Episode 13 Haunted Roads part 2

[00:00:00] - [Speaker 0]
Hello. Welcome to lights on, still scared episode 13. My name is Karen Swanston, and with me is Graham Milne. Today, we'll be traveling once again along haunted roads. My next story.

[00:01:00] - [Speaker 0]
Actually, it's quite a sad one, actually. And it's quite a recent one as well. So we're going to the A3.

[00:01:06] - [Speaker 1]
Right.

[00:01:06] - [Speaker 0]
Which the A3 runs from Central London down to Portsmouth. It's quite a bit of a long road. Right. Much of it, the route follows or replaces the historic Portsmouth Road. Portsmouth Road is quite an older one.

[00:01:19] - [Speaker 0]
And the road carries soldiers, sailors, stagecoaches, traders, and travelers between London and the naval port. Now this will be quite important in there. A little story I have a little bit later on. So 12/11/2002, during the evening, police received several reports from motorists using the A 3 near Bourbon Slip Road outside Guildford. Now I've been down this road.

[00:01:47] - [Speaker 0]
I do know this road quite well. Mhmm. The witnesses reported describing a car losing control on the carriageway. Headlights appeared to leave the road. Mhmm.

[00:01:55] - [Speaker 0]
And the vehicle was said to have crashed down the embankment into trees and undergrowth. I don't think, from memory, I don't think there was a barrier there. So you just go straight down to the embankment, which is not brilliant.

[00:02:07] - [Speaker 1]
No. Yeah. Not not not the safest thing.

[00:02:10] - [Speaker 0]
Some counts say more than one motorist reported the same apparition accident, and police attended believing it was a recent collision had occurred.

[00:02:19] - [Speaker 1]
Mhmm.

[00:02:20] - [Speaker 0]
Officers searched the roadside in the embankment, and no newly crashed vehicles was immediately visible. There's no injured driver calling for help. There's no debris from a fresh collision was found. And the report accident seemed to have vanished. But because motorists had apparently seen something, officers carried out more extensive search.

[00:02:44] - [Speaker 0]
Now I know from my previous job

[00:02:47] - [Speaker 1]
Right.

[00:02:48] - [Speaker 0]
When I used to do accidents, there would have been signs on the roads if they've been if a car had got off the road.

[00:02:54] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah.

[00:02:54] - [Speaker 0]
There'd been skid marks and Yeah. Probably bits and pieces of the car on there. But there's nothing at all to say that that had happened. So I don't know if it's later on or the next day, the police eventually located a car hidden in dense vegetation down the embankment. The vehicle had not crashed that evening.

[00:03:12] - [Speaker 1]
Right.

[00:03:13] - [Speaker 0]
It appeared to have been there for several months.

[00:03:15] - [Speaker 1]
Okay.

[00:03:16] - [Speaker 0]
Human remains were discovered with or close to the car, and dental records identified deceased as a Christopher Brine Chandler, aged 21.

[00:03:25] - [Speaker 1]
Right.

[00:03:26] - [Speaker 0]
Chandler came from Isleworth, Middlesex area of West London.

[00:03:30] - [Speaker 1]
Right.

[00:03:31] - [Speaker 0]
But what was interesting was that the car that was actually seen on the road, it's the same description as the actual car that they found.

[00:03:39] - [Speaker 1]
Okay. Right.

[00:03:40] - [Speaker 0]
So he'd been reported missing approximately five months earlier during July 2002. And he was reportedly wanted by Metropolitan Police in connection with alleged robbery.

[00:03:53] - [Speaker 1]
Okay.

[00:03:53] - [Speaker 0]
The hidden car appears to have left the A three months before the motorist reported seeing the crash in the same area. So Yeah. That's interesting there.

[00:04:04] - [Speaker 1]
So

[00:04:06] - [Speaker 0]
what they seem to think, well, what might have happened was that Chandler may have lost control of the vehicle and left the A3 during July 2002.

[00:04:16] - [Speaker 1]
Mhmm.

[00:04:16] - [Speaker 0]
And the car traveled down the embankment. Was concealed by the dense summer vegetation.

[00:04:21] - [Speaker 1]
Mhmm.

[00:04:23] - [Speaker 0]
And he may have died in the vehicle or survived the initial impact briefly.

[00:04:27] - [Speaker 1]
Mhmm.

[00:04:28] - [Speaker 0]
But some evidence say or some accounts say evidence suggested that you attempted to leave through the passenger side.

[00:04:36] - [Speaker 2]
Right. Oh, dear.

