thedeadlyhook

Hmm... do you suppose there once was a Crouch End station...? Brrrr... Or Hobb's Lane?

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Well, there is Hobb's End, from Quatermass and the PIt. Which was, as I recall, on Hobb's Lane...

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Crouch End is from the Stephen King story of the same name. His homage to Lovecraft. Most chilling.

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londonkds.livejournal.com

I don't know the King story, but Crouch End was a station on a branch line in North London that was supposed to be absorbed into the Underground in the 1940s, but the work was never finished because of the war and the line was later closed down (the Alexandra Palace branch, if anyone knows what I'm talking about). Does a station that never was fit with the story theme?

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londonkds.livejournal.com

That's on the second site Hook originally linked to, under "Northern Heights"

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Now it's even creepier, knowing how close it was to reality.

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londonkds.livejournal.com

Curiously, the same disused railway line (now a footpath, I have actually been to the remains of Crouch End station) is used as the setting for another ghost story, Ruth Rendell's "The Green Road to Quephanda".

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Hmm... if I weren't a hard-nosed sceptical physicist who believes that most 'hauntings' are caused by the effects of subsonic vibrations on the human nervous system, I'd say there had to be something to it. Of course, that doesn't stop my primitive lizard-brain from freaking out after scary movies.

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Here's a reference to what I mean.

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I've been reading Steven Pinker's book The Blank Slate recently that covers similar ground - basically, advances in brain mapping are finally starting to fill in the blanks of a lot of previously unexplained behaviors as having a physical origin, and in consequence, explaining a lot about the shape of human nature, our inborn drives and urges and repeating behavior patterns. Once I've gotten through the whole thing, I'll probably do a rambly post on the subject, about how our human brains are both a variable and a constant, and that the stories we tell each other (this ties into my whole explain the human urge behind storytelling kink) are an attempt to communicate both universal and personal truths. Eventually that sentence will make sense. I hope!

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I think the sheep would get flattened by the very heavy traffic - though I'm not sure what SB is like now there's the congestion charge.

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Bwah! Poor little sheep!

I'm finding your icon mesmerizing. Really gives that multidimensional effect for Ilyria.

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And that's if they're not choked by the pollution first.

Mesmerizing eh? I was going more 'dirty', and not in the mud sense.

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Well, there's that too. ; ) It's kind of unsettlingly sexay.

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This was the original manip:

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... that inspired it.

(got a bit keen there and left off the end of the sentence!)

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Hmmmm... very nice. I think it's her open mouth that gets me, and the way in the icon it takes on that Picasso-esque quality. Really says "Elder God," something about it. Very many-places-at-once...

... which is a whole other interesting smutty idea, now that I think of it. Hmmm... (ponders)

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sangueuk.livejournal.com

I'm not sure what SB is like now there's the congestion charge.....it's horrible!!!

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It wasn't very nice before...

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Just out of curiosity, how much is the congesstion charge? And how is it collected? Like a highway toll?

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No, you have to pay before you go. £5 a day weekdays.

http://www.cclondon.com/index.shtml

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Ah, thank you. That may actually come up as a detail in another story, so good to have the resource.

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Need to know anything British, you can always ask me.

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Thanks so much! : )

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sangueuk.livejournal.com

Thanks for these links - I love this stuff. Whenever I'm in London these days I mutter admiringly, "Those darn Victorians..." And those disused stations - I first heard about them in the 80s in a TV series called something like 'Hidden London' - so cool! - I'm going to read now and see if there are tours.

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Ooohh... I'm going to have to go looking for that series on tape. I've never seen it, and it sounds right up my alley. There's nothing I love more than abandoned spaces, for some reason. The best books I have on the subject are Underworld (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0940512076/qid=1106677563/sr=1-6/ref=sr_1_6/104-7168211-3759126?v=glance&s=books), which is all fantastic photos of hidden tunnels, cave spaces, and concealed storage, some of them still in use, some abandonded for centuries, and Waiting For the End of the World (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1568984669/qid=1106677755/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/104-7168211-3759126), which shows photos of bomb shelters and hidden governement bunkers, including one that's stashed away inside a luxury hotel - go through a door and it leads to a James Bond style super lair, with concrete walls and huge banks of computers. Amazing. I guess I just get a thrill out of the secrecy of it all, the feeling of being hidden...

The Paris catacombs and necropolis were also something else for that feeling. Nothing like going through those tunnels and thinking of the streets just above - live city on top, a mirroring dead city below.

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There's a 'secret' nuclear bunker you can go down in Essex.

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sangueuk.livejournal.com

I read those links and loved them - and what a cool website! So, thanks again.

I went to the Paris catacombs a few years ago - they were amazing. I must dig up some photos. Have you been? We got searched for bones when we left, as did everyone else.

I love the secrecy too. I love the feel that we're teetering on raw earth. It's so cool. Actually you've re-awaken an interrest I forgot I had. I'll check out those books too.

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shapinglight

What I wouldn't give to go on a (echoing spooky voice) underground tour of the deep levels! Mwha ha ha ha ha!

Oh, me too! Hope to read the William story soon.

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Apparently there are similar spaces in New York. I remember watching a program about water workers down in the deep tunnels that was just fascinating. It's a whole other world down there.

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shapinglight

Well, there are people living in the subway tunnels in New York, aren't there? Someone wrote a novel, the name of which I can't remember of course.

I believe there was a film too.

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lillianmorgan.livejournal.com

Even more fun, Disused Stations on the London Underground.
Oh yeah. These have all sorts of interesting histories behind them - ghost stories, war stories etc. Suit everybody's cup of tea. Now we just need a vampire story taking place in them *g*
::hugs:: Toys is back soon though eh?

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Lots of people died in the Underground during the war. Bomb blasts just got channeled down the tunnels, then they'd create a vacuum that would kill you too. No wonder the places are spooky.

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