In his excellent book "London: The Biography", Peter Ackroyd mentions the weird but observable phenomenon that certain parts of the city - be they single streets or entire districts - appear to have retained a particular character over many centuries, even millennia. Clerkenwell, for example, seems to always have had a radicalism about its denizens, a dreary and morbid air around St Pancras seems to have long predated the railway and its dark arches. Evidence for this continuity of atmosphere can be found in the historical record. However an explanation for it cannot. Some places seem determined to retain a particular character despite the best efforts of town planners, the Luftwaffe, and centuries of commercial development to alter their physical appearance.

Is this a phenomenon you also have noticed? Are there other examples you have found in other places of such longevity of character which defies logical explanation? Or is there in fact a logical explanation which Ackroyd has missed?

I'm not sure how true it is,but there are stories that birds will avoid Auschwitz.

T

In another excellent book "The Lost Rivers of London" Nicholas Barton describes a couple of medical studies conducted in the 1950's which seem to suggest that there is a link between the incidence of ailments such as bronchitis and allergies, with the old courses of London's rivers. The point he makes is that those districts which were historically known to be foggy, damp and generally unhealthy, because they were in low-lying river valleys, still are, despite decades sometimes even centuries of development. The rivers are long since buried and their waters now run through the sewers, but they still exert a strong influence on local surface conditions.

He cites a 1950's study which links the incidence of chronic brochitis with proximity to the course of the River Fleet as it runs under Hampstead and Camden Town. Although buried in the mid 19th century and the whole area developed and constantly rebuilt since then, the river (at least until the 1950s) still seems to make those streets built directly above it's historic course particulaly unhealthy. A similar study closely linked the incidence of dust mite allergy to the historic courses of the Rivers Effra, Peck and Ravensbourne in South London.

He also notes that there seems to be an association between reported hauntings, poltergeits and other paranormal disturbances and buried rivers. He concludes that in many cases, these so-called haunted houses are probably, "haunted by nothing more alarming than the ghost's of London's lost rivers, booming and gurgling in times of flood".

Did Barton explain how a century or more of sanitation and engineering failed to dispel the effect? It is an excellent observation never the less, and one which I am almost sure could be duplicated in Dublin - though I had always thought that this was most likely to do with the fact that in that city the "buried" rivers, such as the Poddle, the Coombe and the Camac, ran under areas which were also traditionally amongst the poorest within the inner city.

However there is still a definite "atmosphere" which is common to these areas today. At least I always felt I could detect one when I lived in the vicinity.

Quote :

Did Barton explain how a century or more of sanitation and engineering failed to dispel the effect?

His book is basically an attempt to trace the geographic routes and describe the histories of London's hidden rivers and so he doesn't speculate much into that area. Also bear in mind the book was first published in 1962 and although reprinted and updated several times it doesn't contain that much modern material (hence the medical studies he describes date from the 50's). But he basically says (or rather he observes) that the low-lying river valleys were always damp, foggy and unhealthy... and, although developed and built over, they are still low-lying, foggy valleys,... they might be valleys between towerblocks but they are still valleys and they are still prone to be damp. But, like yourself, he notes that when the rivers (ie open sewers) were eventually covered over and the areas "developed" it was usually the poorer types of tennements that were built along and over the old rivers. Camden was built over the River Fleet... Hampstead, just to the west, but built on a small hill, retained it's better class, and more healthy charm. He also notes that many of these river valley districts were actually quite healthy, even idyllic farming areas, before the encroachment of city development. Clerkenwell (also on the Fleet) was a renowned spa and an important source of clean spring water for the City (hence Clerken-well) before it was urbanised.

But this is not universally true. In the 18th century the area to the south of "the knight's bridge" which crossed the River Westbourne about half a mile before it flowed into the Thames, was an unhealthy "malodourous marsh" frequented by highwaymen. The area around "the knight's bridge" is now Knightsbridge and the drained swamp comprises some of the most expensive real estate in Britain.

Still frequented by highwaymen - they just don't bother with masks these days, just business suits.