[00:04:39] - [Speaker 0]
And the fact that the the vegetation concealed it meant he wasn't found until December. But it's the fact that so many people saw this car

[00:04:48] - [Speaker 1]
What and

[00:04:50] - [Speaker 0]
could it be? Could it be a residue haunting? Or is it possible that it was a crisis apparition because it wanted to be found? Yeah. Interesting one, that one.

[00:05:01] - [Speaker 1]
It is. It's kinda answered my question as well. Why disguise so many ghost car stories? Maybe it's just a recording of something traumatic that happened.

[00:05:12] - [Speaker 0]
There have been several things on the A3. The older A3 at Hinehead, before 2011, A3 climbed around the Devil's Punch Bowl at Hindhead. So it's quite narrow. What actually made me chuckle is the actual legend of the punch bowl and how it got his name. According to legend, the devil

[00:05:39] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah.

[00:05:41] - [Speaker 0]
Tormented Thor by jumping between the nearby devil's jumps. Thor attacked him with thunderbolt and lightning, and the devil scooped up a huge handful of earth and hurled out Thor. The hole he left behind became the devil's punch bowl. So that did make me chuckle. Just seemed like handbags at dawn, didn't it?

[00:06:02] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah, it does. I like the thunderbolt and lightning bit. Very, very frightening. Dear. But enough of the queen analogies.

[00:06:11] - [Speaker 1]
But yeah, terrifying. Thor and the Devil, that's

[00:06:15] - [Speaker 0]
an odd name. Thor is

[00:06:17] - [Speaker 1]
not very British.

[00:06:18] - [Speaker 0]
Thor is what? Nordic? Nordic, and the devil is the devil, I suppose. But 09/24/1786, there was a murder on that road. An unidentified sailor was walking from London to Plymouth to rejoin his ship.

[00:06:37] - [Speaker 0]
That's a hell of a walk.

[00:06:39] - [Speaker 1]
That is a hell walk.

[00:06:39] - [Speaker 0]
That is a very long walk. At the Red Lion Inn in Thursley, he met three other sailors, a James Marshall, a Michael Casey, and an Edward Lagoon. I might have said that wrong, never mind. The unknown sailor generously bought the men food and drink. That was nice of him.

[00:06:58] - [Speaker 0]
He left the inn with them and continued between Heinzhead. Three men attacked him near the Devil's Punch Bowl. He was murdered, stripped of his clothing, and reportedly almost decapitated.

[00:07:10] - [Speaker 1]
Bloody hell.

[00:07:10] - [Speaker 0]
That wasn't nice considering they brought him lunch. Yeah. The body was left in the hollow beside the Portsmouth Road, and the killers continued until Rake and attempted to sell the man's clothes in the Sun Inn. They were quickly apprehended.

[00:07:25] - [Speaker 1]
Didn't go well for them after

[00:07:26] - [Speaker 2]
that Didn't

[00:07:27] - [Speaker 0]
go well for them. No, no. The three murderers were tried in Kingston and they were executed on the 04/07/1787. So it took them several months to actually find them guilty. And their bodies were hung in chains and a triple gibbet close to the murder scene.

[00:07:44] - [Speaker 0]
And the location became known as Gibbet Hill. I've known Gibbit Hill. I never knew that was the reason why, but now I do know. The unknown sailor was buried in Thursley Churchyard. The sailor's stone was erected near the place where he was killed.

[00:08:00] - [Speaker 0]
Mhmm. And the murder and executions are historic documents rather than simple local legends. So yeah.

[00:08:06] - [Speaker 1]
It did happen.

[00:08:07] - [Speaker 0]
It did happen. Mhmm. So what happens at Gibbets Hill?

[00:08:14] - [Speaker 1]
I wouldn't let you say.

[00:08:15] - [Speaker 0]
The travellers apparently became afraid to pass the Gibbet after dark. Yeah. She would think so if they're there. They've got three of them hanging there.

[00:08:23] - [Speaker 1]
It's off putting, I would say.

[00:08:24] - [Speaker 0]
The displayed bodies would have been visible from the Portsmouth Road. Rattling chains, moving corpses and birds feeding on the reins would have produced a terrifying experience. No kidding, hear me me. Stories and superstitions developed around restless spirits and supernatural punishment. Possibly the apparitions include the murdered sailor, more on one of these killers and other highwaymen.

[00:08:50] - [Speaker 0]
Apparently phantom horses and coaches have also become part of the wider area on the old road. So there's a lot there.

[00:08:56] - [Speaker 1]
There is.

[00:08:57] - [Speaker 0]
A lot going on.

