Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Ellis]

I don't believe in spooks or spectres, ghosts or ghouls but there is one place here near my home which I have not liked going near ever since I was a child.

Let me explain.
Above my home village there is a lake called Lake Elsi in a beautiful setting in a plateau around 700 feet above sea level. There are dozens of ways to walk to it through Forestry Commission land, roads or paths.
The most popular route is up a Forestry Commission road which starts near the centre of the village, then a zig zag path which passes by an old ruined house called Garth Eryr.
Ever since I was a child I have not liked the place for some reason. The ruin is among softwood trees - pine, douglas fir and so on. The place is silent rather than quiet, brooding rather than peaceful and whenever I walk to the lake I take a longer route which avoids it.

One afternoon, many years ago, I walked to the lake with my Scottish Terrier and what started as a pleasant if cold afternoon turned murky, wet and dark by the time I reached my lakeside destination and I only had a thin anorak.

I decided to save ten minutes walking and take the direct route home - past the old ruin.
Walking past it was incident free but on starting down the zig zag path I had this curious feeling or sensation that I was being followed. To be fair I saw nothing, heard nothing, just an uncomfortable feeling of being followed.
What was strange though was the behaviour of my Scottish Terrier, Rob.
His tail and ears were down, his fur up and he was growling and snarling at something or someone behind us.
I continued but the sensation continued down the path and it was not a pleasant one, believe me. However when I rounded a corner where the path rejoins the Forestry road and the village lights come into view again, the sensation or feeling disappeared or dispersed, melted away even.

My dog's behaviour returned to normal and we arrived home safely some fifteen minutes later.
I told nobody thinking it must have been my imagination on a wet, dark night having passed a place I have always felt uncomfortable being near to.

Until seven years later.

I went down to the local Gwydyr Hotel here one Thursday night for a pint or two and who happened to be there but a group of Forestry Commission workers having a drink after an union meeting. I knew all of them and with a few pints consumed by all their conversation was as broad as it was interesting and a most pleasant evening passed by.

Towards the end of the evening,after last orders were called, one of the senior ones turned to his companion and asked if any evidence of the reputed non conformist cemetery behind the Garth Eryr ruin had been unearthed yet.
No, replied his friend but added that anybody working in the area were still to report any evidence if any could be found.

"I hate going anywhere near the old ruin" said the first " and I'm not the only one. There's something not right there and some people have said that they've been followed by something down the old path".

I didn't know whether to shiver or feel some type of vindication in myself.

I still to this day do not go near the place.


A true story.

Ellis
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Starting Handle Expert

1964 Jaguar Mark 2 3.4 litre
1962 Land Rover Series 2a 88"
2002 BMW M3 E46 Cabriolet

[Rootes75]

My father was a lorry driver for the majority of his working life. He drove mainly carrying stone and tarmac out of the Mendip hills down here in Somerset.

I recall a story that he has retold to me on a couple of occasions:

Back in the early 70's he and another driver were on their way fully loaded up to London, he was the lead driver. They were heading up over Salisbury plain at around 4 in the morning when all of a sudden an older 50's style car overtook both lorries at speed and up ahead span out of control and crashed into the hedge. Both drivers stopped when they got to the scene, both got out and started searching the road and hedge. There was nothing, no tyre marks, no breaks in the hedge nothing.

While they were parked on the road a car came up from behind and stopped. It was a police car, the policeman got out and started to ask why they were stopped partially blocking the main road. They explained the story, and to their surprise the Policeman explained that this wasn't the first time he had heard the story and it would be best for them to move on and just forget about it.

Both drivers were shaken by the experience but glad they were not on their own! The thing that Dad has always found strange was that both drivers witnessed it and it wasn't just a slight glimpse out the corner of the eye but a full sighting of the car and crash by both drivers in separate lorries.

Roads are strange places in the dead of night.

[Ironhead]

i have a ghost story,that happened at a store i deliver too.but no one will believe it so i'll keep quiet.

[Rick]

[kevin2306]

[roverdriver]

We lived in a very rural area, about half a mile from the main road, down an unsealed road. That road had, many years ago, been a fairly major through route and over the years had had traffic carrying fruit to Dromana to be on-forwarded by sea to Melbourne. Traffic also included, granite stone, gravel and lots of wood, but now we were the only road users.

I started off one evening to cycle the four miles to the once a week evening opening of the local branch library. There were three almost right angle bends on the road, the middle one being steeper than the others and heavily banked, so even with my Sturmey-Archer hub in 1st gear it was easier to walk that section. It was just dark and a light shower of rain had fallen a short time earlier. As I dismounted, there was a man standing at the curve in the road. I looked up at him and called out "G'day".

After taking a half dozen or so steps, pushing the bike, the wheels got caught in a rut, so I looked down to steer the machine onto smoother going, and when I looked up the chap was no longer there.

Next morning, as I repeated my trip in daylight, I remembered the man so took careful note of the dust. My wheelmarks were there clearly showing, and my footprints from when I dismounted. The return wheelmarks were also clear, but try as I might, I could find no footprints in the location that the man had stood.

The chap that I saw had been an older man, he had a square-cut beard which in the 1950's was quite unusual, and he wore what in Oz is called a 'cabbage tree' hat.

A few month after that event, I managed to get one of the old identities of the district (Vic Holmes) talking about his early days there. I asked him about our road, and mentioned the middle corner with it banking. He said "Oh, you mean Dead Man's Corner!" I asked for further explanation, and Vic explained that a bullock driver, carting rock from the quarry, had trouble with his team at the corner, and in trying to lead them around it was trampled to death. Vic also told me he had a square-cut beard and always wore a cabbage tree hat.
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Dane- roverdriver but not a Viking.