I haven't read London but when I read Ackroyd's book about John Dee a few years it seemed to be predicated on the idea that places and houses keep that atmosphere centuries on. I think I just assumed that was Ackroyd's personal feeling and sensitivity rather than necessarily the reality. But I'm not very sensitive - St Pancras seemed perfectly ordinary when we stayed there a few days last year, and not noticeably dreary and morbid (though of course we only stay in areas that are on the cheap side). Though oddly, when I was first married I used to sometimes feel there was someone else in the house - there never was - and the woman who lived there before me said she had felt the same. I presume that I was just a bit nervous as I hadn't really spent a lot of time before that in a house on my own. (It had been built by very religious people and one of its rooms had been a chapel - perhaps it didn't like godless people profaning it.)

It seems reasonably likely that the bacteria could linger for centuries in swampy places, despite clean-ups. Doesn't it?

There were areas in NZ that Maori wouldn't go into - usually dense dank sort of places. They thought a tribe of giant fairies (patupaiarehe) lived in these places and were not above kidnapping ordinary people. I don't know if these places have changed their feeling for Maori as they have been more developed (perhaps they haven't been).

We have found here it's not such a great idea to build on swampy grounds in areas prone to earthquakes.

nordmann wrote:

Is this a phenomenon you also have noticed? Are there other examples you have found in other places of such longevity of character which defies logical explanation? Or is there in fact a logical explanation which Ackroyd has missed?

Edinburgh would be another example, I've never been there but have often heard it described as "atmospheric". So much so that it's atmosphere is now used to bring in tourist revenue, often being described as "the most haunted place in Britain".

There have been places which I have been unable to enter -only later finding out something of them - usually unpleasant and sometimes awful. There are other places for which I have had no idea why I sense something odd - and some have been strong enough to make me faint, would you believe? And I really ain't the fainting kind.

It's just that some places have this effect. I have rarely seen anything untoward - only occasionally, as a child - but sounds and sense yes, my family knew of my experiences in our old home so we could talk about it and I was never afraid. That house had, for about two hundred years been an inn. The sounds were of laughter and jollity. There have been many occasions all my life too uncanny to relate here or anywhere - but I don't seek them - and for the most part have forgotten that it happens until it does.

And its not all horror, some places are welcoming. Now I really do sound like the weirdo I project here.

Now I wonder if I should send this - my computer being in in sour mood may not allow anyway.

Regards, P.

You don't sound wierd at all P. Many have similar experiences, me too occasionally, only probably not as strongly as you describe.

There is an old house in our village, it is clean and well maintained inside and out. A beautiful house set in a beautiful garden that I have often admired and it has no outward appearance of anything untoward.

But inside, I can't describe it any other way than oppressive. So much so that I've only been in it once and will not go back.

And yet in the obvious places where there *should* be a terrible atmosphere, one often experiences nothing. I had no strange "feelings" at the Tower of London, not even at the site (across the main road, near the Merchant Navy Memorial Garden) of the main scaffold.

Marble Arch too - the old Tyburn, the place of so much appalling suffering and death - absolutely nothing. Ackroyd tell us the actual execution site is now thought to be the south-east corner of Connaught Square, but for me at least there was no lingering sense of human distress anywhere in the area. The traffic doesn't help of course, but if I'm honest I'd say I shuddered more as I walked around Harvey Nichols.

Ackroyd's book is full of fascinating details. I thought it interesting that in Endell Street there was once an "ancient bath" of unknown date "fed by a fine spring of clear water, which was said to have medicinal qualities." In the 19th century the lower parts of the bath house were filled with lumber and rubbish so that "the spring no longer flows". But, as PA tells us, it did not quite disappear; it simply emerged in different form. There is now a sauna on Endell Street, and on the corner, a public swimming bath known as "The Oasis".

How much is this connected the discussion on the Golden Ratio? There are definitely places where the proportions just feel uncomfortable and unsettling, I guess we've all been aware of this when house hunting, an unconscious response to the 'feel' of the first room we go into. I suspect the room I'm in just now isn't far off that ratio and as soon as I walked in, I knew this was my house. Square rooms generally I feel are infelicitous, fine for mausoleums and open squares but not for living in. And where does the dividing line lie between dim and cosy as against gloomy and creepy?