[00:08:58] - [Speaker 1]
Do you think there's any ley lines in that area?

[00:09:02] - [Speaker 0]
Oh, there might be.

[00:09:04] - [Speaker 1]
I always find wonder why certain roads seem to be more haunted than others. And maybe whatever something I don't know. Depends if you believe in ley lines, suppose.

[00:09:13] - [Speaker 0]
I suppose you've got the devil and Thor running around as

[00:09:16] - [Speaker 2]
well. Oh,

[00:09:17] - [Speaker 1]
I Yeah.

[00:09:18] - [Speaker 0]
But in 1851, sir William Ewl paid for a large Celtic cross to be erected on Gibbon Hill. It intended to counter the hill's fearful reputation and local superstition. The monument was meant to arise the spirits of travellers and residents. The cross is now a grade two listed monument. So the cross is still there.

[00:09:39] - [Speaker 1]
Is it like big? Is like a big monument.

[00:09:42] - [Speaker 0]
It is a big monument. Yes. That's very good. We wanted to make sure that people saw the cross so they weren't frightened of the ghosties anymore.

[00:09:50] - [Speaker 1]
Yeah.

[00:09:51] - [Speaker 0]
But, yeah, I mean, there's also in 1945, an aircraft disaster near the area as well. United States Army Air Force C-forty six Commando was flying in poor weather and the aircraft struck one of the wooden radar towers at Gibbon Hill and crashed. All 30 passengers accrued were killed and a Canadian serviceman on the ground also died, so the death toll was thirty one.

[00:10:15] - [Speaker 1]
Goodness me.

[00:10:17] - [Speaker 0]
That just adds to the layer of the landscape above the old three. There's a lot laying on as well. There's highwaymen as well running up and down the Portsmouth Road and the A3. Our old friend, Jerry Abbershaw, do you remember Jerry?

[00:10:36] - [Speaker 1]
Was he did he not end up getting hung himself or whatever?

[00:10:40] - [Speaker 0]
He did, yes. He was the one who I worked out was running up and down the high street of Leatherhead.

[00:10:47] - [Speaker 1]
Yes. Did he not stay in a local tavern?

[00:10:50] - [Speaker 0]
He did, was meant

[00:10:51] - [Speaker 1]
to be. Yes.

[00:10:52] - [Speaker 0]
Yes. So he was meant to be there as well.

[00:10:54] - [Speaker 1]
Will he get around?

[00:10:55] - [Speaker 0]
He does, yes. But this was his territory though.

[00:10:57] - [Speaker 1]
I suppose so, yeah.

[00:10:58] - [Speaker 0]
So he terrorized travellers around the Kingston area and was executed in 1795. And his gang was associated with the Bald faced Stag Inn. That's a bit strange name for a pub.

[00:11:11] - [Speaker 1]
Stag Inn, stagger out.

[00:11:14] - [Speaker 0]
Bald faced.

[00:11:15] - [Speaker 1]
Bald faced, yeah.

[00:11:16] - [Speaker 0]
Stag. Bald faced stag.

[00:11:18] - [Speaker 1]
Our bald faced.

[00:11:19] - [Speaker 0]
Woah. This one is. On Portsmouth Road. Oh, dear. So, yeah.

[00:11:24] - [Speaker 0]
So Hawkhurst gang, which is Jerry's Rang, was connected with a murder near Rake in 1749. Yeah, loads of things going on.

[00:11:35] - [Speaker 1]
That's wild. That is a really interesting collection of stories from one tiny area.

[00:11:40] - [Speaker 0]
Just one bit of rain.

[00:11:42] - [Speaker 1]
I wonder what the locals think living there. I wonder what the house prices are like.

[00:11:47] - [Speaker 0]
Actually they get quite high. It's a very distinguished place to live in.

[00:11:52] - [Speaker 1]
No, that sounds great. This little story here was actually again one that was found online. It was submitted by a driver, a long distance lorry driver named Jim who had an experience of a ghostly road and was pretty reticent to talk about it, but would often be of cajoled into shares and experiences in the pub. You know, you do. When a few drinks and the old vocals open up and you start to talk about stuff and that's what he did.

[00:12:27] - [Speaker 1]
So apparently the guy who actually put forward this piece of documentation was in the pub witnessing him regaling the story. So he went and explained that while Jim was driving down the A83 between Inverarie and Loch Gilpin, which I have no clue. I know where Loch Gilpin is, but I'm not not good at naming rules. Somebody's the e something dum dum. I'm like, oh, because I don't drive.

