The Horsingdon Transmissions No.67: The Dweller in the Lake

The above photo shows the base of Welkin's Folly situated not far from Northwich Lake. The lake itself no longer exists, having been drained in the late 1910s during a wave of extensive urban development. The existence of a quaint wooden bridge in the above image across the small inlet that fed the lake marks an early phase of the domestication of the Horsingdon landscape- although such attempts to tame and contraint the ancient and malign topography of the region have only ever met with partial success: soon after the laying of the foundations of Welkin's Folly, locals began to report occurances of a strange, dark shape seen disturbing the waters of the lake; these were soon followed by accounts of a number of dogs having mysteriously disappeared in the vicinity of the lake, often in sight of their owners.

In sny case, subsequent to the start of The construction of Welkin's Folly, it was generally accepted by the local populace that an ancient power was stirring in the depths of the lake. Knowledgeable occultists laid the blame at the feet of James Boreham, claiming that he was conversant in a certain, secretive body of ancient and prehuman lore - lore which he had used in the building of Welkin's Folly, and which he meant to direct toward a terrible purpose; to that end he had used the incomplete base of the tower as some kind of arcane summoning lattice for conjuring something into the lake - or had roused to wakefulness that which had long lain dormant beneath its surface. Indeed, the folklore of the region implied that a presence had dwelt within the lake since time immemorial, and that in the past locals had made regular sacrifice to propitiate the thing.

The eventual draining of the lake offered some indication of the truth of the matter: a large slab of black stone, inscribed with curious sigils of archaic design, was discovered close to the centre of the lake bed. When attempts by workmen to shift the slab using physical force came to nothing, dynamite was employed to greater effect...but whatever was uncovered on that fateful day appears to have been  expunged from memory and history, as the lake bed was quickly concreted over - although not before two men mysteriously lost their lives in what local press unconvincingly reported as an unfortunate accident.