If you go down to the woods..

[Nibble]

Myself and girlfriend went for a walk on Sunday. Started from Steyning and up onto Downs, bordering Clapham woods, passing Chancontbury Ring and back to Steyning. On way into woods I said to my Missus that this place feels odd and I didn't like it. In the woods you could hear no animals just flies buzzing, my missus said "it smells of death in here".

A few minutes later I got bad stomach cramps and felt sick and cold. We got completely lost even though we were following a simple guide book and we are both experienced walkers. Reached a village called Findon and turned back passing a horse. The horse was chewing the grass we fed it when it stopped dead, stared straight past us looking very alert. It freaked us out so we pegged it. The whole place is creepy. I had a very disturbing dream that night and the missus woke up convinced someone was trying to kill her.

On Monday I looked it up on Web and guess what? Many people report stomach cramps and nausea and coldness in that area. It is well known for Druid and darker occult meetings, in the eighties lots of dogs and horses vanished from there and their remains found on sacraficial sites. And worst of all, 7 people who know the area have gone missing, including children since the eighties only to be discovered dead in areas th epolice have already searched.

There are supposes to be ley lines there whatever they are. We did not know any of this at the time but it has seriously fraked us out.

Sorry for length of post. Does anyone else know about this?

 

[Les Biehn]

Yes I do, you told me about it yesterday.

 

[Common as Mook]

I'm tempted to say - what a load of codswallop.

 

[Woodchip]

5 of us cycled past Chanctobury Ring in October with no ill effects (apart from one of the guys falling off later that dayin an unrelated incident).

 

[Les Biehn]

I'm tempted to say - what a load of codswallop.

No honestly, he did tell me.

 

[Nibble]

I'm tempted to say - what a load of codswallop.

You ever been there? Whatever the stories about the place is true or not and some of them def are (deaths etc) it is one f***ing creepy place, go and see for yourself, honestly. I don't get freaked out by stuff and don't believe in ghosts etc but I was very wary of the place.

 

[Woodchip]

Though the treasure at Chanctonbury Ring is also unspecified, it is said to have a ghostly companion searching for it either in the form of an old man resembling a Druid or a Saxon from the Battle Of Hastings. This legend seems to have been transposed from a barn called Gurth Barn at Chancton Farm below the hill, where after the barn was destroyed, a hoard of about 3000 Anglo-Saxon silver pennies, mostly of Edward the Confessor, were found in 1866. Apparently the story of the searching Saxon ghost existed before the find at the farm and was described as either an "Old Saxon" who used to haunt the barn, or that "a very aged man, with a long white beard, is occasionally to be seen, towards the dusk of the evening, poring on the ground, as if in search of some hidden treasure".

 

[Nibble]

It was more the feeling that the whole woods is dead that freaked us out. Stagnent ponds, no birdsong, no animals around at all. Ghost stories don't really bother me cos everywhere has those.

Just the fact that we really had no knowledge of Clapham woods before we went there yet we experienced some of the things described by other people without prior knowledge, that is what we find unsettling

 

[Stinkers Bridge]

If you go down in the woods today,
you're sure of a big surprise.
If you go down in the woods today,
you'd better close your eyes.
'Cause Mum and Dad,
are 'avin a shag,
and Uncle Bob,
is suckin' his knob,
and Aunty Mary's 'avin it off with Graaaandad.

 

[Seagullible]

must go there some day

 

[Woodchip]

http://charleswalker.bravehost.com/

Can't read it at work, as "Occult" is blocked by websense!!

 

[Nibble]

http://charleswalker.bravehost.com/

Can't read it at work, as "Occult" is blocked by websense!!

Yeah saw that, he looks like a bit of a crank but if you search Clapham woods you can read a lot of history of the woods.

Cheers

 

[Hoggy]

The horse was chewing the grass we fed it when it stopped dead, stared straight past us looking very alert.

how can it be alert and dead at the same time?

its just a horse!

 

[Nibble]

Re: Re: If you go down to the woods..

how can it be alert and dead at the same time?

its just a horse!

Well I said it stopped dead (a turn of phrase) not that it actually dropped dead. D'ya see?

 

[NMH]

You bin reading too much Enid Blyton mate.

Actually, last year I camped a few nights on the farm across from The Chanctonbury Ring access road. I decided to ascend the hill to the top, like climbing the Stairway to Heaven. First thing on the road, was a rabbit that had probably been hit by a car - and was still kicking, alive. I took a log from nearby, and finished it off to put it out of any further misery - a piece of its' brain bursting out onto the back of my hand.
After the long track that diminished into a thin winding path, I went through the cold forest, and the path ran alongside the hill until I reached the open field before the 'Ring' itself.
It was interesting to walk all around the trees gathered at the summit - many of which were recently planted saplings - probably after the hurricane of the 80's desicrated the original woods. The views of our lands from Brighton to Worthing, Horsham to Henfield, were a great panorama to view under the cloudy skies.