[00:12:51] - [Speaker 1]
I mean, I know Loch Gilped. So he's driving between them at dusk and he passed a municipal dump on the outskirts of village when without warning a figure stepped out from the verge and passed directly under his truck. So the shock driver slammed on his brakes and leaping from the cab raced back down the road where he expected to meet with a grizzly sight. His search revealed nothing. Fearing the worst he then tentatively got onto his knees and peered under the truck but found nothing.

[00:13:19] - [Speaker 1]
It was then he became a feeling of awareness of something standing watching him and glancing back witnessed the sight of a motionless figure standing further down the road The figure was described as being clad in black and was wearing what appeared to be a monk's habit Oh, not a monk Yeah, know I'd sneak up a monk story in here as well It remained motionless and not lingering to find out who or what it was he leapt aboard his cab before speeding off down the road. Very unpleasant journey Speaking for of creepy figures by the road, Bamf and Buchen, North East of Scotland. This was told to me by a guy who described an instant when him and his band were driving back from a gig so this is a first hand account so the band's called Orpheus and I hadn't heard of them, it a local band but this was in the 70s I believe it was in the early 70s so it took place around fifty years ago and he described the encounter as hair raising because while returning to Aberdeen after a gig he said we played at the Keldar bar in Banff and we're returning home.

[00:14:31] - [Speaker 1]
There were four of us in the van, me and our lead guitarist were driving and another two guys in the back with our equipment. There was hardly any traffic late that night and then we came to a long stretch of road which went downhill. There was a dry stain dike and a barbed wire fence and an open field behind it. On the driver's side there were also a dike and behind it a steep hill with a forest on top. Ahead of us, my eye caught sight of something coming out of the trees.

[00:14:59] - [Speaker 1]
It was a figure, it was running down the hill towards the road in an ungainly fashion. It appeared to be human shaped. When it reached the fence, I thought, how is it going to go over?' It came right through the fence and onto the verge. The whole time I said nothing to the driver, until to my horror it stumbled onto the road in front of the van, where I could clearly make out that it looked like a human being, though it seemed to have a bag or something over its head which went down to its waist.

[00:15:27] - [Speaker 0]
Oh dear.

[00:15:28] - [Speaker 1]
That's creepy So as I shouted, what the F was that? Because we must have hit it even though there was no collision and we felt or I felt it had gone right through the van I asked the driver a hand over the torch and we all jumped out checked under the van and even along the dike there was nothing there the rest of the guys who had been sleeping had woken up and began complaining how cold it was, the whole van was freezing, but on finding nothing we headed off. A week or so later they played the same venue and naturally told all the people about their experience and were surprised to hear that several other people had witnessed a similar figure, though not necessarily going under their trucks. Who or what it was on that desolate piece of road remains unexplained to this day but it is not a case in isolation. Figure with a bag over its head, down its waist, staggering around know, that's pretty nice and tall But yeah, that was it So the guy said to me you should check out the pub or locals about the story I did post the question, has anybody heard that story on one of these Bamfambukin Facebook pages?

[00:16:40] - [Speaker 1]
But so far nothing. But you know, who knows, I will carry on eventually.

[00:16:45] - [Speaker 0]
Okay, so I have a quick one here. It did make me chuckle. Okay. It's one of these ones. So we're back to Leatherhead because I found this on the Leatherhead Ghost Facebook page.

[00:16:56] - [Speaker 0]
It says, Hi there. Here's my encounter. Now I assume it's a man from the way that he said it, so we say it's a he anyway. I said it how it happened and sadly when I went back to save the video from the dashcam onto a stick that I had reviewed earlier, I had left it too late and it had been overwritten. Again another oddity as it should last for seven days before being overwritten.

[00:17:24] - [Speaker 0]
It was 2,005, and around 04:30AM on Sunday after Derby day, when I was driving along Lower Road in Bookham. Bookham's wiped me in leatherheads. Right. I know that road. Okay.

[00:17:36] - [Speaker 0]
As I passed the bus stop at the top of Hawk's Hill Rise, a lad in a pale blue suit stepped in the road with his thumb out. I pulled over but locked the doors and he walked up to the car window. I asked him where he wanted to go and he told me he wanted to get to the nearest train station. I said his best bet was leatherhead and I'll give him a lift. He got into the car and we started chatting.

[00:18:00] - [Speaker 0]
The first thing I noticed is that he didn't have a mobile and seemed confused when I asked him where he'd left his. He asked if he could smoke, and I said yes, but asked him if he could open the window, in which he replied, where's the handle?

[00:18:14] - [Speaker 1]
Okay.

