Reputedly The Most Haunted Church in England

St Botolph's Church, Skidbrooke, is reputed to be the most haunted church in England.

Up until last week I had only viewed it from across the fields, as I drove past, on my way elsewhere.  It has been unused since c1960 and in the care of The Churches Conservation Trust since 1973.

The reason I had not paid it a visit was because of its reputation for being such a site of paranormal activity and, I hate to say, it was known to have been abused in the 1970's -1980's by Satanists.  That is more than enough reason to stay away, in my book.

I have never liked the area around this church, the land is very flat and it has always felt uncomfortable to me - which is really strange because my all-time favourite church lies approximately 2 miles away - a church which I will post about next week.

I have visited all the surrounding churches, quite happily,  on my own.  Last week I felt that I wanted to visit St Botolph's - but only if George would come with me.  I deliberately didn't discuss the history of the place with him as we drove there.  I didn't want to build up the fear factor or anticipate atmosphere.

We had to park the car at the end of a gated lane and walk the few hundred yards to the church, which stands isolated and partly hidden behind trees.  It looked like any other church as we approached and crossed a ditch to enter the churchyard.

Credit to Leigh Cade, his photograph is far superior to mine

We entered the building and got a big shock as a couple of very large, black crows flew around and up making a loud noise as they went.  The church was icy cold and I wanted to turn tail.   I followed George inside and realised that the church felt icy cold for a very good reason, all the glass has gone from the beautiful windows, there are no doors, and a cold, bitter, easterly wind was blowing in and around.

The church has been stripped bare, it was quite shocking to see just how bare it is.  One advantage is that you can see where the church has been altered, added to, tweaked and adjusted over the years.   Even the three bells have been taken to another church along with a few bits of decorated stone which have been saved.

 It is a magnificent, lonely building which filled me with great sadness.

It receives lots of visitors.  Most of them are desperate to have some sort of paranormal experience.  They come in the dead of night and scare each other silly.  Some come with ill intent.

Luckily there is a group formed from local people who keep watch and they inform the police if they see any odd happenings, or notice groups of people heading down the road.  Of course, they can't watch it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, etc.   You tube is plastered with lots of footage making lots of claims about strange lights, noises, orbs, figures, you name it and it has probably been seen by someone, or so they claim.

I don't think those are the groups which particularly bother the Friends of St Botolph's.

I still feel sad that such a beautiful building which dates from 12th century and has seen so many hundreds of years service - baptisms, weddings, burials, worship - now stands stripped and naked, isolated on the marshes and always vulnerable to misuse by a few people.