The Horsingdon Transmissions No.334: 'As Above, So Below'

An addendum, of sorts, to yesterday's post: the above fuzzy thumbnail was attached to an e-mail which appeared in my inbox this morning, sent by the mysterious 'Mr. Cold' - a somewhat trickster-like figure who has previously directed curious tidbits of lesser-known Horsingdon lore in my direction. On those occasions, however, the material in question has always pertained to matters ufological; in this instance, Cold claims that the photograph shows a manifestation of the very same headless horror mentioned in my previous posting, captured whilst one of Cold's associates was conducting some kind of experiment - apparently of a 'techno-metaphysical nature' - in St. Osmund's burying ground a few nights ago.

Cold's e-mail ends with the occult adage 'As Above, So Below'; whether this is meant to infer some hidden link between the chthonic earth-bound monstrosity supposedly depicted in the photograph, and those unexplained aeriel phenomena which have so often intruded into the skies over Horsingdon, remains to be seen.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.333: Headless Horror

This Romano-British figurine now graces one of the walls of the lower crypt of St.Osmund's Church. Once belonging to James Boreham, the effigy's acephalous condition is not a consequence of wanton vandalism, but by design. Apparently it represents a strange, headless entity said to dwell in an underground labyrinth situated somewhere below Horsingdon. Boreham seemed to believe that an entrance to this chthonic domain lay beneath St. Osmund's burying ground - and that other of Horsingdon's cemeteries also contained portals to this maze-like subterranean realm.

The strange idol was made a fixture within St. Osmund's crypt by one of it's more heterodox pastors, and at behest of James Boreham.

Intriguingly, over the years there have been occasional reports of encounters in and around the cemetaries of Horsingdon with a monstrous, headless entity who - horrifyingly - has also been described as possessing leech-like appendages in place of hands...

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.332: Whispers from the Abyss

A cloaked and hooded figure is said to haunt this rather derelict-looking Northwich alleyway - a figure entirely calm and silent except for the strange, low whispering which supposedly emanates from whatever lies within its hood; it is said that those who hear such whisperings often feel compelled to listen more closely to the incredible secrets this curious and otherworldly figure has to impart; it is also said that those unable to resist this compulsion never reach the other end of the alleyway...

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.331: The Attic Room

One of James Boreham's more opulent properties, Welbury House is also one of Horsingdon's most haunted buildings; however, having been in the Boreham family for some generations, the place has a acquired a reputation for hosting spectral forces of a highly unusual - not to say alien - character.

The attic room shown here was supposedly the final resting place of one of Boreham's own siblings, who was born monstrously disfigured, and whose body (it is rumoured) dissolved within minutes of their death - pointing to an other-than human ancestry if true. Other unsubstantiated rumours hold that James was in fact the direct and murderous cause of his unfortunate sibling's death. In any case, there is no extant birth certificate of this supposed relative, and no record of funerary rites involving one of the Boreham family during the period when these events supposedly transpired.

All that remains by way of testament to these alleged occurances are subsequent reports of a rugose, lumpen, and barely-anthropoid mass of faintly glowing and transluscent flesh having been seen standing at the window of the attic room on certain nights, whose approximation of a face is devoid of any features whatesoever.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.330: Symbols Beyond Meaning

Yesterday's post detailing the curious drone seen hovering over Horsingdon has a number of curious epilogues: some two decades after the Horsingdon sighting, a small number of reports and photographs of similar drones seen have filtered on to the internet - in addition to which, documents claiming to function as a kind of grammatological primer for the symbols etched on to these drones have also made their way online.

According to the analysis of these documents found here, the symbols visible on the drones are 'something akin to a language, that could quite literally execute itself, at least in the presence of a very specific type of field.' From which I infer, the symbols, applied in certain configurations, are able to exhert specific effects upon the fabric of physical reality - antigravitational effects, for example. This being the case, we are dealing with a kind of technology virtually inconceivable in terms of current human understandings of language, physics, and mathematics. Apparently similar symbols can be found amongst North American parietal art dating back at least 9,000 years - although currently no evidence has been offered in support of this claim.

