Hello, Wyrdos! On this episode of Wyrd Wessex, Andy and Craig take a break from their usual antics to dive headfirst into one of the most notoriously strange places in all of England: Clapham Woods. From a curse laid upon the village centuries ago to a modern-day cult and everything in between, this small patch of woodland has a truly wild history.
The Curse and the Corpses
The hosts start with a look at the ancient curse of 1288, placed on the village by a man named Robert Le Falconer. This curse, which called for damnation upon the village and its priesthood, is thought by many to be the source of the woods' eerie atmosphere. But that’s not all. The woods are also linked to four strange deaths, including a police constable, a vicar, and a pensioner whose body decomposed at an unsettlingly fast rate.
Disappearing Animals and Big Cats
It's not just people who have had strange encounters here. Andy and Craig recount stories of animals disappearing into thin air, including a horse that vanished in a moment and a dog that became violently ill after a brief run-in with the woods. They also mention a disturbing police report of a pit full of skinned cats and a sighting of a big cat stalking the pathways.
The Cult of Hecate
One of the most well-known stories is that of a local cult. While local newspapers mislabeled it as a "satanic cult," the group was actually devoted to the Greek goddess Hecate. The hosts discuss investigator Charles Walker's spooky encounter with a cloaked figure who claimed the missing dogs were sacrifices. They also look at the skepticism around these stories, with theories that it could have just been a hoax tied to the "satanic panic" of the 80s.
UFOs, Ghosts, and the Devil
You name it, this wood has it. While the hosts note the lack of concrete ghost stories, they do share a bizarre account of a woman who was physically thrown into a barbed wire fence by an unseen force. On the UFO front, they cover sightings from the 1700s to a beam of light from a saucer that a telephone engineer saw in the 70s. The episode concludes with a look at a nearby site, Chanctonbury Ring, which was tied to occultist Alistair Crowley and is said to be a place where you can summon the Devil by running around a clump of trees seven times in exchange for a bowl of soup.
Wyrd News
No episode is complete without the wyrd news. This week, the hosts cover two truly wild stories: a fortune teller who correctly predicts the future by throwing asparagus spears in the air and a shocking case of a self-proclaimed cannibal who turned himself into police.