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 once in an old hammer horror film in black & white where a horse and carriage crossed the bridge into a strange fog and entered 'The Village of the Damned'.

Other things have been filmed there such as The Professionals, King Arthur and the lady of the lake, and 'Auf Wiedersehen Pet'had scenes filmed there.

A lovely lake with a lot of history

There are several people who have experienced ghostly happenings down there, including the people we hired to dredge the lake using a Mudcat once. They slept in a caravan on site for three months until their work was done.

One night at about 1am one of them was having a smoke outside when he heard a rushing noise coming up the driveway and as it got louder he saw a horse and carriage screaming across the bridge and the others all woke up with 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 across the corner of the lake, it was dusk but not yet dark. later my mate said to me "who was that standing next to you earlier?" I shivered because there 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. We thought it must be a poacher so we decided to creep up on him. I crept round the lake one way while my mate crept round the other way. We made no noise as we knew every bump and we know the lake like the back of our hands. As we got closer the light disappeared and there was no one there. And they couldn't have get away without making any noise.

finally I remember a joke we played on the club chairman (Terry). One dark night 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's Terry?" I said about five swims further on.

He whispered “try and keep a straight face." He then went into the woods behind 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 heard another scream and could make out a shadow bounding towards him out of the trees and it leaped up at him and…….. put its paws on Terry's shoulder and started licking his face.

Of course it was Gino's dog and we laughed and laughed. Terry walked a bit strange 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 Napoleonic wars. They widened a stream to make the lake, then it was further enlarged by prisoners of war during the second world war.

When we had it dredged a few years ago we found a half rotten hull of a toy sailing ship which had been carved out of some wood. It may have been lying in the thick black silt for donkey's years, I don't know what happened 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 ground outside of our bivvies and when we poked our heads out there was nothing there. This worried us at first until another member told us that he saw a hare stamping its feet one evening. Or possibly it may have been been one of the small Munjac deer that roam in the area.

Another example was when we heard something scratching down the outside of our bivvies on clear windless nights, this happened on a few nights. It turned out to be birds landing on our bivvies and sliding down (after seeing 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 sit up, and it seemed that your energy had been drained from you and you were rooted to the spot and couldn't do either? This has happened to me and my mates a few times down the estate lake but apparently this happens to people when they are tired after spending a couple of sleepless nights fishing, you aren't really awake but you are half conscious and you try to get up, eg, to see what the footsteps are outside the bivvy?

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

Anyone else experienced such things?