Goodnight from Jennie Hoar, feeling the swell of nausea every time she contemplates her secret dealings with the Grinning Man being exposed. Goodnight from Georgie Ash, learning the divinatory language of thrown bones instead of doing her French homework. Goodnight from Hookland.

Ashcourt Docks nick is one of the most haunted places I know. It is more than the deaths in custody, the abject despair and grief it's seen. There's something about it that traps pain and anger in its bricks. I feel sorry for every copper and villain crossing its threshold. – #DICallaghan

Hookland is a county of window altars, sill shrines. Transparent declarations for the folkloric forces. This house for the King-Under-the-Sea, this house for the Empress Eel. Those panes roosted by crows proclaim for the cunning and a belief in folk faith magics. – Dr. M. Benn, 1982

Goodnight from Robert Lister, befuddled by sudden waking and unable to fathom what’s beyond the curtained windows illuminating his bedroom as if it were day. Goodnight from Eleanor Ashfield, making her final harvest of nightshade roots for the year, Goodnight from Hookland.

When my friends’ daughters ask me what my WITCH badge stands for I tell them: ‘Women Into Teaching Children Hexes’. - #EmilyCBanting, 1981 #WitchSky

The witch knows the power of naming, knows language lenses reality. Her words have weight. Spelling is a part of her sorcery. If a tree whispers its secret name she listens – not because she seeks to dominate it, but to be better acquainted. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #WitchSky

@wayswithweirds.bsky.social So good to see you here.

Folklore has it then when harvesting hips from the hedge, you should always leave some for the birds and some for the Faeries. A wise witch never wants to anger either group and so I'm happy to obey the lore of the land. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #WitchSky

@danelaw.bsky.social You had me at Leyton Marsh.

The witch walking is a witch having a conversation with the land. A chart of the paths she takes is telling of genii locorum, places where the ghost soil speaks loudest. Her feet scuff up stories, her feet scuff up spirits. Each navigation is sorcery. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #WitchSky

Goodnight from Sergeant Dalton, still shaking from opening the canvas bag of withered fingers left on the doorstep of Charwood Police Station. Goodnight from Mel Tarby, interpreting the cold clanking of her home’s pipes as Morse code tapped out by the long dead. Goodnight from Hookland.

Rumours of an Iron-toothed Vampire plagued Ashcourt Necropolis during the early 1970s. Amateur undead hunting led to vandalism, desecration and even a riot. While I\ve empathy for the cemetery workers, my sympathy is reserved for the dead and all the stone guardians who suffered. – Dr. M. Benn

Mudlarking around Ashcourt's docks has an extra peril. For these are ghost-crowded territories. All the pirate dead, all smuggler and mutinous dead executed at the low-tide mark haunt their wet ground. The flood holds memory, holds malice. – George Kindred, 'Haunted Hookland', 1970

As the year begins its slow walk towards ice, most of us cling to its final days of solar generosity. However, some want to rush from summer's last embrace. Children in my class can't wait for winter, not least because the Stay Belows will go to mud. – Joanna Vickers #VOH

Goodnight from the Chapelwood Working Men’s Club committee, imposing a ban on booking any further mediums after last week’s unfortunate events. Goodnight from Neville Muleward, wondering if there’s an effective charm against the tight hold of melancholy. Goodnight from Hookland.

Yet another of Hookland's infamous knockers. This one at 14 Pope Joan Street in Ashcourt is apparently possessed by a mind or a spirit of its own. In the summer of 1976, BBC Nationwide's cameras caught it briefly rapping on the door without any obvious human interaction.

Good morning I don't know why, but I love pylons. I found these in the East Bay somewhere in Northern California. I call the shot The Hum, which is as term you'll know if you follow @hookland.bsky.social 's account (which you absolutely should).

It is a book by Owen Davies and Ceri Houlbrook – which is a fabulous thing in itself – at an event run by Stu Hennigan. If I was in the area, I'd be attending.

There's always some prick who thinks Weychester was built from a plan within the Bible. That the Weychester Cathedral zodiac reveals twelve sacred gateways. It when they go from burbling about holy geometry and Joseph of Arimathea to sacrifices we have to worry. – #DICallaghan

Goodnight from Bobby Neck, holding offshore in his skiff till he’s sure he’s got permission from the King-Under-the-Sea to submerge his latest cargo. Goodnight from Toby Horner, too ale-addled to realise he’s being watched by eyes that blaze like burning coals. Goodnight from Hookland.

It is Hookland. There is no ‘spooky season’. Spooky is the county’s default setting because it is the English gothic, the English strange. The weird is not a costume to be warn only once a year.

Occasionally, one finds a street where time flows a little slower or a mews that remembers its former horses in discarnate sounds of hooves clipping its cobbles. For not all hauntings are psychic stain of violence. We are just as likely to be haunted by absence. – #CJosiffe #Ghosts

Goodnight from Kim Redmayne, noticing the dark hells that dance in-between the razzle-dazzle of Zero 9 discotheque. Goodnight from Ruthie Mapleton, unsettled by the way the sodium orange streetlights always seem to wink out when she walks under them. Goodnight from Hookland.

Give me the ghost of the glass. Give me the phantom locked in fused silicon dioxide. The spectre who whispers to vandals about stones and freedom. The temporal shade who peers through windows is a friend of mine. – #CJosiffe 1982 #Ghosts

Goodnight from the Salvation Army soup kitchen on Ashcourt’s Hop Street, where rumours of the Iron-toothed Vampire are more plentiful than the food. Goodnight from Annabel Kidd, clutching her swan-bone charm in hopes her wishes reach the realm of the dead. Goodnight from Hookland.