Rumour has it that a similar set of documents were found on a body discovered atop Horsingdon Hill not long after the photograph from yesterday's post was taken. To this day, the identity of the cadaver remains unknown - although it has been suggested that it may be the corpse of the original photographer. There is one final and exceedingly strange feature of this aspect of the case: the cause of death could not, initially, be ascertained, as there were no marks to be found anywhere on the body; however, when a full autopsy had been performed, it was discovered that, despite the cranium being undamaged and fully intact - with no visible, external sign of medical intervention - the brain had somehow been removed from within the sealed skull with apparently surgical precision.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.329: Alien Drone

A strange construct hovering over Horsingdon Hill in the late 1980s, photographed by an unknown individual. Rumours persist that other, more detailed photographs of the object exist in the archives of the Ministry - photos clearly illustrating the body and vanes of this apparently alien drone as being marked with a series of bizarre ideograms. Furthermore, it has been intimated that these symbols mirror a system of signification found in certain occult tomes of earthly provenance: tomes which enunciate a hieroglyphics of horror as the means of effecting communication with those primordial and monstrous forces from the Outside...

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.328: Mother Croake

Marjorie Kenton - also known as 'Mother Croake' on account of her toad familiars, and depicted in the woodcut above - occupies a unique place in Horsingdon's witchlore on account of her being an ancestor of Joseph Boreham - and also because of her own speculated ancestry: it is claimed that Kenton's mother called up something akin to a monstrous toad from some black zone of abysmal horror, which she subsequently took as a lover - with Marjorie as the hybrid product of that strange union. If true, this points to a probable origin of the weirdly alien heritage evident amongst members of the latter-day Boreham bloodline.

Fortunately, Mother Croake managed to avoid the fate of so many of Horsingdon's witches. Even so, at a time when women were not only considered chattel but, in the context of a rigidly patriarchal, patrilineal and patrifocal kinship system, also as strangers or even enemies by their husbands, it is unsurprising that her own husband, John Boreham, levelled an allegation of witchery. The irony of one of the Boreham family accusing someone of witchcraft has not been lost on those present-day residents of Horsingdon who still remember the old tales.

In any case, Marjorie was found guilty and sentenced to death on the pyre; however, as she stood bound to the stake awaiting her fate, the proceedings were, so it is told, suddenly and violently interrupted by a thunderclap the like of which those present had never before heard - one which filled the bystanders with a nameless dread; after which it was discovered that a large crack had appeared in the earth near to Marjorie's place of execution. From this there was seen to issue forth a great black cloud of sulpherous smoke within which could be discerned the outline of something monstrous - something akin to a great black toad...

Marjorie is then said to have joyously cried out something - the utterance of which caused the ropes binding her to miraculously unravel, allowing her to to perform avmonstrous toad-like leap - right into the centre of the stinking cloud, which then began dissipating as quickly as it had appeared. Thereafter, no sign of Mother Croake was to be found, and she was never again seen in the region.

Her husband, on the other hand - who was in attendance at his wife's anticipated immolation - was found to have been mysteriouly struck dead. On close inspection, it was discovered that he had been eaten alive from within - his innards crawling with members of an unnatural species of three-eyed toad.

There is one final epilogue to the tale: records of events do not recount what it was that Marjorie Kenton cried out before her unexpected escape; however, rumour persists that the final exclamation which she let fly before fleeing into that toad-shaped cloud of dense black smoke was a single word: 'Father!'.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.327: Ontological Deterioration

 A derelict tower in Horsingdon, colonised by transmitter arrays which continually broadcast across a bandwidth of decay and dilapidation, eroding other transmissions riding the surrounding airwaves: the voice of a loved one, listened to on a mobile phone - whose signal intersects with the anomalous zone surrounding the tower - is rendered ancient and abominable; nearby transistor radios are filled with horrible static, interspersed with a strange, insectile chittering; televisions present images and sounds warped beyond recognition.

