Somerset, England
Creech Hill was once the site of an ancient Romano-Celtic temple where, in the late eighteenth century, amateur archaeologists uncovered two crossed skeletons thought to be those of a Norman and a Saxon. Apparently the scene of brutal confrontations long ago, the area also have a long history of hauntings. A number of people travelling at night over the hill or near it have reported the sounds of heavy footsteps and strange laughter, and some have told of seeing a black ghostly shape.
One night, it issaid, a farmer returning from a nearby market stumbled upon a figure lying in the road at the foot of Creech Hill. Suddenly the figure rose to a commanding height and let out a bone-chilling shriek. The terrified farmer fled for home, with the dark spector close on his heels.
When he burst through his front door and collapsed across the threshold, his stunned wife caught a glimpse of a long black figure bounding away in the direction of Creech Hill, laughing crazily.
In yet another account of the Creech Hill phantom, a man, armed with a lantern and a stout hazel stick, ventured across the hill one night to keep an urgent appointment. Halfway through his journey, he encountered a deadly coldness, and then something tall and black rose up from the ground before him. Startled, the man struck out at the hideous shape, but the stick passed right through it; he tried to flee but found himself rooted to the spot. Maniacal laughter deafened the traveler as he swung wildly at his tormenter again and again. Not until the first light of dawn appeared did the apparition vanish, leaving its victim free to move once more.
Photos taken by: Simon Marsden