As evening was drawing in, and the beginnings of a storm starting to shake rain loose from the clouds, I took the descent through the sliding mud among the trees, directly down the steep slope. Careful to negotiate the loose or wet dirt, I made a point to do it without touching any of the trees. This was to satisfy the spirits, who had guaranteed me safe passage only on that condition.

At the base, I found myself in a well-known area, where tree roots are fully exposed to a chalky cutting above me. The roots are there exactly as they were last time I saw them, with my father 40 years before. They were my reward for heeding the spirits, and I knew my journey, and visit were complete and blessed. I made it back to my tent before the rains, and slept a sound sleep.

Part of my mission was to find those roots, and another part, was to stand atop the hill that I would see from my window every day, where the clouds were coming from, and the sun was going to.

Ley-lines are all over Britain. They were notable sites where the ancient Britons would signal from hill to distant hill. Sometimes there is a cut in the earth, that can be seen for a long long distance, sometimes they may have made a break in the trees for the same purpose.


The mystery deepens though, as it is an apparent fact that the Ancient Pyramids of Egypt are also connected on the leylines - and taking into account that there are correlations in the Great Pyramid dimensions, to the circumference of Earth, and the distance to our Moon!

 

[countrygull]

It was more the feeling that the whole woods is dead that freaked us out. Stagnent ponds, no birdsong, no animals around at all.

I think you took a wrong turning and ended up not in Clapham woods, but its South London near namesake, Croydon!!!!

 

[cardboard]

Fortean Traveller: Clapham Wood


A typical country village in sleepy West Sussex isn’t the kind of place you’d expect to find UFOs, dog abductions, mysterious deaths and a full-blown Satanic cult… but if you go down to Clapham Wood today, you might be in for a big surprise. Nick Brownlow investigates.


The quiet country village of Clapham lies just a few miles north of the seaside town of Worthing, nestled snugly in the rolling Downs of West Sussex. Almost the archetypal English village, Clapham consists of a single street (named, appropriately enough, ‘The Street’), a few dozen homes, a post office and a village shop. Its only significant landmark is its 13th-century church, located on a hill to the north of the village, behind which lies Clapham Wood – a stretch of woodland criss-crossed by public footpaths and popular with dog-walkers and ramblers.

Historically, the village would appear to have existed in some form or another since at least Saxon times, although its exact site has probably moved on more than one occasion. For some 300 years, the manor of Clapham was held by the Shelleys – the family of Percy Bysshe Shelley, in fact – and the church contains a number of impressive brass renderings of the family. Other than this, there would appear to be precious little here to halt the passing fortean for more than a moment.



But, due to the events that have occurred in the area over the last four decades, this quaint little village has acquired a sinister reputation entirely at odds with its otherwise idyllic appearance.

During the 1960s, the area around Clapham became a hotspot for UFO activity, attracting dozens of ufologists and associated researchers. Much to the chagrin of the locals, these enthusiasts proceeded to carry out sky-watching vigils and other amateur investigations, usually at unsociable hours of the day and night.

Sightings were reported most frequently around the wood and the village itself, as well as at nearby Chanctonbury and Cissbury Rings, two well-known local landmarks and the sites of two Iron Age hill forts. Some speculated that Clapham itself was the connecting point for two leys emanating from Chanctonbury and Cissbury, forming in effect a triangle of energy. This provided a handy explanation for the abundance of sightings in the area, as well as tying in with fringe beliefs then current about the connection between UFOs and leys. It wasn’t long, however, before the UFO-spotters began to notice other unusual phenomena as well.

Some claimed to have experienced feelings of nausea and discomfort while walking in the woods; others reported being jostled suddenly by an unseen force. Ramblers reported encountering localised patches of grey mist on the footpaths that run through the woods. In one case, the mist resolved itself into the shape of a bear, in another, into a fox-like animal.

When interest in the UFO sightings inevitably began to wane, a new mystery soon emerged. In 1975, a number of dogs went missing in the area of the wood known as ‘the Chestnuts’. In the first two reported cases, the dogs vanished completely, while a third was found partially paralysed and later had to be put down. The disappearances received the attention of the Worthing press, and several local dog owners came forward to say that their own pets had been affected strangely by the woods, often becoming inexplicably aggressive or highly agitated.

More sinister were the four mysterious deaths that occurred in the vicinity of the wood over a 10-year period. In only one instance was the cause of death established as murder, the coroner having been forced to return open verdicts on the other three due to the advanced state of decomposition of the bodies.

The first such case was that of Police Constable Peter Goldsmith in 1972. Goldsmith, 46, was a former Royal Marine Commando and an experienced rambler who was in excellent physical condition. He was last seen in June that year, walking across the Downs and carrying a large holdall. His body was found six months later, hidden in a patch of thick bramble.

In August 1975, pensioner Leon Foster was found in the woods, by a couple searching for a lost horse, three weeks after his wife had reported him missing. And then the Reverend Harry Neil Snelling – the retired vicar of Clapham Parish – disappeared on All Hallow’s Eve in 1978 while returning home across the Downs from a dental appointment in Goring; his body was eventually found three years later by a Canadian tourist, who only informed the police of his discovery after he had left the country.


