the Rye Wolf or Corn Dog. Portland was certainly populated in ancient times for such a myth to grow. Although the Dog itself behaves more like a water spirit, luring people to their dooms.


We however survived Cave Hole partly by not going too near the edge, yet walked fairly strenous length of the South West Coast path for about 4 miles up and down the cliffs. At times the views were breathtakingly spectacular. Finally we arrived at a place called Church Ope Cove. This beach was secluded and very beautiful. The portland stone pebbles were smooth and grey and the exact colour and texture that sea pebbles are supposed to be.


I thought this was the sort of beach were one could expect to see mermaids. We turned to face the shore, and could see the ruins of Rufus Castle overlooking the beach, and next to it the romantic ruins of the mediaeval St Andrews Church. This church was ransacked by the French before being abandoned to the sea due to crumbling cliffs.

According to the official Portland website, there are real pirates' graves in this churchyard. But we could not decide which ones they were.


The Dark Dorset book states that according to folklore, a mermaid once came ashore on this beach. Whether the mermaid was washed ashore after expiring, or if she just came ashore is unknown and seems to depend upon which accounts you are reading. However the Church Ope Cove is certainly a very secluded and atmospheric location. The Mermaid Inn, a short walk from the cove, commemorates the strange event of the mermaid coming ashore.



After we visited Portland, we went to see Durdle Dor.



The weather changed at this point and I took some photos of the stormy waves.