Isn't it amazing that no one knows the exact location of Tyburn's scaffold any more - given the role and reputation it enjoyed through centuries of London life? It is almost as if the entire population made a wilful effort to expunge it all at the same time and without the need to consult each other on the matter.

My own sensation of an unbearably oppressive atmosphere - at least that I can readily recall - is when, after a tour of Dachau concentration camp in which the most vivid sensation was disgust at a large group of students who appeared to think they were in an amusement park, my friend then drove me two kilometres north of the camp and pulled up by a large field with some sparse woods around its perimeter. Even before getting out of the car, and without any prior knowledge of the area, I could feel that I was in the midst of something momentous and incredibly tragic. The sadness was overwhelming.

He had given me no clue beforehand or even advance warning that he was going to pull up, but after checking with me that I had "felt" something in the area he then told me that this was the site where the Russian prisoners - so numerous that they could not be "processed" using the camp's "normal" facilities - were executed in their tens of thousands by continuous machine gun fire during the camp's latter years. The "field" had once been a deep quarry. Its present ground level height was the result of the manner in which the Germans had filled it and then "for hygiene reasons" covered with a thin layer of gravel and earth.

I agree, ferval, about dimensions playing a role in how we perceive the "mood" of a location. There are also other associations triggered by physical form, such as timber roof beams, window to wall ratio etc etc, which we have subliminally picked up from stories, films, childhood memories and so on but which play no conscious role in our lives. However in the subconscious they are particularly active.

That's so true and it's so culturally defined. The Scottish Highlands being a perfect example, going from being viewed as somewhere remote, hostile, dangerous and backward inhabited by savages in the 17th and 18th c to being Romantic and picturesque, the home of authentic and hardy people once the Romantics and Queen Vic had given it their gloss and approval.

Glencoe for instance is often cited as being atmospheric and imbued with sorrow but how much of that is popular history and how much topography?

I agree with Temp about places of noted horror not bearing any atmospere of the sort that my radar hones onto - but particualr cells might have. Places/rooms/spaces even, of long occupation bring this on. I have wracked myself trying to rationalise these experiences by considering subliminal suggestion, vivid imagination, romantic feyness about the paranormal and 'pulling myself together.' Then it happens again. Enough on this; for me not an area of thought to dwell on because I can also get a 'hindsight reaction' from denial. I told you ferv that I would be no good on a dig and that's one of the reasons; logical, organised rsearch should prevail.

Regards, P.

Logically I would say that all such feelings are totally unfounded, but...

As a kid I used to walk everywhere within a 5mile radius of my home in North Tyneside and knew every hedge and fence. There was an old quarry next to a small hospital which would seem to have been an excellent place for kids to play, but I wouldn't go near it and I knew nobody else who would.
I learnt, years later, that the hospital used to be an isolation hospital (TB, perhaps).

My mother and sister were on holiday with German relatives and they stopped to change drivers. They both had a terrible feeling about the place and were told they were a mile from Bergen-Belsesn.

A short play which really creeped me out in the 70s was The Stone Tape by Nigel Kneale.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkEK17FdSMY

glen

The Stone Tape was wonderful, the most scary play ever! I must watch it again and see if it still has the power to make switch on all the lights.

nordmann wrote:

Even before getting out of the car, and without any prior knowledge of the area, I could feel that I was in the midst of something momentous and incredibly tragic. The sadness was overwhelming.

I once had a similar experience, although, unlike Nordmann, I was aware the area was one where many must have died.

I know little of WWII battles and have never been particularly interested in the Normandy landings, but many years ago my husband and I were in France and he was keen to visit the Normandy beaches. We drove along the coast road, and when we stopped - I can't remember the exact location, but it was not one of the famous landing sites, simply a deserted, wind-swept stretch of sand - I was overwhelmed unexpectedly with an anguish so intense that I could not get out of the car. I actually began to cry, and my poor husband - understandably quite bewildered - had to explore the place alone.

It's hard to know why that one particular empty beach affected me so badly, while other places where men have suffered and died have left me quite unmoved.

