The Lovecraftian Thing A Day (2018) No.0: Prologue

For this year’s daily blogging project, we return once more to the Lovecraftian Thing A Day. Whilst I had various opportunities during 2017 to accrue more Lovecraftian stuff (a trip to NecronomiCon in August was very helpful to this end), there may well be occasions when I play a little fast and loose with the definition of ‘Lovecraftian’; I also anticipate presenting more digital items, and probably a few less object d’art and a few more books, than I did in 2016. There are also a number of Lovecraftian events forthcoming, so coverage of these will also be included – even if the ontological status of their ‘thingness’ might be questionable (one for the speculative realists out there). I'm also going to try and get more gaming in this year than last, so expect a few more gaming-related material. I may also delve a little more deeply into the cultural salience of Lovecraft, by way of theorising those aspects of Lovecraftian material culture I hope to present throughout the year. As per the 2016 project, it is likely that I will interweave a few fictional narratives throughout the posts – possibly linking back to Horsingdon for those Transmissions fans amongst you.

The 2016 Lovecraftian Thing A Day seems to have been more successful (in a very small way) than 2017’s The Horsindon Transmissions – at least in terms of its coverage by various online sources (the Thing A Day was mentioned on a few blogs and podcasts); that said, I didn’t particularly promote the Transmissions on social media and other digital platforms in quite the way I had with the Thing A Day, so I mean to redouble my efforts in this direction in 2018. There are also a couple of other things I’m thinking of doing in relation to this year’s blogging project, but I won’t say too much about those for the time being.

So, without more ado, welcome back to the Lovecraftian Thing A Day – expect the first official ‘thing’ shortly.

Be seeing you.

The Horsingdon Transmissions: Epilogue

The Horsingdon Transmissions is finally over - but rather let us say it is gone for now, not forgotten.

The germ of the Transmissions has been knocking around for a good few years, taking its initial inspiration from the fictional Severn Valley which formed the setting for Ramsey Campbell's early tales of Lovecraftian horror. My intention was to do something similar with my own enweirded corner of Greater London. Whilst much of so much of Horsingdon lies under the shadow of Lovecraft, the air was also heavy with folk horror when the Transmissions first began, so the many of the posts are infused with the mood and themes of the Folk Horror Revival facebook page, the sci-fi-inflected folk hauntology of Ghostbox, Chris Lambert's Tales of the Black Meadow, and David Southwell's Hookland. Matthew Bartlett's tales of sonic horror - set in the town of Leeds, Massachussetts - also helped shape a key element of the Horsingdon setting. And, of course, one should not forget The League of Gentlemen (so recently returned to our screens) - or the speculative horrors of Nigel Kneale and Quatermass.

However, the blog was never entirely successful in terms of its original aim - which was to maintain an ongoing narrative throughout the daily posts, with the end result being somethin akin to a novel in blog format; unfortunately that ended up falling outside the grasp of my creative powers during the early stages of the project. So, instead, the Transmissions ended up as a series of thematically-interlinked and occasionally-intersecting vignettes.

There are also repetitions by way of style and content throughout, such that some later posts are, in effect, rewritings of earlier missives. In this respect, I now see the Horsingdon Transmissions as a kind of commonplace book: a reservoir of ideas to which I hope to return - perhaps reworking the material into a series of interlinked short stories, or a novella. There were also other aspects of the Horsingdon region intimated early on in the series - the outlier villages of Wychford and Dedham, for example - which I never got around to exploring, but whose mysteries I mean to investigate at a later date.

Despite the ending of the Transmissions, the threads of the tales spun out Horsingdon are ongoing - it is, after all, a very real place. I should know. I live there. I would invite you to come and visit - but I'd be afraid that - like so many of the region's residents - once here, you would never leave.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.365: Just Beginning

After a night of almost gale force winds, the scaffolding around the St. Osmund's Church has collapsed, and the spire has fallen in on itself, causing severe damage to the interior of the building. If there ever was indeed anything imprisoned within the spire, it is certainly now free to wreak its own particular brand of praeternatural havoc upon the Horsingdon populace.

