WICCAN TRADITION, Clophill Church, Readers story 01

The trees were bare and I remember walking down and peering out from behind the church where I could very distantly see a hill or something. I'm sure my uncle said it was a druid burial ground or something. I still felt the overwhelming sense of being watched and when I turned round and headed back to the ruin I shivered all of a sudden. I mean I'm not saying that some giant gust of wind half blew me out the ruin but there was a sort of sharp cold breeze. I was getting butterflies now so I headed back to my cousin and told her that something was messed up about the place. She just nervously laughed I think she was feeling the same so we stuck close together after that.

After filming all the inside of the ruin my uncle was totally sure that he was going to capture something world breaking on his mega video camera but I wasn't so sure. For some bizarre reason when we stepped out of the church door I wanted to have a go of the camera. So I turned it on and got some great shots of the ruin and I thought I was doing so well, so I panned it round the ruin quickly showing off some of the gravestones propped up around the fences. Now I look back and think if only I had been a few steps closer and I wouldn't still be worried about the place today.

As we headed back down the hill I felt somewhat relieved that I had left and as I looked back the church loomed over me and I really did real like something was watching me leave. Even as we drove back to Northamptonshire in the car I was still afraid and twitching and sinking deeper and deeper into my coat. That night I didn't sleep. I was on and off all night wondering what those walls had seen all those years they had stood and having nightmares that I'd brought something awful back with me. Fine I understand that ghost hunters do this sort of thing every day and it was probably nothing but I was so sure I'd been though something back there.

Of course one of the first things we did was play the video back. Im pretty sure that my aunt was disappointed that we didn't catch anything on film going on that night she had also persuaded me to walk round the back of a church though a graveyard in pitch black darkness with her so my uncle could get footage of me standing by a graveyard. However my poor cousin was definitely relieved (Bex was great I couldn't of been as brave as I was without her. She was being so chilled and calm despite being scared). As for me I enjoyed the video for comic value because I hadn't seen myself on camera before. I still hadn't noticed the strange things that had been recorded from my Clophill visit.

In fact it took me months to notice anything at all. I went back to normal Fleet and actually totally forgot about the satanic doom and gloom I had felt there apart from school trip nights where I would try and freak out my mates with the little story. The time it actually took me to get out the old video....well I'm going back to see my cousin in a weeks time lets put it that way.

Me and my best pal Cez were just on our normal shopping trip to Basingstoke doing just stupid things that we can get away with simply because we're teenagers. However we got bored soon enough with the body piercing shop so having become a tarot reader we decided to read though the mind, body and spirit section in the anonymous forever empty bookshop. After asking thoughtless stupid questions to the big book of answers I picked up a book entitled "supernatural England" .The very first page you can't miss it, read a three page article on the Clophill ruin. We read though it together and I learned many things. According to the book there were three main ghosts. A monk, a monk on a white horse that rode up and down the dirt track and most interesting a white woman had been photographed in the window that's probably the biggest. Its the one about 5ft off of ground level.

I was so glad to read this when it stated that other people had felt real evil there too and I also felt pretty relieved that I hadn't seen anything.....well I didn't think I had. Of course Cez was going on at me about how I must of been so crazy going there ect. So I decided to randomly ask the big book of answers if it was haunted or not. I closed my eyes and picked a page which happened to say (and I'm telling the truth I'm really not kidding) " Listen to the voices and trust your eyes and you will know". I thought "whatever" then all of a sudden I remembered I had the old video tape stuffed behind the draws. Now that freaked me out. So me and Cez pulled it out and got it going. It was all going fine until I took control of the camera. I mean looking at it comically I think its just typical that I decided to get my uncle to take a shot of all the gravestones. Because as he pans around quickly he flashes the camera past something that on first glance appears to be a deformed, dancing gravestone but watch it several times through, it now looks like a white figure. I immediately thought that it was too bleach white to be a gravestone. I also remembered the stories about the white lady that has been sighted there. I turned to Cez and said "does that look like a gravestone to you" , she had her eyes opened even wider than mine she still continues to be more convinced than I think I ever will be. She was totally sure that it was not a gravestone. We put it on pause play and it does appear to move on the spot. Its legs seem to very gradually open then close slightly but its hard to make out because of the distance and the shaky camera. Also there seems to be a similar white shape that hovers above another one of the gravestones too. I find it all together very freaky.

I wanted a second opinion so the next day I brought around my friend Roz to watch the video. It got worse. Not only did Roz decide that the figure looked liked an old lady she also turned around and told me that the image was scary but not as scary as the noise. Yes. At the exact time the image appears so does a horrible wailing sound. I've rewound the tape and it definitely isn't the wind on the mic. However I don't think it has anything to do with the image that we see it seems like its coming from the behind left. Its unlike the picture though, totally unexplainable.

We were the only people there and there was definitely nothing else there. This wailing noise sounds human and although its faint its not unnoticeable.

Basically if someone asked me if it was haunted I would tell them I'd guarantee it for sure. Its given me a fascination to anything supernatural. I wouldn't recommend anyone bringing their video camera unless their looking for something.

If you want to e-mail me please send it to:Gema_926@hotmail.com

After getting in the car Kat was rambling on that her hair was different, the village lighting and its appearance was different. She seemed quiet and in a shell or life of her own.... I asked her if she was all right and got a shocking answer... Kat is NOT my name, my name is Julia but my hair is different. I was as if she was a totally different person and was using what could only be stated as Olde English terminology. Darren and I was extremely concerned and on arriving home she sat on Darrens sofa looking around and remarking that the house interior looked different asking to use the basin instead of toilet... she wanted to know when she returning to Clophill and who we were!!!