This may sound strange, but a scene from the film "Regeneration", a DVD I watched years later, brought the memory of that unhappy day back to me, and I'm quite at a loss to know why. Wilfred Owen is talking to Siegfried Sassoon:

"Sometimes, in the trenches, you get the sense of something - ancient. One trench we held - it had skulls in the side, embedded like mushrooms, and it was actually easier to believe that they were men from Marlborough's army than to think they'd been alive a year ago. It was as if all the other wars had distilled themselves into this war, and that made it something you just can't challenge. It's like a very deep voice saying, "Run along, little man, be glad you survived."

I understand all too well, Temp about that inability to move. One last addition to this thread that still disturbs me. In '98 when staying in New York as a family, we did the Blue Circle boat tour as one does. I couldn't see the Twin World Trade Towers try as I might - the hexagonal(?) lower buildings, yes. The passing was slow and the Guide waxed lyrical and of course I knew of them. It was a clear, bright day and my husband's video shows them clearly on many shots too but they were not there when I looked. I recall panicing, thinking I was going daft.

The next time I did see them. We were on the first flight into otherwise deserted Newark airport and passed over the smoking remains 3 days after the 9/11 event - a Saturday, anyway.

I do not dwell on these things - and duck reading about them though I have been compelled to pen something of them in fiction - not well written fiction but like a saety valve it has been theraputic.

Regards and over and def out. P.

Churches always have a restful atmosphere, even for a non-believer. Almost as if the stone and wood has absorbed the centuries of quiet contemplation.

Cemetaries too, you'd think that with so many dead all together that they would be uncomfortable, but I always find them very peaceful and interesting places to be.

Not all churches, ID. Many Spanish churches, especially in the south, I find deeply disturbing and oppressive. All that pain, suffering and death celebrated in art and a real undercurrent of sadomasichism, they give me the creeps.

ferval wrote:

Not all churches, ID. Many Spanish churches, especially in the south, I find deeply disturbing and oppressive. All that pain, suffering and death celebrated in art and a real undercurrent of sadomasichism, they give me the creeps.

Yes, I agree, ferval; I too find some Catholic churches disturbing and oppressive, although I have Catholic Irish blood - lots of it. But I was raised as a Protestant and that has made all the difference. I'm simply not *used* to the styles in art and decoration you mention.


I blame John Betjeman and Philip Larkin. All that lovely poetry about our English country churches. You go in, and several centuries of calm, Protestant, C of E woolliness envelop you. I love the *simplicity* of many of these places - and it's comforting how many of our churches are still open all day, every day - cleaned and polished and bedecked with English flowers. As ID says, places of quiet contemplation for all, whatever their belief or lack of belief.

Perhaps some of the art in Catholic churches is disturbing simply because it's "bad" art? But that's a foolish thing to say - who after all is to judge what's "good" or "bad"? I'm a great admirer of, for example, Caravaggio - a magnificent artist, but I should not like to contemplate one of his darker pictures for too long when I was in need of spiritual solace.

But - Protestant or not - I still find it appalling that so much of the decoration and works of art in our churches was destroyed or painted over during the Reformation.

EDIT: Certainly *no* offence intended in any of this to any Catholic - or indeed to members of any faith, or none. Different people, different ways.

Mmmm, if I had of known that my comment would turn into a competition of the various faiths I would have kept my mouth shut. I've never been in a Spanish church though, so can't comment. But they would probably be an interesting example of how various cultures can influence a religion, French or Italian Catholicism would be quite different again in outlook.

It depends, really, on what one is accustomed to. Personally I find Protestant and CofE churches to be brooding, lacking in tradition, austere and devoid of life, light or colour. But then, I'm used to RC and Orthodox churches, who use art as an expression of faith even more than RCs, if that is possible.

PS I'd agree with Catholic gilt Temp but definitely not guilt, or not in my experience anyway.

Islanddawn wrote:

Mmmm, if I had of known that my comment would turn into a competition of the various faiths I would have kept my mouth shut.

No competition, ID. Just different ways.

Yes, Phillip Larkin was suuuuuch a romantic and his work touched but was not an undue inflence on me. I have catholic and multicultural tastes and experience to draw on there. Last year I caught and recorded an old series about Brian Sewell and his pilgrimage to Compostella as a sort of token penitance and search for regained faith - and from his recent memoirs, not a day too soon.