In an equally sinister turn of events, the Boreham family mausoleum within the grounds of St. Osmund's has been broken into, and the corporeal remains of at least three generations of the Boreham line are now inexplicably missing from their final place of rest. The parties responsible for this desecration have also left two sets of unsettling graffiti within the mausoleum: in the lower level of the crypt (where the Boreham family remains used to lie), someone has inscribed in blood an ancient and prehuman formula - one which employs the sign of the Dragon's Head in the ascending node to invoke a monstrous Name of Power, and which is only ever used in the darkest of necromantic rites. Also scrawled in blood on one of the walls of the mausoleum's ground level, in a hand which looks remarkably similar to that of James Boreham, is the following portentous message: 'This is not the End. This is just the Beginning'.

Whatever this means, it surely augurs dire times indeed for Horsingdon. Let us hope at least that that the good folk of the region - and, indeed, all of us - manage to see out the current year in relative peace and safety.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.364: Our Work Here Is Not Yet Done

One of the last photographs of Boreham Mansion: seat to the notorious Boreham family for over two centuries, and birthplace of James Boreham - the last scion of that cursed lineage whose very existence was a blight on the region, and whose legacy remains, even today, one of fear and horror.

The legacy and birthright of an inhuman bloodline whose work, as attested to by so many of the signs and portents revealed throughout Horsingdon over the past twelvemonth, is not yet done.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.363: Lost Documents

The Ministry headquarters in Horsingdon circa the early 1950s, and at the silent outbreak of the Cold War. By the mid-1970s, the Ministry would have moved their base of operations elsewhere, and the building would become the seat of Horsinsingdon Borough Council - later to be renamed as Horsingdon Town Hall.

However, it seems that the Ministry failed to dispose of all their secrets, and on occasion some unfortunate clerk or administrator will stumble across a file or document of doubtful provenance: a sheet of yellowed paper scrawled with a curious sequence of sigils, or a seemingly inscrutable mathematical formula; or perhaps an after-action report detailing a confrontation between Ministry personnel and something which should not be.

Should knowledge of a kind never meant to be contained or comprehended by human minds be transmitted in such an accidental encounter with these pieces of anomalous paperwork, consequences which are both tragic and monstrous in equal measure tend to be the inevitable consequence. And it is rumoured that there yet remains cellars full of secrets lying unread in the vaults beneath Horsingdon Town Hall.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No. 362: Haunted Housing

Coldhill Estate was built at the behest of Horsingdon Borough Council in the late 1960s - one of the experiments in utopian social housing common at the time; yet within a decade of its construction, the estate had fallen into a rapid social and economic decline, with a rising crime rate and many of the apartments left untenanted due to disrepair.

Notably, Coldhill Estate had, by this time, acquired a reputation for being haunted; this was not, however, a straightforward case of spectral figures seen stalking its corridors, but more a feeling - widely expressed by many of the tenants - that there was something 'not quite right' about the place. People moved out as quickly as they moved in, and fewer and fewer families were willing to accept the offer of being housed there on account of rumours that a number of children from the estate had disappeared inexplicably.

Some have claimed that the strangeness which seems to cluster about the place is a by-product of its architecture - an experimental design supposedly produced by the Ministry; local folklorists have, on the other hand, argued that Chalkhill has demonstrable historic associations with the witchlore of the region - the site having long ago been cursed after a mass execution of witches occured there in the mid-16th century; others will tell you that the estate was built above a barrow within which something dark and primal slumbers.

Whatever the case, the place is best avoided at all cost - if not for the sake of your physical wellbeing, then for the sake of your soul.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.361: The Green Man

The Green Man pub and hotel sits near the foot of Horsingdon Hill, and is named after the folkloric figure said to haunt the nearby Horsingdon Woods.

Despite its mythic nature, there are still occasional accounts of casual ramblers encountering the hulking, shapeless figure of the Green Man in the Woods; it is even rumoured that, on the nights of certain festivals, the guardians of the Black Bowers make bloody sacrifice to this monstrous entity, which they consider to be the avatar of one of Those Who Wait - and who remains imprisoned somewhere in the deep geological strata far below Horsingdon Woods; it is, according to their doctrine, the spilling of fresh blood within the bounds of the Woods which can induce the earth to mutter with the consciousness of this unnameable being, revealing the time-worn secrets of things which should not be.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.360: Alien Acoustics

This transmission tower situated within the grounds of a Ministry facility at the edge of lower Harlowe has been broadcasting the same signal over the past few months: a low, pulsing algorithm of atonal sound, 

Rumour has it that the facility has been perfecting new sonic technologies derived from a series of musical scores written by a virtually unknown German composer who mysteriously disappeared during a sojourn in Paris some time around the turn of the 20th Century. These technologies are allegedly concerned with the use of an alien acoustics for the processing and transmission of certain kinds of information into as-yet-unpercieved strata or wavelengths of the harmonics which constitute the foundation of reality.

