The Perfect Spot For Halloween.
DIRECTIONS
Take the road marked ‘Smarden’. About a hundred yards along on the left is the entrance to what is officially known as Dering Wood but is locally nicknamed Screaming Wood. It is an eerie experience to walk these muddy paths through the skeletal trees, especially when it is getting dark. The journey is made even spookier by the knowledge that many lone wayfarers who have come this way have been scared witless by a sudden loud, anguished scream. It comes from deep within the wood and sends the birds flapping from the trees. DIRECTIONS
Dally in Screaming Wood for as long as you dare, then return to Fright Corner. Backtrack along The Pinnock. At the end on the left is the Blacksmith's Forge Tea Room. The building’s origins go back to the 14th century, when it housed a blacksmith’s forge. It then became an alehouse, but it is now a charming, cosy tea room run by Gloria Atkins, who shares her home with at least two ghosts. One is a cavalier whose jovial form has been seen by several members of the family striding in and out of various upstairs rooms. The other is a Tudor maid, who stands by the fireplace slowly turning the spit, watched by bemused customers.
Gloria has experienced further phenomena, such as a line of hanging mugs suddenly clinking together as though someone had just walked by and run a finger along them. On a cold November afternoon in 1997, as she was working in the kitchen, she heard the front door open and close. This was followed by the sound of a chair being moved away from a table. Picking up her notepad, she went to take the customer’s order only to find that the tea room was empty. She could see that a chair had been moved back from the table, but there was nobody in the building.
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