The Horsingdon Transmissions No.212: A Haunted World

Some gateways are self-evident in their purpose, marking an obvious physical passage from one set of geographically-distinct spatial co-ordinates to another, and often dividing proprietry boundaries; others - like the gateway guarding a site once sacred to the Horsingdon coven - declare a less tangible transition: from a world less-haunted to one fraught with all the terrible possibilities which the spectral can muster.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.211: The Sentinel in the Tower

The the bells in the belltower of the Church of St. Ignatius in Northwich Park have not sounded in over five decades - during which time the tower itself has remained locked, boarded, and also guarded with whatever spiritual wards the faithful amongst the congregation (or at least those who have consented to learning the secret of the tower) have been able to muster.

The verson of events as told to me - by a person directly involved in them - was that during the building of St. Ignatius' in the 1950s, one of the labourers working on the project discovered a cache of books, hidden in the basement of the place of worship which had previously occupied the site, and which had been demolished to make way for the new church.

These codices eventually were delivered into the hands of Father Josef, the first officiating priest of St. Ignatius', who apparently found the texts to be heterodox in nature, locking them in a closet located in a small storeroom immediately below the belfry. For reasons known only to him, Fr. Josef failed to inform the heads of his religious order about the books - perhaps because, over time, he became obsessed with their contents, gradually furnishing the storeroom as a small study in which to carry out further researches into these curious tomes. Over the following twenty years, Fr. Josef successfully fulfilled his duties to the parishioners of St. Ignatius' - despite becoming increasingly and visibly haunted by what the texts were revealing; indeed, in an unguarded moment whilst in conversation with a fellow priest - one Father Donovan - he claimed that his faith had been shaken to the core by what he had read. Disturbed by this, Fr. Donovan made the matter known to his and Fr. Josef's superiors.

A convocation was subsequently convened to deal with the matter of the books - but unfortunately too late for Father Josef who, it seems, had managed to extract the final secrets from their pages. On an evening in mid-October a deputation arrived at St.Ignatius' to resolve the matter, only to find Fr. Josef: sitting at a desk in the makeshift study in the belltower, dead, and with both eyes missing.

Whilst witness to the scene generally agreed that, by the biomedical standards of the time, the cessation of both breath and heartbeat were clear and verifiable indications of Fr. Josef's passing, his body yet retained a curious quality of unliving, such that the fingers of his right hand continued to trace the line of text as it ran across the pages of the tome open before him, and his lips seemed to mouth the words on the page as his corpse continued to read them - in spite of his missing eyes.

Even worse was what these interlopers observed upon drawing back the small velvet curtain from the only window in the room. No one present on that day has ever revealed what they saw, other than to hint at the fact that what was observed through the window was a scene which should not have existed, and was certainly not a representation of the material reality of the ordinary street scene which should have been visible from the other side of the glass.

Whatever was observed, it was decided that the entrance to the tower should be locked and boarded immediately, and access to the area henceforth forbidden. Vatican authorities were informed of the situation, and a story involving Fr. Josef's immediate relocation  - on account of health issues - to milder climes half a world away was quickly manufactured. Fortunately the poor priest lacked any living relatives to query this.

Yet to this day the body of Fr. Josef - or whatever he had become in his transfigured, unliving state - presumably sits at a small, decaying desk, in a small, cramped study, staring sightlessly into whatever scene of revelatory horror has bern conjured through the lens of the room's single window, all the while senselessly and silently mouthing whatever terrible secrets are inscribed into the pages of those monstrous books.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.210: The Howling Tower

The above transmitter array was the product of a joint project between the Ministry of Defence and the Northwich Park University's Department of Radiophonics. The purpose of the project remains shrouded in mystery, and supposedly the transmitter is no longer operational - which makes it all the more curious as to why it remains guarded behind a tight net of security.

However, the lattice of rumour which constitutes so much of the social weave and fabric of Horsingdon says otherwise: that soon after the tower became operational, it began emitting a stream of howling static which broke the minds of all those who listened to it. Apparently technicians working on the project were never able to fully shut the signal down - which continued to be transmitted even after the array was disconnected from its power source; they did, however, manage to limit the range of the signal to a scant few metres.

It is said that the transmitter still continues to omit a stream of unbearable sonic awfulness - presumably drawn from some unseen, undimensioned and uncharted realm of abject horror - within the radius of the small and long-overgrown field which it occupies to this day.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.209: The Body in the Shed

This dilapidated shed next to a train track has a strange history attached to it. The line besides which it stands runs through Southcote Station, but the line is also believed to run parallel to one of the Secret Alleys - a lattice of non-corporeal pathways, or lines of force akin to ley lines - which form part of the hypergeometrics of Horsingdon's invisible topography, and which - according to the guardians of the Black Bowers - provide access to the more secret recesses or occulted aspects of that praeternatural landscape.

