A road trip into the unknown: Discover England’s most mysterious spots

From spooky churches to fairy tale forests, the UK’s landscape  has a wealth of curious, creepy, and confounding mysteries. Hit the road, but keep an eye out for ghosts, fairies, wizards, vampires and more. Read on to unravel the UK’s most mysterious spots, as we enter the unknown… 

Stonehenge

Start your road trip into the unknown with a visit to one of England’s most popular landmarks, the prehistoric wonder known as Stonehenge in Wiltshire. Despite its popularity, the mystery of Stonehenge remains.

This impressive monument consists of several 13-foot-high standing stones, some weighing as much as 25 tons. Who built it? Why did they build it? The most baffling question might be how did they build it? We’re still uncovering clues, including the recent excavation of the nearby “Super-henge,” another stone monument 15 times the size of Stonehenge. Whether we can ever truly understand Stonehenge, a visit here will fill you with a sense of awe. Tip: set your alarm clock and head out early to beat the crowds.

St. Mary’s Church

In North Yorkshire, you’ll come across St. Mary’s Church, an ancient Anglican house of worship that serves the town of Whitby. Located on a windswept cliff, it has an undeniably eerie ambiance, which is probably why Bram Stoker set key scenes of his bone-chilling literary horror classic Dracula in the graveyard here. He wrote, “for a moment or two I could see nothing, as the shadow of a cloud obscured St. Mary's Church. It seemed to me as though something dark stood behind the seat where the white figure shone and bent over it. What it was, whether man or beast, I could not tell." In other words, don’t forget to bring your cloves of garlic to ward off any hungry vampires while you’re wandering among the tombstones.

Wistman’s Wood

The English countryside has no shortage of misty, mystical forests, but if you must choose just one, we recommend Wistman’s Wood, located in Dartmoor, Devon. The ancient, tangled oak trees, mossy undergrowth, and uncanny sense of quietude here have set imaginations running wild for centuries. Fairy tale creatures – pixies, faeries, trolls and more – are rumored to make their home here. But more frightening is the legend of the "Wisht Hounds," enormous, bloodthirsty black dogs who roam the woods in search of prey. We’re guessing those guys have sharper teeth than the trolls.

Margate Shell Grotto

Back in 1835, a fieldworker was digging a hole outside of the seaside town of Margate, Kent when he unwittingly uncovered one of England’s most beguiling mysteries. The Margate Shell Grotto is a subterranean cavern decorated with thousands upon thousands of seashells, arranged in dazzlingly intricate mosaics. Why is it there? No one knows for sure. Some have theorized that it’s left over from the Roman occupation of Britain. Some think it was the secret gathering place of the Knights Templar. Others think it’s an elaborate hoax. Whatever the Margate Shell Grotto was, it’s sure to be a place you’ll be telling friends and family about for years to come.

Pluckley

Don’t miss the opportunity to pay a visit to Pluckley, which the Guinness Book of World Records named as England’s most haunted village. Ghosts, phantoms, and apparitions seem to love this paranormal hot spot. People have reported a long-dead highwayman loitering at the aptly named Fright Tree, where he died in a swordfight years ago. They’ve seen (and heard) the Screaming Man, a brick worker cursed with eternal (you guessed it) screaming. And there’s the White Lady, a specter who haunts St. Nicholas’ Church.

Buckland Abbey

A supernatural site known for its eerie other-worldly goings on. Did Sir Francis Drake sign a pact with the Devil here? The grounds of this magnificent architectural masterpiece have long featured in fantastical tales of the supernatural. Some claim to have seen the man responsible for leading the defeat of the Spanish Armada walking a pack of dogs at night, a legend that inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to write the spooky Sherlock Holmes classic The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Merlin’s Cave

The magicians of Hogwarts may have gotten most of the attention in recent years,  but Merlin remains at the top of the heap when it comes to England’s wizards. Sorry, Dumbledore. Head out to the southwest coast of Cornwall to venture into Merlin’s Cave, a spot made famous by legendary Victorian poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson in his Idylls of the King epic. The legend goes that Merlin found the infant Arthur here, setting the young king on the road to Camelot. Clamber down the steep footpath to Tintagel Beach to explore the cave at low tide.