Next week begins the much awaited fortean festival Strange Days, hosted at the Barge Inn at Honeystreet near Pewsey, Wiltshire. The festival boasts an impressive lineup of speakers ranging from cryptozoologists to podcast hosts, as well as evening entertainment. The local area for the festival suits the subject of the strange as well, most famously for the prolific crop circles that appear frequently. But there is more than meets the eye as history and the paranormal collide in this small corner of Wiltshire.

The Barge Inn sits on the bank of the Kennet and Avon Canal and is loomed over by the Marlborough Downs and a beautiful chalk glyph of a white horse. The downs themselves have been farmed since neolithic times and, on the other side of them, sits the historic site of Avebury. Upon one of the close hills, named Walkers Hill, is the remains of an ancient long barrow, named Adams Grave or, in times gone by, Woden’s Barrow. There is a legend that a giant was buried at the site and that if you were to run around it seven times, then you will awaken him from his eternal slumber.

From Adams Grave, you’ll be treated to beautiful views of the Pewsey Vale, with the Barge Inn and the Canal below you. You may also see many reminders of less peaceful times. Dotted along the vale are many defensive pillboxes from the Second World War. The Kennet and Avon Canal formed part of the General Headquarters (GHQ) Line, specifically the Blue line. The GHQ line was the longest and most important defensive line after the coastal defenses as it was designed to protect London and the industrial center of the country from enemy invasion. Fortunately, an invasion never came and now the remnants of pillboxes stand silently beside the roads and waterways, as if waiting to be needed once again.

In the 70s, this area of Wiltshire became rather famous for a specific type of phenomenon, Crop Circles. For those unfamiliar with Crop Circles, they are large geometric patterns formed in fields of wheat or barley, normally overnight. People who studied the patterns began to theorize that they weren’t made by human hands, but instead were formed by extraterrestrials or correlated to the mysterious so-called ley lines. On average, 30 crop circles appear in the UK in a year, with an impressive 380 being formed in Wiltshire since 2005. This is even more staggering when you consider that the second county with the most crop circles is Hampshire, with 51. Over the years, many people have come forward and claimed to be the ones that made some of the circles; in fact, many crop circles are thought to be man-made. However many circles appear with no easy explaination as to how they have been formed. Opposite the Barge Inn, on the other side of the canal, is the Crop Circle Visitor Centre and Exhibition where those interested can find out more about the captivating subject.

But it’s not just Crop Circles in the area; there are ghosts and other supernatural entities lurking. In Ruth Roper Wylde’s book, The Roadmap of British Ghosts, there is a story of a headless horseman that rides along the road from Upavon to Pewsey, and another of a coach drawn by headless horses, that also travels along the A345.

In the fantastic book, Ghosts and Legends of the Wiltshire Countryside by Kathleen Wiltshire, there is a treasure trove of ghostly goings-on from the area. A few of my favorite stories include the huge ghost of a pig that was said to haunt Pig Lane in Coate, near Bishops Cannings. Another story is that many years ago, a man was walking to Coate to visit his grandfather who was on his deathbed. As he walked he encountered a large dog with ‘great blazing eyes as big as saucers’ that blocked his way. The man threw a stone at the animal, which promptly vanished. He continued his journey to Coate, where he found that his grandfather had just passed away. Interestingly, there is another brief mention of a coach pulled by four horses and driven by a headless coachman that haunts the same stretch of road that is mentioned by Ruth Roper Wylde.

We’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for ghostly pigs and headless horsemen when we’re at the festival ourselves. If you’re interested in finding out more about Strange Days Festival then you can find more infomation at https://www.strangedaysfestival.co.uk/