I left at about 03:00 leaving them to their own devices but with a feeling that all was not right. That night according to Darren she did not sleep or respond to her original name of Kat only Julia (Kept pointing that out to Darren over the night). When she arose the next morning she was totally fine as if nothing had happened but could not remember much of what had happened after the icy blast of wind the night before.

I also told a friend who later questioned the couple at their home about their experiences that particular night. Kat mentioned that she thought she was involved in APOTHECARY the old English term for a CHEMIST. Kat was only 16 at the time as would not have known about that particular word or vocabulary. They were finding it hard to discuss the matter and it clearly made them un-comfortable and un-easy. Darren said something about seeing a light or energy beam coming up from the inside of the church after he had been blown off his feet around about the same time of wind gust. He felt that talking about would conjure up bad things and you could feel and see the distress the questioning was causing them both. He then asked us to leave and it has not been mentioned since.

I have returned to Clophill since with a work colleague and he heard the strange breathing sound but he put it down to nesting owls (at night ???)

I received this e-mailed account of strange experiences
at Clophill church, From Martin.
Make up your own mind.

Firstly there was always a rumour that if you inscribed the marking of a crucifix/cross on the inner walls of the church you received bad luck. A friend of mine knew someone who did this only to end up a fatality due to a motorcycle accident. Yeah...I agree on the continual intrusion of teenagers at the site due to its reputation but the place has a strange aura about it and various tales about 5 witches being buried in unmarked graves at the rear of the church. Did you ever feel a blast of icy wind even on a warm summer's night? or even a strange breathing sound coming from within the church building which also followed you around the place and always seeming to be in front of you.

During one visit to the site I and a few friends experienced something most bizarre. I initially thought that they were pissing me about or acting up to the local folklore we had known previously but circumstances that night and the strange behaviour of them that night dispelled the notion of anything un-toward or of people larking about.

The couple with me who visited the site (Kat and Darren) were looking around the graveyard beside the church as one would normally do with nothing happening at all during one summer's night in 2000.

Darren sat outside the church waiting beside the entrance for us while Kat and I were looking around the church's interior. As we left the building a strong gust of wind blew through us like icy daggers. Kat's personality suddenly changed, she totally stopped being her usual self and became silent as if in some kind of shock so I returned to Darren who declared that we must leave the place immediately as he felt very uneasy suddenly which seemed strange as on the way up to the place he was jokingly dismissive of the idea and the so-called legend.

We started to Walk down the path from the church towards the Clophill village through road and when nearing the wooded verges/area of the path Kat and Darren were under the belief that they were being pursued by 6 bodies/apparitions coming out from the Church whom stopped at a particular point/boundary on the path/hill. Myself personally did not witness or see a single thing.

Kat then started to climb a tree and stated that she must climb "her tree" again even though this was the first time she had visited this site. I had to grab her and help her down from the tree and she said "its strange because I can always climb this tree easily". We walked quickly back towards the car with Kat and Darren looking back at the 6 apparitions of energy/orb figurines. Nearing the car they said that "they had stopped following and were hanging about at the top of the path by the entrance of the wooded area".

I received this e-mailed account of strange experiences at
Clophill church, From Gema.
Make up your own mind.

I've not been the most spiritual person at the best of times which is why all who I tell believe my story. I come from around the Hampshire area, a wealthy but however personality lacking town called fleet, so I could be paranoid but I bloody well won't ever forget that place.

I visited the ruin last Christmas on a trip to stay with my cousin, uncle and aunt. Everyone elses my age worst nightmare but to be honest I was actually looking forward to it. Of course because my cousin was growing up now and I was finding we had more and more in common but I also found the family pretty eccentric to my own. It made a change of scenery from the same old fleet high street.

The village was one not overly far from Clophill (Brigstock) however they were similar villages. The sort of country ones that consist of a few houses and a post office....not really my style. Well they looked similar, but Clophill the further we drove in the more creepier than Brigstock it seemed. I'm not offending the people of Clophill I'm sure its a great little community but its like a ghost down there. I also couldn't understand why some people had hung their mistletoe upside down on there doors I mean sure it was Christmas but my aunt was going into one of her funny moods and told me that it was hung upside down to warn away evil spirits. I don't think she was joking. It was also a dark, moody, grey day I mean talk about atmosphere I was scared already! In fact I was so scared that when they asked me if I wanted to wait in the car for them I think going up seemed more tempting. Besides part of me really wanted to...I think I like being scared. So up we all went up this dirt path. I was feeling it already. If its true about it being a satanic place then I can bloody well believe that. I remember walking up there through these drooping trees and thinking ''oh lord''. I'm not just repeating what other people say that place is so forbidding it has such an atmosphere. As I walked up through the ruin the evil is well... personally I looked back on sunny little Fleet and I was just miles away. It was like a totally different world. Anyone who's been there should know.

But you know we all tried to stay cool. My uncle sort of swung around his multimillion dollar video camera. I just wandered around on my own studying the satanic symbols on the wall. I felt too scared to touch them.... it was weird. I felt as if someone was watching my every move. I couldn't pin point what but I totally believed something evil had happened and whatever it was was still around.