The sleep of those who live within the vicinity of the tower is uneasy at best, wracked with febrile dreams of a corrupted and degenerate cosmos trapped in an eternal state of decline and ontological deterioration.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.326: No.37, Horsingdon Lane

This curious, tower-like apartment block - No.37, Horsingdon Lane - has been unoccupied and derelict for decades. Despite its attractive, art deco-like stylings, no on has been in a hurry to take up habitation in the place. The reasons for this are unclear - although James Boreham's prior ownership of no.37 undoutedly has something to do with the matter. Whatever the case, the fact that Horsingdon Borough Council have the building under permanent surveillance - note the cctv camera pointed at the place in the upper lefthand corner of the above image - is, surely, cause for concern.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.325: Buried Secrets

No one is quite sure about the purpose of this ruined structure, located in a wooded area on the edge of Croxley Moor; an outpost of Horsingdon Bunker, perhaps? In its midst, a squat, concrete archway opens on to a corridor, which appears to follow a downward gradient to some nameless, subterranean interior; however, if one investigates only a few metres into the darkness of the corridor, one finds it has been entirely blocked by rubble, frustrating attempts to penetrate further into the building's depths. Perhaps this is for the best - for the darkness below Horsingdon hides many secret things which, for the sake and sanity of the region, are best left undisturbed.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.324: Blood Sacrifice

Horsingdon Bunker during the early phases of its construction; even then - prior to 'the Event', the undisclosed nature of which was the cause of the bunker's ultimate closure - the place had acquired a reputation for strangeness: five workers died during an unexpected collapse in a part of the bunker which had previously been declared safe, with mysterious symbols found to be etched into pieces of the rubble covering their crushed and mangled corpses. Some of the older men working on the site, who were familiar with the folkways of the region, claimed that the dead men had been used as a blood sacrifice, sealing a compact with unspeakable Powers to whom the site of the bunker had been consecrated in ages past.

At least two more individuals disappeared mysteriously after venturing into a cave system which was discovered during the bunker's construction. No effort was made to locate or rescue these missing unfortunates, and the entrance to the caves was permanently sealed not long after.

Regardless of the terms of any covenant made with the Powers to whom the site had once been dedicated, it seems that from the offset, the location of Horsingdon Bunker was one which was never readily going to countenance the intrusion of mere humanity into its secret depths.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.323: The Faces From Below

The entry point to an access tunnel serving the partially-built reservoir beneath Horsingdon Hill. Ostensibly, the mesh wire covering was put in place as a safety measure to prevent access to the incomplete structure below; however, other rumors suggest that entry to the tunnel was restricted for another reason entirely: on account of the pale, inhuman faces which, it is said, were sometimes to be seen staring staring hungrily from out the darkness below.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.322: Unquiet Graves

There are any number of disturbed graves in the hillside cemetary on Harlow Hill, the headstones of which have been subject to erosion and erasure, and thus rendered unreadable. 

Though nameless, the inhabitants of these cold and unwelcoming domiciles have not, it seems, always remained convinced of their deceased status - preferring instead (as has recently occured in relation to the prior occupant of the sepulchre shown above) to shuffle about the Horsingdon landscape, evidently with the intention of frightening the region's populace out of its wits. 

Whatever force or agency might be compelling these awful resurrections remains unknown  - as does any meaningful rationale informing these otherwise horrifying and seemingly mindless intrusions into the everyday lives of Horsingdon folk. Perhaps therein lies the truth of the matter: that there is no meaning or intention to be uncovered; that perhaps we inhabit a universe whose troublingly-inscrutable yet asinine disposition leads it to inflict unspeakable horror upon us for its own sake.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.321: Spiritual Communion

Not the permanently veiled Miryam Boreham (of whom only one photograph is known to exist), but James Boreham - bedecked in ritual garb in preparation for a seance. Here Boreham is wearing a 'T'-shaped amulet, possibly in accordance with the obscure ceremonial requirements, established by the guardians of the Black Bowers, for rites involving communion with Those Who Wait (as well as other, less nameable, inhabitants of the Outside). One might, therefore, feel justified in speculating on the exact nature of who - or what - Boreham was preparing to enter into spiritual communication with on this particular occasion...

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.320: Red Shift

A cluster of red-litten ghostlights photographed hovering above the northeast face of Horsingdon Hill - moments before they are lost to the depths of space in a sudden, coruscating blur of movement, leaving only a spectral redshift haze in their wake.

Any attempt to elicit meaning from these intrusions into our world is to either court madness, or to provoke a transition into an inhuman mode of being as the only possible means of encompassing such knowledge. As a consequence, the good folk of Horsingdon prefer to let such things alone.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.319: Puppetry and Shadowplay

The grimy windows of this Ministry building on the outskirts of Trentford give the impression of its having been long abandoned; along with the boarded and padlocked entrance, and the many 'No Entry' signs plastered about its lower facade, one could be forgiven for assuming as much.

