Things that go Bump in the Night

Things that go bump in the night

We have hired it out for filming for several TV series and I saw it oncein an old hammer horror film in black & white where a horse and carriagecrossed the bridge into a strange fog and entered ‘The Village of theDamned’.

Other things have been filmed there such as The Professionals, King Arthurand the lady of the lake, and ‘Auf Wiedersehen Pet’had scenes filmedthere.

A lovely lake with a lot of history

There are several people who have experienced ghostly happenings downthere, including the people we hired to dredge the lake using a Mudcatonce. They slept in a caravan on site for three months until their work wasdone.

One night at about 1am one of them was having a smoke outside when heheard a rushing noise coming up the driveway and as it got louder he saw ahorse and carriage screaming across the bridge and the others all woke upwith the noise. There are locked gates both before and after the bridge.

Another time I was night fishing for carp and my mate was fishing acrossthe corner of the lake, it was dusk but not yet dark. later my mate saidto me “who was that standing next to you earlier?” I shivered becausethere had been no one (that I knew about) standing anywhere near me earlier.He said the figure walked right up to the water next to me.

Another night we saw some light in the trees across the lake. Wethought it must be a poacher so we decided to creep up on him. I creptround the lake one way while my mate crept round the other way. We made nonoise as we knew every bump and we know the lake like the back of ourhands. As we got closer the light disappeared and there was no onethere. And they couldn’t have get away without making any noise.

finally I remember a joke we played on the club chairman (Terry). One darknight when we were on our own night fishing for carp, another mate of mine(Gino) appeared, taking his red setter for a walk. He whispered, “where’sTerry?” I said about five swims further on.

He whispered “try and keep a straight face.” He then went into the woodsbehind Terry and let out a frightening scream.

“Keith? Is that you?” Asked Terry nervously. “No” I replied.

“Have you got your mallet?” he asked; and at that moment Terry heardanother scream and could make out a shadow bounding towards him out of thetrees and it leaped up at him and…….. put its paws on Terry’s shoulderand started licking his face.

Of course it was Gino’s dog and we laughed and laughed. Terry walked a bitstrange for the rest of the night after that.

The lake was built by prisoners

The lake was built originally by prisoners of war during the Napoleonicwars. They widened a stream to make the lake, then it was further enlargedby prisoners of war during the second world war.

When we had it dredged a few years ago we found a half rotten hull of atoy sailing ship which had been carved out of some wood. It may have beenlying in the thick black silt for donkey’s years, I don’t know whathappened to it though.

There are some strange things that can be explained

Sometimes in the middle of the night we heard footsteps on the hard groundoutside of our bivvies and when we poked our heads out there was nothingthere. This worried us at first until another member told us that he saw ahare stamping its feet one evening. Or possibly it may have been been oneof the small Munjac deer that roam in the area.

Another example was when we heard something scratching down the outside ofour bivvies on clear windless nights, this happened on a few nights.It turned out to be birds landing on our bivvies and sliding down (afterseeing their shapes through the bivvie) but there was no sounds from their wings (?).

Lastly have you ever woke up in the middle of the night and tried to open your eyes, or tried to situp, and it seemed that your energy had been drained from you and you wererooted to the spot and couldn’t do either? This has happened to me and my mates a few times down the estate lake butapparently this happens to people when they are tired after spending acouple of sleepless nights fishing, you aren’t really awake but you arehalf conscious and you try to get up, eg, to see what the footsteps areoutside the bivvy?

But apparently it is normal. No it’s not me with night fishing madness.

Anyone else experienced such things?