Like his style or not, he managed to relate the ambience he felt at all the pilgrim stop over places with unexpected empathy and clarity.

What you find within such portals has much to do with what is already within you.

Priscilla wrote:

What you find within such portals has much to do with what is already within you.

Oh Lord - Mr Sheen and chrysanthemums - not much hope for me, then.

I doubt if the creepiness in some churches is down to which christian sect they are used by. As someone interested in church architecture, at least up to the 20th century, it has struck me though how even the slightest variation in one element of the design can have a profound effect on the overall ambience of the building. Likewise two almost identical structures can have completely different atmospheres based on something so simple as their orientation or their proximity to other structures, both of which can greatly affect the quality and quantity of light which comes in.

But churches tend to "cheat" when it comes to atmospherics in that their architects try very hard to create a particular mood which is already rather laden and imposing, and they generally succeed. It is when they fail drastically that what I might call "the Ackroyd effect" applies. One that I recall is St Catherine's on Meath Street in Dublin. Built in the garish mock-gothic style of the years of Catholic ascendancy after emancipation, it is still a very "cheery" place, even during funeral services. Why this is so I do not know, though I fancy that its position slap bang in the middle of some of the most impoverished residents of Dublin for so long has imbued it with a now-permanent ambience of a "wonder house". Crossing its threshold must indeed have been like stepping into another world for many of its parishioners. Amazingly, it still is, at least for this ex-local when I lived in the vicinity.

EDIT: Just after I wrote this I thought I might search for a picture of the interior, only to find news stories from last week of how the church had been badly damaged in a fire - perhaps maliciously. This is indeed sad news.

I will be honest for some one who's gran used to be a medium i have all the psychic sensitivity of a household brick. I've never seen a ghost, never even suspected that there might be one about.

I have had feelings about places but none of them were what you might call historical and could as easily be to not wearing winter undies.

But to get back to the original post it doesn't surprise me that areas attract the same sort of people down though history. Like attracts like

Yes, but what makes "like" in the first place?

That's a relief to read, bttdp. I was feeling very insensitive since I don't recall ever having that dreadful feeling Temperance and Nordmann have described. The feeling at Auschwitz was bad but that because of knowledge of the history, I am sure, not that I actually felt an aura of the place itself.

(I still don't like watching creepy television or movies, but that's different.)

My daughter is very well grounded like you, Caro. She is tolerant about me because she knows what can happen so she does all many visits for me and I stay outside like a lemon.

Have you had a go at Nordmann's ethical posting? With your experience of tribal things your thoughts would be interesting. (My own with long experience of tribes assorted is that the longer I live - and more I know the less I understand.)

Wrong place for this bit, sorry folks - am getting my threads in a twist.

nordmann wrote:

Yes, but what makes "like" in the first place?

As you have already stated above, some of it can be merely building design and orientation, sometimes it can be the particular climate of an area or atmospheric (physical not metaphysical) conditions and even too much drink or funny mushrooms can do it. The Chinese may have something with their Feng Shuei malarky because there are definitely times when there is no logical explanation for the feel of certain places.

My explanation is that very strong emotion can be absorbed into a place. Not very original, I know, but I can't think of anything else. Can't come up with an explanation for ghosts though, I know they are there because I've seen two but why or how.......?

nordmann wrote:

Yes, but what makes "like" in the first place?

now there you have me. I know in my town before the council shagged it with some dodgy road works and destroyed the old street pattern that the people who moved there to work inthe mills tended to keep to the same streets as other families they knew had. So the Irish would all be in one area and the Italians in another the poles and ukranians in another. As a family got on in the world they might move out of the area but odds are they would be replaced by another fro
M the same country or group. It's not pushing it in a city the size of London to say that it had enough areas to support a wide rage of groups that topped them selves up from incomers with the same habits politics religion etc

This is also the main thrust of Ackroyd's point too - namely that the phenomenon he speaks about can often be explained by an ethnic continuity in a particular area but can also often defy that apparent reason. Clerkenwell is a case in point - through the centuries it has found itself the centre of revolutionary activity, from Wat Tyler to Irish nationalism to Russian anarchists, etc etc. Yet there is nothing inherently revolutionary about the Clerkenwell community's social conditions or administration - it is on the surface a borough like any other. And nor have there been any overt links between the various groups and activities centred there over time.