[00:18:17] - [Speaker 0]
I laughed and opened it from my side. He seemed surprised by this. I took his surprise to some sort of joke and laughed. He produced a tobacco tin, made a couple of roll ups and gave me one. I told him I'll keep it for later and put it in the glove compartment.

[00:18:35] - [Speaker 0]
He'd lit his roll up but I noticed I couldn't smell it. I asked him why he was waiting for a bus at 4.3zero am and he said he'd met someone at the ETSON races and gone home with them. He went on to tell me a few other details, which were funny, but I won't repeat. He confessed he'd been drunk and gone home with a person he'd met at the races. Once he had sobered up he realised he had been wearing beer goggles.

[00:19:04] - [Speaker 0]
Also it didn't help that the girls parents were sleeping in the next room and he confessed he didn't want to still be there when everyone had woken up in the morning. So he left a note and tried to leave via the front door, which turned out to be locked, so he climbed out the window. I asked what he did for a living and he said he was a farrier. I said, That's an old profession. He replied, Well there are many farriers where he comes from in Kent.

[00:19:30] - [Speaker 0]
I noticed his suit looked very 1960s style. I asked him how long he had been a farrier, in which he replied he started alone when he had left school ten years ago. He previously told me he was 25. So he would have been 15? Yeah.

[00:19:47] - [Speaker 0]
Which back then Yeah,

[00:19:48] - [Speaker 1]
I suppose he could have been apprenticed farrier maybe.

[00:19:52] - [Speaker 0]
We chatted what seemed to be a long time, but in reality it was only less than ten minutes before we got to Leatherhead Station. I dropped him on the London side of the station, but you could see the doors were locked. I told him he may have to wait a few hours before the first train, to which he just smiled. I drove off and looked in the mirror and he vanished. I stopped the car and got out to look for him.

[00:20:17] - [Speaker 0]
It dawned on me that he could wait in the twenty four hour petrol station cafe round the corner. In a matter of seconds he vanished. The station doors were locked and there was nowhere for him to go except the car park behind the station from which there was no way out, which there isn't. Logic was telling me that he must be there. Yeah.

[00:20:37] - [Speaker 0]
So I searched but no avail. Later that day I told my friend about it, what had happened. He suggested I check my rear camera. Yeah. That's fitted in the back of my car.

[00:20:48] - [Speaker 0]
I checked the footage from the time and picked him up to the time I dropped him off. And he didn't appear in any of it. It showed me stopping. It showed the car dip as if someone had got in. Yeah.

[00:20:59] - [Speaker 0]
But neither the front or back camera showed him. The roll up he'd left from the glove compartment had gone as well. I never got to the bottom of it. Was he the ghost that was reliving his last few moments of happiness? Was he glad to escape in an alcohol induced liaison?

[00:21:16] - [Speaker 0]
His big uggles told him he was taking home a princess die look alike. But as the woke cold wore off. And in the cold light of the morning, he was woke lying next to princess Anne look alike. And she needed a shave. I guess I'll never know.

[00:21:33] - [Speaker 0]
Now I'd like to say this is what this person said, not me.

[00:21:39] - [Speaker 1]
That's outrageous.

[00:21:40] - [Speaker 0]
Someone says, love this story. Death sounds like he didn't know he'd passed. And his reply was, I sat next to him. He seemed pretty much flesh and blood. But the conversation was odd.

[00:21:53] - [Speaker 0]
Like talking to someone who had been away for a very long time. Yeah. And the vanishing not appearing on either dash camera recording is total mystery. He was a nice lad, not cocky or arrogant like many nowadays. I honestly don't know what to make of it.

[00:22:08] - [Speaker 0]
But I agree. If he was dead, he certainly didn't realise it.

[00:22:11] - [Speaker 1]
That's insane. I love that.

[00:22:13] - [Speaker 0]
That's That's a good one. Brilliant. Actually had a conversation and the door opened and yeah, weird.

[00:22:21] - [Speaker 1]
I love those ones. I really do. Hopefully we'll get more next time. We do like a bit of haunted road stuff.

[00:22:28] - [Speaker 0]
If you've got any stories yourself go on

[00:22:31] - [Speaker 2]
to our website fill in the form let us know.

[00:22:34] - [Speaker 1]
We'd love to hear from them. Anyway everyone have a pleasant evening and thank you very much for joining us on our latest Lights on Stolescared. Stay tuned for more exciting updates soon. Good night from Graham.

[00:22:48] - [Speaker 0]
Good night from Karen.

[00:25:45] - [Speaker 2]
Fade. Maybe it's just trauma, maybe ghosts are made of fear. But every night, I swear I