In any case, the shed is avoided by local residents on account of it being one of the points of regular manifestation of the Shanklin Man - a claim apparently supported by the fact that, some years ago, the body of some indigent was discovered in the shed. Whilst the local press reported this unfortunate as having died of natural causes, the resident who found the body had a different story to tell, stating that the corpse 'looked like it had its face stolen by the Shanklin Man'.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.208: The Sign of the Goat

In the aftermath af yet another thunderstorm, the above lights were photographed, hovering in a triangular formation, above the treeline of Horsingdon Woods. As noted previously, in the esoteric system of signification employed by the guardians of the Black Bowers, the triangle represents an occult portal or doorway - one by which the non-Euclidean dimensions within which lurk Those Who Wait can be accessed.

There is also mention in the histories of Horsingdon of the discovery of a number of artefacts during an archaeological dig which occured in Horsingdon Woods in the late 19th Century. Apparently amongst the items discovered were a number of clay tablets, dating from the time of the Roman invasion of Britain, and upon which were inscribed triangular motifs containing the image of the head of a three-eyed goat. Unfortunately there are no extant photographs of these objects, which ended up in the personal collection of James Boreham. There is no clue as to their current whereabouts..

The lights in the above image were photographed hovering over the spot in Horsingdon Woods where the dig took place.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.207: Stormfront Portents

The incandescent edge of a stormfront rumbles slowly over the glowing alien fronds of floodlights which barely illuminate one of Horsingdon's car parks, deserted now as the locals rush to get home. For the guardians of the Black Bowers, these shining, nocturnal thunderheads are potent omens - on a night like this they will sniff they air and tell you that something terrible is coming: something apocalyptic and earthshaking; something which even they are fearful of.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.206: 'Rebels towards God, enemies to mankinde'

A pamphlet published in 1592 purports to detail incidences of witchcraft in and around Harlow Hill, focusing specifically on one Mother Atkins, who was ultimately ducked in the pond near the crest of Burn Hill before being hanged there, on account of her - and, indeed, all of her sex - being considered (as one male commentor at the time put it) 'rebels towards God, enemies to mankinde'.

Specifically, Mother Atkins was charged with consorting with various spirits of the earth and air, and of possessing a familiar in the form of a great black dog still said to haunt the cemetary of the church atop Harlow Hill.

It is not certain whether Mother Atkins was actually a part of the coven which operated (and which some say remains active today) in and around Harlow, Horsingdon and Burn Hills respectively; but the cruelty and injustice of her fate resonate down to the present: local folklore recounts various manifestations of the ghost of a witch, accompanied by a great, black, spectral hound, up to the present day. These tales tell of how the phantom witch and her hound only ever appear to the men of Harlow - specifically to those men known to have maltreated the womenfolk of the parish. The tales also tell of how the men who bear witness to these apparitions soon after meet a slow, sorrowful, and agonizingly painful demise...

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.205: A Cold, Lightless Place

An optimistic owner has presumably sought to transform a dour and chill interior through the addition of a solar panel to the roof of their abode - a property once owned by James Boreham.

It is unlikely, however, that light or warmth will ever find their way to the cold depths of such a place, touched, as it has been, by the hand of one who has intruded upon those nighted spheres which lurk at the outermost rim of the cosmos, and who has walked unseen through the infinite, glacial abysses beyond known time and space.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.204: The Ghost Tree

The Ghost Tree of Boreham Park - so named because of the spectral face with holes for eyes which has supposedly been seen staring blindly from the gaping hollow in the bole of the tree. Occult artefacts have also been found within the hollow, indicating that the tree continues has also been used for ritual purposes - although the reason for such rites remains unclear. Regardless, such items if discovered are best left unmolested, lest whoever placed these curious offerings - or even worse, whatever praeternatural entity makes the tree its home - decides to effect their return.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.203: The Tower of Silence

This windowless tower sits at the edge of the university campus at Northwich Park. There is no visible entrance to the tower, which apparently can only be entered via access tunnels which run from  the extensive sub-basements below the main campus building. Built sometime in the late 1950s or early 1960s, there are no current records of the tower's purpose - although rumours persist that the its construction was related to a secret project which the Ministry of Defense was developing with the help of the university's long-defunct Department of Radiophonics.