Caro wrote:

That's a relief to read, bttdp. I was feeling very insensitive since I don't recall ever having that dreadful feeling Temperance and Nordmann have described. The feeling at Auschwitz was bad but that because of knowledge of the history, I am sure, not that I actually felt an aura of the place itself.

(I still don't like watching creepy television or movies, but that's different.)

Hi Caro, it's a bit of an embarrassment in my family. Everyone is "picking up the vibes" and the only thing yours truly is feeling is flatulence. You do end up slighty pyscitzo over it as I watch most of the programs that reveal the fake mediums and the tricks they play to get info out of the audience to feed back to them later on and have no doubt that there are an awful lot of fakes out there. But at the same time I know my gran wasn't one of them and from that that there are people who can see or here the same things.

nordmann wrote:

Are there other examples you have found in other places of such longevity of character which defies logical explanation?

The grassy and heath 'balds' found at the summits of many of the Appalachian Range in North America present a curious case. These are characterised as wooded mountains where the tree cover suddenly ends near the top giving way to open grassland and heathland - hence the appellation 'bald' (excuse the pun).

Theories as to the cause of the balds are many and varied. Some suggest that they are man-made and are the result of grazing of cattle by European settlers - although no convincing evidence is given to back this up. Others attribute them to the Cherokee people who supposedly cleared them for hunting and to provide viewpoints. Again, the evidence for this theory (both oral and circumstantial) is poor. Another complex theory suggests a struggle between competing tree species resulting in a bizarre no-winner draw.

The balds are mainly found in North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia and Tennessee and many are now located in national parks such as the Smoky Mountains. There is evidence that since achieving park status, trees and shrubs have attempted to reclaim the balds but only in some areas. This would give some credence to the grazing theory. In the 1990s soil analyses of the balds suggested that the areas could have been tree free for thousands of years.

I had not realised Ackroyd had made a TV documentary based on his "London: A Biography". Both are excellent.

Temperance wrote:

I too find some Catholic churches disturbing and oppressive

With a nod to Id's comment about how 'too much drink or funny mushrooms can do it', there was a scientific study done a few years ago by toxologists at the University of Maastricht testing the air quality in the Catholic Basilica of Our Lady (Basiliek van Onze-Lieve-Vrouw) in the city. This found that the incidence of particular matter (i.e. carcinogenic free radicals) in the air inside the church was 3 times higher than that found beside the busy road outside. When candles and incense were then burned in this already toxic atmosphere that number rocketed up 20 fold - that is 60 times more than the busy road outside.

It was a very narrow study involving only 1 building but I've sometimes found myself getting a sour taste in the mouth or even feeling light-headed when visiting old churches or cathedrals (of whatever denomination) and wondering about the CO2 build-up from the exhalations of centuries of worshippers and visitors. In some of the buildings there is no ventilation at the higher levels as the windows simply cannot be opened. On the same point I was impressed when, on her wedding day, Kate Middleton had living maples and hornbeams brought into Westminster Abbey:



Those trees must have given that venerable old building literally a breath of fresh air.

I'd come here to post that I had gone to YouTube to watch a copy of Quatermass and the Pit - the TV original which I had found there a few months ago.  Oh calamity!  Nowhere to be found - could be that the upload had contravened copyright rules and it had been taken down.  There were some excerpts from the 1967 film but no luck tracking down anything of length from the TV series which I found quite frightening (even though the Martians were dead and the happenings were due to a sort of memory imprinted into the surroundings.  (The aliens depicted in this clip - where somebody has cobbled together some of the 1967 Quatermass film footage and The Clangers.  As noted upthread Nigel Kneale later revised the idea of memory being imprinted on stone in the play Stone Tape.  I had a look around on Google about Nigel Kneale and had not realised before that his wife wrote the "Mog" children's books.