Stalked by a killer
For my 30th birthday in February last year myself and a group of friends rented out a youth hostel in the Devil's Punchbowl. For those not in the know the Devil's Punchbowl is a huge valley in the middle of the Surrey countryside, which was actually caused by glacial erosion (I think).The hostel itself is situated right at the bottom of the Punchbowl, and is completely isolated. You can't even park outside, you have to walk half a mile down the steep hill from the car park.

We had a great time, the cottage is ancient, it used to be a broom factory in the old days apparently, and was all low beams and bunk beds. I know a couple of my friends found it creepy, but I was alone in it the first night we got there, and had a very happy time stoking the fire and waiting to be visited by ghosts and ghouls. Sadly, none appeared.

On the second night we had a party, with food and cake and games, and a few of us went for a walk in the moonlight. Still not too creepy, although it was freezing (as I said it was February) so all but two of our party returned to the cottage. About twenty minutes later we were all sitting in the living room when we heard a knock on the window. We all froze, and then concluded it must be one of the others playing around. Just as we had calmed ourselves down, the payphone rang. I answered, and no-one spoke. Laughing it off, I sat back down and we continued our conversation. About ten minutes after that the couple that we had left on the walk returned. I accused them of deliberately trying to scare us, and they denied it.

Later on I stepped out for a smoke with one of my friends. She turned to me and said 'do you know what I like best about this whole place? It's the little teddy bear statue over there.' She stopped abruptly, shone her torch on it and said 'the head. It's gone.'

Sure enough, the teddy statue had been decapitated. At this point I felt a shot of fear that was the culmination of an entire weekend of low level spook.We ran back into the cottage and my friend Fiona (for that is her name) went and grabbed her camera. 'Look!' she said 'evidence!' there was a photo, taken earlier that day of the teddy bear statue, head intact. 'I'll be back!' she said darting back out into the blackness, and returning with a photo of the teddy bear, sans head.

As Fiona was showing the whole room her photos another friend went into the kitchen. 'Oh my god' we heard her exclaim. Rushing into the kitchen to see what was wrong, she simply pointed. The teddy bear head was on the radiator. At this point we were all gobsmacked. All of us were now convinced that outside lurked a malevolent and angry force. Someone that had been watching and waiting, biding its time, intent on ruining our young happiness and destroying our hopes and dreams. Every one of us was convinced we would die there, that night, and no-one would hear our anguished screams. Every one except Andy, who could contain his mirth no longer.

It had been him, he explained. When returning from his moonlit walk he had gone to move the teddy bear statue, to make him stand by the door and scare us. He had noticed the head was detached and taken that opportunity to scare the living bejeesus out of us.

For thirty minutes or more I had been convinced I was living a horror movie. Best birthday present ever, that.
(muppers, Mon 11 Apr 2011, 14:29, 3 replies)

Gibbet hill
Just over the A3 from the punchbowl is Gibbet hill,where crims used to be hung up in an iron cage as an example to other would be crims.go there on a misty evening(it's a beautiful place to die)
(The man they couldn't spang Got spanged on, Tue 12 Apr 2011, 18:53, closed)

From wikipedia
'...the murder on 24 September 1786 of an Unknown Sailor who was met by three men in the Red Lion at Thursley as he was travelling to his ship in Portsmouth. He bought them drinks and they then followed him and murdered him in the Devil's Punch Bowl.They were quickly apprehended at the Sun Inn in Rake, West Sussex, tried and executed, and their bodies hung on Gibbet Hill.'

This has reminded me, we saw a few lone men hanging around the punchbowl at dusk. Perhaps they were the ghosts of murderers?
(muppers, Wed 13 Apr 2011, 9:41, closed)

or really crap doggers
(The man they couldn't spang Got spanged on, Wed 13 Apr 2011, 19:45, closed)