Whatever the case, the signal continues unabated - and for an as-yet undisclosed purpose.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.359: Yule Horror

The haunted landscape of Horsingdon, stretching off into an indistinct horizon populated by the untenanted Brutalist apartment blocks of Trentford, seen from Horsingdon Hill on Christmas Day. There are occasions when even the awful cosmic vistas sometimes revealed within the region's praeternatural topography fail to compete with the dismal horror revealed within the everyday.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.358: The Swimmers in Darkness

The closure of Horsingdon Bunker eventually led to an overall state of disrepair such that sections of the facility were subject to extensive flooding.

Subsequent tales recount instances of urban explorers encountering monstrous shapes swimming in the black and stagnant waters under which parts of the installation remain submerged. If, indeed, such entities do actually exist, the origin and nature of such subaqueous dwellers remains a matter of pure speculation - although presumably their presence beneath the Bunker is related in some manner to the strange history of the place, and the subsequent reasons for its abandonment.

THe Horsingdon Transmissions No.357: Mock Tudor Miasma

A wave of building throughout Horsingdon in the 1930s produced a significant number of houses in the then-popular mock Tudor style - many of which remain standing today. But this being Horsingdon, a history of horror and tragedy lurks behind the kitsch-yet-endearing exteriors of some of these buildings - notably those owned by James Boreham.

A strange, ectoplasmic miasma was recently captured hovering about one such property in the photograph above: a house located on Welbury Avenue, whose cellar Boreham utilised as the site of certain occult experiments.

Whilst the house on Welbury Avenue has a history of paranormal activity, the locale appears to have remained psychically inactive and free from praeternatural intrusions for the past three decades, raising the question as to why there has been an apparent resurgence of such activity, and whether this is due to the spectral architecture of the place having retained some kind of sympathetic link with its previous owner - in whatever speculative realm or state of being that notorious individual might currently exist...

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.356: A Voice from the Past

Festive jingles broadcast by Horsingdon's local radio station have been constantly interrupted for most of the week by bursts of howling black static, interspersed with the muted chanting of hymns to alien gods composed in some inhuman tongue. Some who are old enough to remember claim that, behind this atonal cacophany, the voice of James Boreham can be heard sonorously incanting some monstrous psalm. 

This all began soon after the above transmitter array - located atop a Ministry facility built upon the site where Boreham Manor once stood - went live.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.355: Faceless Witch

Older residents of the region know that Horsingdon Hill is best avoided at this season. Not only are the guardians of the Black Bowers engaged in their dubious ritual preparations during this time, but the infamous Faceless Witch of Horsingdon Woods is particularly active in the lead up to the celebration of the Yule festival.

Little is known about this strange and mysterious entity, other than the fact that, for at least two centuries, the witch has figured heavily as a sinister portent of doom in the Yuletide folklore of the borough.

Needless to say, any reported manifestation of the Faceless Witch predicates some terrible misfortune - at least for those unlucky enough to encounter this entity's spectral presence. No doubt the above photograph - which appears to have captured the Witch on film - will likewise precipitate the notification of the Horsingdon constabulary of the disappeaance of one or more casual ramblers in the vicinity of the Hill. Inevitably, such reports will be forgotten, purposefully misfiled, or even destroyed - for over the years, too many of the local police force have gone missing during the festive season, often after having been asked to investigate a similarly alleged crime - one with no clearly defined victim, perpertrator, or motive.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.354: Pallid Masks

As the Yule festivities draw towards their climax, the guardians of the Black Bowers are more likely to be seen in and around those parts of Horsingdon where the region's praeternatural topography grinds hideously against the walls which separate our world from the monstrous Outside. Typically, one will encounter them at such locales around the hours of dusk, engaging in their ritual preparations whilst wearing the sinister, pallid masks which they deem the appropriate ceremonial garb during this particular season.