It has been claimed that, if one stand within a foot or two of the structure, all external sounds recede, and one is slowly encompassed by what seems to be a field of utter silence - a silence so praeternaturally absolute that percipients who have undergone the experience apparently find remaining within its aura for more than a few minutes unbearable. Other rumours maintain that, on account of this peculiar quality, the Ministry of Defence at one time forcibly locked living subjects within the tower for extended periods - and that what was typically retrieved in the aftermath of these horrible experiments was no longer human, but would speak in a cracked and ancient voice of the terrible secrets that had been learnt from the silence...

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.202: The Inhabitant of the Crypt

This old brick tomb, dating back to the late 17th Century, sits at the edge of the cemetary atop Harlow Hill. There is no visible name on the tomb to denote whoever - or whatever - is sequestered within. Nor there has ever been an expanation as to the necessity of erecting the curious wrought-iron structure which now encases the tomb - although rumour has it that the protective lattice was built not so much with the intention of safeguarding the enclosed vault from vandalism, but of preventing any attempt at egress by that which lies within the crypt's nitrous bounds...

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.201: Witch Bottles

Further evidence regarding the fate of Reverend John Broadham has appeared in the form of this grotesque witch bottle, recently discovered in the basement of All Hallow's Church in Northwich Park - the only part of the building which survived the fire of 1969 which supposedly claimed the life of the good reverend. There are certainly records of similar bottles being discovered throughout Horsingdon during the late 1960s and 1970s - a time when the UK was in the grip of something of a moral panic which clustered around tabloid-induced fears that the practice of witchcraft and satanism were sweeping through the nation and corrupting its youth.

Witch bottles are usually apotropaic in nature - typically used to trap the malignant power of witchcraft; Horsingdon witch bottles, on the other hand, have often been employed in a manner wholly antithetical to their traditional application: nail or hair clippings - or some other personal effect - of the intended victim are placed within the vessel, after which the bottle is secreted in some obscure corner of their abode where it is unlikely to be discovered. The witch bottle then functions as a kind of beacon for whatever thing the sorcerous assailant has conjured for the occasion of the victim's doom - supposedly to be dragged off to some nameless place for some nameless purpose. In light of which, it is unlikely that Reverand Broadham - wherever or whatever he is now - will ever be seen again.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.200: Numbers Stations

After the electrical storm last night, the Horsingdon airwaves have been awash with numeric cyphers broadcast by the regions numbers stations - some of which have been silent for decades. Whatever it is these enigmatic and impenetrable codes - often announced coldly in the uncanny electronic emulation of a human voice -  seek to communicate (and to whom) remains unclear; what is certain, however, is that previous bursts of cryptologic chatter from these stations have usually heralded some significant event - usually of praeternatural provenance. Thus the possibility comes presents itself that both the storm and the feverish activity of the numbers stations are harbingers of future events yet more momentous and more monstrous...

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.199: Dead Air

In one small corner of Horsigdon, the ubiquitous transmitter arrays seem to be exerting a very different effect upon the airwaves than elsewhere in the region. Here, at the least populous reaches of Burn Hill, the transmitters seek to blanket the aural landscape with some kind of sonic dampening field; not only do radios fail to pick up any signal whatsoever within this area, but they do not even register static: just an appalling silence that seems to stretch into infinity and feels vertiginous in its density of absence - a feeling like you are falling through forever. It is well worn cliche that nature abhors a vacuum, but one wonders what kind of abnatural presence might seek to fill such a vast and unending absence as produced by the transmitters of Burn Hill.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.198: Black Triangles

A common trope in modern ufology, the skies of Horsingdon have not been deficient in materialising a number of its own black triangles - like the example above, photographed hovering blurrily over Horsingdon Hill - within its own overpopulous manifest of aerial phenomenon.

Contemporary ufologists tend to treat such spectacles as a species of alien craft; and whilst this may, indeed, be the case, things are rarely quite so simple when it comes to the esoteric configurations which have shaped Horsingdon and its history. In some occult traditions - including the folk iterations of much older hermetic observances employed by the guardians of the Black Bowers - the triangle is both a tool of containment and a gateway: the geometric form into which those monstrous Powers from Outside are called in rituals of evocation, and also a portal which leads to the nameless abysses from which such Powers are summoned.

The appearance of black triangles in the skies above Horsingdon may, indeed, be portent to the intrusion of alien forces - but forces vastly different to what one might care to imagine or encounter.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.197: Falling Stars

Horsingdon Woods contains a number of large, circular caldera-like depressions, many of which are oddly quiet and seemingly absent of wildlife. Local legend holds that these are in fact craters left in the aftermath of 'falling stars' which were 'called down from the gulfs of space' by the Horsingdon coven at some point during the Dark Ages. There are those who claim that whatever the coven brought forth from the voids between the stars was the very thing responsible for warping and transmuting the Horsingdon landscape at some fundamental level, altering the ways in which space-time operates throughout the region - and the ultimate cause of the varied weird and uncanny events which seem to regularly afflict the borough. Whatever the truth of the matter, these hollows are always oddly quiet, exude an aura of menace, and are seemingly absent of wildlife.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.196: The Crooked Tree

The Crooked Tree stands near the crown of Burn Hill, and is sacred to the guardians of the Black Bowers. There is something intrinsically uncanny about sites such as this, delineating as they do zones of disjuncture: places where the world somehow becomes uncoupled from linear temporal trajectories, and from the hard physics which to all appearances fix and constrain the spatial coordinates it is able to occupy; locations one only ever seems to encounter amid the desolation of sombre grey skies.

