Travelling in a southerly direction past Horsingdon Hill, one encounters what was once a relatively small parcel of common land - covering only a few acres - known as Farrow Wood. In the 1970s a compulsory purchase order effectively placed the Wood under the jurisdiction of an arm of the British Armed Services (which Horsingdon conspiracy theorists, with typically paranoid aplomb, believe is probably mysterious and inscrutable 'Ministry').
Notably, the issuance of the purchase order coincided with rather hysterical claims being made in local newspapers - replicating a wider moral panic being perpetrated in the national tabloids - regarding a rising tide of witchcraft and satanism which was apparently sweeping the nation, with Farrow Wood being one of the focal points in the Horsingdon region where withcraft rituals and other 'satanic' activities were supposedly flourishing.
Whether the two instances are related remains open to speculation - but ever since that time Farrow Wood has been fenced off and closed to public access; in addition to which, nightly the tall floodlights shown in the above photo illuminate a clearing in the middle of the Wood where, according to the news reports of the 1970s, nameless occult rites regularly took place.
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