The murdered woman was Miss Jillian Matthews – a 37-year-old divorcee and a homeless schizophrenic, who went missing in September 1981. Her body was discovered six weeks later in a state of partial undress, having been raped and strangled. No one was ever charged with her murder.

It wasn’t until 1987, however, that anyone offered an explanation that attempted to tie these disparate events together. In their book The Demonic Connection, Toyne Newton, Charles Walker and Alan Brown alleged that the woods were being used for rituals by a Satanic cult calling itself the ‘Friends of Hecate’. Hecate is the triple-headed Goddess of the Greek underworld, and a central figure in modern Wicca.

Charles Walker, a council worker from Worthing, had been investigating the woods for nearly two decades, and had written a number of letters over the years to the local Worthing papers asking readers to come forward and contact him with any information they might have regarding the strange occurrences. Walker maintains that in November 1978, as a result of his enquiries, he was contacted by an anonymous individual who claimed to be an initiate of the Friends of Hecate.



This occult ‘deep throat’ arranged to meet Walker alone at night in the Chestnuts. Concealed behind a bush, he claimed the cult was responsible for the abduction of the dogs, which had been used in ritual sacrifices. He told Walker the Friends of Hecate had been using the wood for the last 10 years, and intended to use it for another 10 before moving their operations elsewhere. The initiate warned Walker that the cult counted many influential figures in government and law-enforcement among its members – and that if he continued to investigate the cult’s activities they would be forced to take action against him. Having delivered his threat, the mysterious informant disappeared into the night.



Unsure of quite how to take these revelations, and understandably sceptical, Walker attempted to pursue his hobby in a more discreet fashion for a while. Despite this, he claims to have been threatened on several occasions. In one incident, a man pulled a pistol on him in Worthing High Street. Eventually, after a hit-and-run incident in which he was knocked off his bicycle by a speeding car, he elected to back off. It was only later that he met researcher Toyne Newton, who had already written several articles on Clapham Wood for The Unexplained magazine, and the two decided to collaborate on the book.

Around the same time, in October 1987, ‘the great storm’ swept across the south of England, devastating the countryside and changing the landscape of the area forever. Clapham Wood was not spared, suffering extensive damage. Walker later reported that the damage caused by the storm, combined with the media interest stirred up by The Demonic Connection, seemed to have disrupted the cult’s activities and driven them out of the area.

The local press, of course, had been following events in Clapham with interest for some time, but the book’s sensationalistic tone – it was subtitled ‘an investigation into Satanism in England and the international black magic conspiracy’ – meant that the woods now received the – albeit fleeting – attention of the nationals as well. The bemused residents of Clapham no doubt hoped that the sudden interest in their quiet little corner of rural England would quickly die down, just as it had done in the past. Once the story became firmly entrenched in popular folklore, however, this became a forlorn hope.

A few years later, the woods were subject to a number of visits by the Mythbusters team, probably best known for their appearances on Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast. The results of their investigations, including their alleged encounter with the ‘Clapparition’, served as the basis for the Mythbusters series of children’s books, released in the early 1990s. More recently, the first episode of Living TV’s short-lived paranormal investigation/reality TV show Scream Team was filmed there. The show’s cast spent a night camped out in the woods, where their all-night vigil passed without incident. In addition to the television crews, the wood remains a popular destination for any number of amateur psychic investigation groups as well.

So is Clapham Wood a hotbed of Satanic activity? The final word goes to Charles Walker. Despite giving the wood a clean bill of health in the late 1980s, Walker found himself returning to Clapham some 10 years later to investigate eerily familiar reports of missing pets. Discovering evidence of altars, fires and a concealed hide, Walker concluded that the Friends of Hecate had once again returned to the area. Brimming with newfound determination, he resumed his investigations.

He and his friend Toyne Newton can often be found patrolling the woods late into the night, dressed in combat fatigues and equipped with cameras and IR lenses, hoping to catch the cultists in the act. As he told a local newspaper in 2002: “I want to find them, get photographic evidence and bring them to justice. They have to be stopped. I’ll keep doing this until the day I die.”

 

[Bevendean Hillbilly]

Clapham Woods (as already mentioned) is notorious for peculiar deaths and vanishings, in fact in the 1970's the now defunct "Unexplained" magazine ran a feature on it which mentioned several instances such as those which you describe, as well as reports of coven activities and mysterious ruins in the undergrowth.

I recall that, published in the article, there was a photograph taken by a walker in the woods who felt a presence and took a photograph of the spot he felt the sensation was emanating from.

When it was developed it showed a cloud of "smoke" with a goats face in it.

Intrigued, as a teenager, I spent the night camping in the woods to see if anything would happen, walked around in the dark for ages, nothing to report.

Several reports of UFO activity in that area as well over the years.

 

[NMH]

I did find evidence of a previous building, on the North edge of the tree ring. I think it had been used more recently as a fire-place too.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Ley lines are spooky.

If you stand on top of Chanctonbury Ring and look across to Ditchling Beacon ... it's a perfect straight line between the two summits.

How weird is that?