When one delves into the history of these sites, ne discovers that a large number of tales telling of monstrous apparitions and incidences of bloody violence cluster around them - memorialising a past otherwise best forgotten. Indeed, in the folk traditions of Horsingdon, the ritualised spilling of blood is often necessary to effect a renewal and regeneration of the social order, such as it is; at locales such as these the act of bloodletting serves an entirely different purpose: to force open a little further, through the psychic trauma of blood spilt, those hidden doorways to the Outside which lie outside out physical perception.

Even today one might still encounter the aftermath of an act of blood sacrifice at the foot of the Crooked Tree: a wood pidgeon whose head has been shorn from its body, or a hare with its throat torn open. It is rumoured that worse, even more bloody sacrifice is made here on the night of certain festivals. On such nights, the people of Horsingdon ensure that their children are safely in bed, and thar the doors and windows to their homes are firmly bolted well before nightfall.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.195: Black Light

At twilight, above the Church of St. Jerome near Horsingdon Wood, the sky is split for a few brief seconds by a pulsing beam of black light - accompanied by something like the sound of thunder.

The older inhabitants of the region are all-too-familiar with what such phenomena signify: someone has rent a doorway in the fabric of creation, and given licence - if only for a short time - to something which-should-not-be to stalk the world.

That the progenitors of such a monstrous act will eventually meet an unpleasant and unspeakable end - usually at the hands or nameless paws of whatever it is they have called forth - provides little succor to local residents, whose number will also be diminished on account of the mysterious disappearances which invariably occur At such times. It is likely that the streets of Horsingdon will be more deserted than usual for the next few nights.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.194: Unholy Habitations

Yet another of James Boreham's now-derelict properties: a domicile made up of entirely windowless rooms, and possessing similarly sealed doorways - long ago bricked up by order of Horsingdon Borough Council.

Outsiders who accidentally alight upon one of these blank facades invariably raise the vexatious question as to how one is supposed to gain entrancebto the interior of the structure. For those who have spent any time whatsoever in the region, and who know something of its history - especially as it pertains to the questionable life and unspeakable works James Boreham - are all too well aware that this is entirely the wrong question to ask: for the intent of such doorless and windowless houses is not to bar entry to them, but to prevent egress into our world by those who still yet reside within the walls of these unholy habitations.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.193: Signals to the Superspectrum

Another mysterious transmitter located along the Ebury way just outside of Horsingdon, and situated not far from a sealed concrete bunker dating from the mid-1950s - a period during which a signicant number of UFO sightings were reported in the region. By the early 1960s, such reports trailed off significantly - until the past decade, during which time the above transmitter was built. Since then, this stretch of the Ebury way has once more become somewhat notorious as a local hotspot for sightings of strange lights in the sky, encounters with other unexplained aerial phenomenon, and even confrontations with mysterious cryptids which seem to appear from nowhere - as well as with other, far stranger visitants from those praeternatural realms which teem invisibly at the thresholds of our own.

Undoubtedly there is something strange about Horsingdon and its surrounding environs: some inherent property of the landscape - the unique hypergeometric organisation of its topography, perhaps - which signals its status as one of the 'window areas' written of by John Keel: conjectural zones which delineate points of intersection between our reality and the infinte superspectrum of other worlds - in relation to which, the many transmitter arrays which dot the region seem placed in locales where the metaphyical membrane between worlds is especially thin - sites whose histories are rife with rumour of the spectral and the unearthly.

Have they, perhaps, been positioned purposely so? A calculated design replicating some arcane pattern or cryptic sigil - perhaps wrought from the ruin of those occult economies which, some conspiracy theorists claim, flourished in secret bunkers and laboratories during the most desperate hours of World War 2, and in which unspeakable secrets and inconceivable technologies of prehuman genesis constituted the principal tokens of exchange? A summoning grid, of sorts, for signalling to and calling forth those vast things that roll mindlessly in the voids of space -  and within the unplumbed gulfs beyond time and space? And if such speculation turns out to be even a distorted reflection of the truth, who would do such a thing? And to what purpose?