However, on the eve of certain festivals, crooked, shadowy shapes have been witnessed through the dirt-encrusted windows of the building's upper storeys; often these phantoms are described as moving awkwardly through its dilapidated environs, as if engaged in a some ungainly but highly-ritualised dance - like some darkly spectral projection from another world on to this of an unearthly puppetry: alien marionettes cavorting woodenly to the fitful manipulations and string-pulling of an equally-inscrutable but mindless puppet master.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.318: Monolithic Magicks

A blocky concrete monolith, clearly of modern design, stands just inside barbed-wire fencing surrounding a Ministry of Defence site which the Ebury Way edges past just outside of Trentford. Other similar monoliths – some of which appear to be marked with curious sigils – are positioned within the area circumscribed by the barbed-wire fence such as to create a curious geometric pattern – one which those versed in certain esoteric traditions might associate with a fearful body of myth supposedly of prehuman provenance. The monoliths surround a squat, windowless bunker with a single, reinforced steel door, from which emanates the continuous low hum of whatever strange energies are contained within.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.317: Fearless Vampire Killer

This is the only known photograph of Gareth Lester - Horsingdon's one and only self-styled vampire hunter who, in the early 1970s, was convinced that a blood-drinking entity was haunting the cemetary of St. Osmund's Church on Southcote Lane, having made its lair in some ancient crypt beneath the otherwise-deserted place of worship.

The above image was taken in the grounds of St. Osmund's - shortly after the Church of Starry Wisdom had vacated the premises, and on the eve of Lester's final (one might say terminal) vigil at that place: whatever Gareth Lester did happen to encounter within the grounds of the church on that fateful night, it was presumably resistant to both stake and cross - for in the morning, no sign was to be found of this fearless vampire killer, and he has neither been seen or heard from since.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.316: Strange Irradiations

Strange light smoulders from behind a blanket of grey cloud covering the Horsingdon firmament, from whence two glowing orbs of unknown origin irradiate the region's skyline with their eerie iridescence. No doubt the morning will be greeted in one or more households with the shocked revelation of an unaccountable disappearance, or a favourite pet found in a state of horrible mutilation, or worse: a family member discovered in the midst of some monstrous transformation.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.315: Nightgaunt

Horsingdon Wood intrudes threateningly upon the calm and desolate familiarity of a local supermarket's car park. Something caught in the trees, which is buffetted in the wind a liked a ragged and wingless Nightgaunt, marks the boundary between pedestrian suburbaneity and the monstrous darkness which ceaselessly encroaches upon the commonplace from some absolute elsewhere.

The Horsingdon Transmissions 314: The Edge of the Woods

One of a number of images drawn by a group of school children who, during an outing to Horsingdon Hill in the early 1970s, claimed to observe this strange entity lurking at the edge of Horsingdon Woods. None of the teachers accompanying the children saw the curious being, and there has been no other recorded sightings since.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.313: Eschatological Calculus

A bank of equipment along one of the many abandoned corridors of Horsingdon Bunker, haunted by the ghosts of the past - or perhaps by the speculative phantoms of an incomprehensible and horrifying future. Despite having been disconnected from the installation's generators for at least two decades, the machinery sometimes thrums suddenly and unexpectedly to life at seemingly random moments, briefly churning out strange equations: numeric strings which, if they ever proved to be calculable by any human system of mathematics, might foreshadow the world's ending.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.312: A Field in Horsingdon

Despite its quaint nomenclature, Coronation Meadow - which stands at the foot of Horsingdon Hill - is largely avoided by locals. Surprisingly, there have been no reports here of inexplicable disappearances, monstrous manifestations, praeternatural aerial phenomenon or, indeed, any of the other uncanny events which seem typical of many other of the strange sites about the region. The meadow is, however, marked by a curious quality of stillness and quiesence which, to many, feels...unnatural: it is as if the meadow exists within an interstitial space or some zone which positions itself as being not entirely a part of this world.