If thus encountered, one is advised to depart the area quickly and quietly. In such circumstances, it is likely that they will leave you be; however, for those overly-curious souls who take it on themselves to pry too deeply into the work of the guardians at this time of year, a less certain - and far less pleasant - fate awaits: as is likely the case of whoever took the above photo, whose camera was found a few days ago - perhaps left as a warning to others - abandoned and bloodied on the side of Horsingdon Hill.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.353: The Whispering Well

A curious locale known as 'The Whispering Well' can be found in a forgotten corner of Horsingdon Bunker. Since the ominous events which overtook the facility, what was once just the opening to an access tunnel running beneath one of the Bunker's lower levels has acquired a sinister reputation: it is said that those who encounter this particular locale, if they linger too long, will be drawn to the apperture in the floor on account of the faint chorus of whispers they hear emanating from below; that they will be both enraptured and horrified by the secrets revealed to them the closer and longer they listen; that they will eventually be compelled to seek the source of those whispers, ultimately leading those unfortunate souls to venture into the lower depths of the Bunker - a journey, it is said, from which no one has ever returned.

It is also said that, in the aftermath of such a terminal excursion, a new voice will have been added to that uncanny ensemble of whisperers, whose terrible, murmured pronouncements issue from unseen voids below.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.352: Monstrous Effluvia

A vast luminous cloud hangs over Horsingdon at the start of the Yule festivities, bathing the region in its sickly green glow: the monstrous effluvia, perhaps, of those Outside forces which the guardians of the Black Bowers seek to evoke during this season; yet the world remains - for now - suggesting that their evocations were, at best, only partially successful.

Even so, at a time such as this when the door between worlds remains ajar, more than one of Horsingdon's residents is likely to meet a singular, perplexing and highly unconventional fate before daybreak signals a cessation of the night's horrors.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.351: Black Bowers

Boreham Park Station has recently acquired a Black Bower. It is positioned in front of a wall marking the threshold of the station's bounds. Behind this wall grows a small copse - an outlier of Horsingdon Wood, and fraught with dire rumour: of strange chanting heard on the night of certain festivals, and of grotesquely-inhuman shapes glimpsed at its centre. Reports of such phenomena seem to have intensified since the appearance of the Black Bower - although none of the station staff seem to be able to specify exactly when the curious structure appeared. Nor do they have any notion of what, if anything, it portends...

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.350: The Infinite Stair

The architect who designed this exterior stairwell - part of a Ministry installation near Horsingdon Hill - was sectioned due to a psychotic episode not long after the building's completion, disappearing in mysterious circumstances a few weeks later. This individual, it is rumoured, had long been in the employ of the Ministry, during which time he had been exposed to many of the strange and inhuman secrets which were the currency his employers dealt in - including certain texts said to reveal within their pages the alien principles underlying a hitherto unknown body of non-Euclidean and hyperdimensional geometry.

Within a week of the building having been open for use, three people were known to have disappeared inexplicably whilst travesing the stairwell - only one of whom was discovered, cowering at the top of the stairs, a few days later. This unfortunate was soon after declared irreparably insane.

The points of ingress to and egress from the stairwell have since been concreted over - although it is said that one might occasionally discern unearthly sounds emanating from the other side of these sealed portals.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.349: Windowless Prisons

A secluded wood on the boundary of Trentford hides yet more monolithic Brutalism in the form of this Ministry building. With but one entrance, and no windows visible, this structure might represent an ideal type of the architectural inscrutability which Ministry installations seem to strive for. All the better to hide its secrets from casual observers or overly curious eyes.

All the better to prevent access to its interior.

All the better to ensure that there is no means of egress for whatever lurks within.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.348: Ash Circles

Wide, indented circles of grass inexplicable blasted into white ash - like this one near the crown of Burn Hill - have been appearing throughout Horsingdon. Local ufologists cite them as evidence of the landing of extraterrestrial craft; conspiracy theorists claim them as the aftermath of the testing of some powerful Ministry weapon - a sonic beam, perhaps, projected from one of the nearby transmitter arrays; the more esoterically-minded of the region's paranormal investigators argue, for their part, that they are products of votices of praeturnatural energy, released at the apex of one of the black magical conjurations they believe occur regularly at the summit of the hill.

Only the guardians of the Black Bowers know the truth of the matter, and they are so terrified by what the phenomenon portends that they prefer not to speak of it.