The longer you spend in the county, the easier it is to recognise a Wood Sprite's home tree. Even without offerings, there's a palpable sense of being watched, an atmosphere of potential ambush. What some Hooklanders call: 'an air of ancient unease'. – #MattAdams

It wasn't lost on us Children of The Hum that pylon meant gateway. That's what they were for us. Each transmission tower was temple, each pylon a portal into the electric ley of the land. Thousands of giant doors to wonder. – Tattoo Labyrinth Dave, ex-Pylon Person

With my other head on.

Hookland is leaking again, @hookland.bsky.social xxxx

There are some lithic lookouts, some grave guardians in Ashcourt Necropolis that radiate a palpable sense that no trespass will be tolerated. Their swords may be broken, their armour pockmarked, but they remain stone engines of dread. Provoking them is beyond unwise. – #CLNolan

Goodnight from Weychester railway station, whose phantom bookstall owner still cries out: “READ MORE! LEARN MORE!” Goodnight from Mark Greenwood, the dark in his blood whispering as he passes the point where the Wayland’s Cross gibbet used to stand. Goodnight from Hookland.

I approve of language being haunted. There are two related words in Hookland dialect of which I am fond. Gastgate – a door one instinctively knows leads to a ghost-troubled place and gastboden – a tingling across the psychic skin foretelling a coming of phantoms. – #CLNolan #WOTD

Members of the Marsh Ape Research Society (MARS) cannot decide whether their observation tower on the Restal Waste was was vandalised by an actual Marsh Ape or by their sworn enemies, the Empress Eel Research Society (EERS).

Hookland remembers – or more accurately mythologises – its Saxon centuries more than other counties. This may be explained by its long resistance to Norman invasion. It may be explained by its surfeit of Saxon phantoms. Ghost bears and spearmen do much to focus the mind. – Dr. M. Benn

Goodnight from Gus Oldfield, adding another last orders line to a face which has already seen alcohol map the terrors of working at the Haldane Abattoir. Goodnight from Susie Maze, raking a bonefire of her ex-boyfriends possessions as a form of exorcism. Goodnight from Hookland.

Door-knocker on one of the 12 doors to Weychester's Duat Club. Whether the secretive society based there is nothing more than a symptom of Victorian Egyptmania or part of the 19th century occult revival is hard to determine. Members of the Duat Club refuse to speak on such matters.

The witch will ignore paths, the witch will climb over walls. Her green communion with the wood refuses artificial impediments. In her court, spiritual permissions trump the claims of those who arrogantly proclaim land as owned. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #WitchSky

A salt hag walks the shore at storm, walks peril paths across the cliffs. She knows the wind's rough salt wooing, its dialects of gust and gale. She also knows these places at calm wonder. For her witchery is capable of both squall fury and serenity. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #WitchSky

Goodnight from this evening’s Ghost Preservation Society meeting at Barlingford, where it’s increasingly clear some members are moving towards anti-developer extremes. Goodnight from Maddie Stowell, hearing phantom violins coming from Ashcourt’s half-erased Red Rookery.

When you are accustomed to feeling the edges of things, you know where Hookland begins... @hookland.bsky.social

At the withered end of the year, where summer is reduced to a dried memory, grass whispers on behalf of the ghost soil. The land's nameless spirits roam old paths across the heath. This is the season of dead alchemy. – #DAKilroy

If you live on the coast, you have a favourite spot to watch waves. My preferred place also gives me a chance to look out for the local ghost ship. I've not seen it for decades, but I keep looking in hopes of it proving my childhood memories true. – Beatrice Helm #VOH

Goodnight from Ted Carver, accepting when you make your home out of an old railway carriage you’ve got to expect occasional psychic playback of slamming doors. Goodnight from Iris Haines, leaving out a teacup of gin just in case her Grandmother’s spirit drifts by. Goodnight from Hookland.

The land will always find ways to speak to you. Up on Barrowcross Moor, amid the surfeit of stone circles and Neolithic tombs, there are uncurated sites that declare their sacredness. Unhewn stone temples who resident spirits urge you to climb to them. – #CLNolan

Those tombs abandoned to tangle and feral unfolding so often seem to hold a charge of resentment, anger. You walk past them and feel a palpable sense of malefic grievance. Such is the sense of rancour, no polite conversation can be had with them. Move on my friends, move on! – #CLNolan

Goodnight from DC Adeel Mirza, unwilling to take at face value Ben Hobbs’ witness report that the burning car he found dumped in Hesk Woods was set alight by alien space lasers. Goodnight from Hal Adcock, whittling Marsh Ape figurines as an act of apotropaism. Goodnight from Hookland.

One for @hookland.bsky.social

It was always hard to explain to those that couldn't hear it, but The Hum was more than a sound. It was a transmission, a song told through the lines. It was the electric ley of the land manifesting. It taught us. It transformed us. – Tattoo Labyrinth Dave ex-Pylon Person/Child of The Hum #Pylons

Folklore has it that witches used to navigate by church spires when flying. This is one time I disagree with lore logic. For stone spires sit atop the land and I'd rather listen to land for directions than the impositions of man. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #FolkloreSunday #WitchSky

The Long Neolithic is an ongoing conversation. The stones talk between themselves, slow exchange across centuries. The stones talk to the landscape and of course, the stones talk to us. Answering back may be the minimum level of politeness. – Dr. K. Brophy #StandingStoneSunday