Then there is the sense a of forboding expectation which lurks about the place: that, whilst Coronation Meadow has thusfar remained free of any tumultuous manifestation of strange occurances, this is only in anticipation of some future event - one more monstrous and more terrible than any before witnessed in the borough.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.311: Stranger Skies

A nebulous shape appears above the ruins of Boreham Mansion a scant few days after a humanoid form was seen hovering over the same location. Alien and inexplicable influences have long clustered about those places touched by the Boreham family - influences which also extend their anomalous effects to the firmament above Horsingdon, producing skies full of strangeness.

The Horsingdon Transmissions 310: The Endless Corridor

A photograph of one of the lower levels of Horsingdon Bunker, taken during my field report there back in September of this year. At the time, the guardians of the Black Bowers who granted me access to part of the installation forbade me from investigating further into this section. One of their number informed me that, in the destructive aftermath of whatever event led to the Bunker's closure, the corridor shown here -  previously an ordinary access tunnel leading to a storeroom - was found to have undergone an incredible and unfathomable transformation: it had become endless, stretching off into the darkness forever.

Apparently three teams, consisting of the some of the installations remaining scientific and military personnel were sent into the corridor to investigate this baffling anomaly, whose warping of the very fabric of reality called into question everything that was known at the time regarding the fundamental laws of physics. Radio contact was lost with each of the teams within a few hours of their entry into the corridor. Not a single person who was dispatched to investigate the seemingly-infinite passageway ever returned from their foray into...the absolute elsewhere.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.309: Outpost

In a wooded area along the Ebury Way, what is thought to be an outpost of Horsingdon Bunker, linked to the main complex by an extensive system of access tunnels. Locals avoid the area, claiming that on the nights of certain festivals, an unearthly howling can be heard emanating from the installation below.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.308: Ascended Master

This blurry, human-like figure was photographed hovering over Boreham Park earlier today - apparently it was seen to rise slowly into the air from behind the trees, pausing for a few moments (as if to survey the region from on high) before disappearing into the stratosphere and, for all anyone knowns, from there into the abysmal depths of space. Notably, the remains of Boreham Mansion are located  area of the park from which this strange figure appears to have ascended.

James Boreham's grandfather, Eliphas Boreham, is rumoured to have been interred in a lead-lined sarcophagus, inscribed with arcane symbols, in one of the crypts beneath the mansion. Eliphas Boreham is also rumoured to have been an extremely powerful sorcerer - one who was responsible for inducting his grandson into the occult secrets of the Outer Spheres. It is also said that Eliphas had  mastered the alien algorithms of transcendance which he was unable to effect before the death (which supposedly occured at the hands of his grandson, to whom he refused to reveal these final, ultimate secrets of ineffable transmutation) of his corporeal form.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.307: Encroaching Darkness

The are some parts of Horsingdon Woods which seem more tenebrous than others - especially at this time of the year. There are pathways through the woods which thus become far less inviting, and which even the most powerful of torchlights fail to illuminate. That might be just as well for, as local residents are found of recounting, one might otherwise discover within the darkness shapes which are not pleasing to the human eye.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.306: Dark Portals

The older parts of Harlow Hill are dotted with quaint gaslit archways, nooks and tunnels - a number of which lay claim to uniquely haunted histories. The archway shown in the bottom half of the above image once lead down a series of squat steps to the entrance of a cellar -  which was long ago bricked up on account of what a previous owner of the property once encountered there.

Other such shadowed portals have been the site of manifestations stranger still: weird glowing lights; pale faceless figures reaching out from the darkness; the resonant echo of inhuman whispers relaying monstrous secrets. Needless to say, the older parts of Harlow Hill are best avoid if one finds oneself alone in the area after nightfall.

The Horsingdon Transmissions No.305: Hollow Hills

Another entrance to the subterranean access tunnels serving the uncompleted reservoir beneath Horsingdon Hill has recently been revealed. Why anyone would seek to gain ingress to the tunnel system remains unclear. The likely alternative - that something else has sought egress from below the Hill - is one which, for local residents, does not bear contemplation. 

Even so, in the weeks to come, the inhabitants of the area will undoubtedly ensure that they are safely indoors well before nightfall - although this is unlikely to prevent the mysterious disappearances which will inevitably follow in the wake of the discover of an opening to the hollow spaces beneath Horsingdon Hill.