Vampire Britain: UK could be home to more blood-sucking nightfeeders than Dracula's homeland
We have had 25 times more undead sightings than Transylvania in the last 100 years. Here we look at some of the most fascinating
For years we’ve slept soundly in our beds convinced that if vampires do exist outside of horror movies and gothic novels they’re probably terrorising the population of Transylvania.
But a new study has suggested that Britain could be home to more blood-sucking nightfeeders than Dracula’s homeland.
There have been just a handful of reported sightings over the last 100 years anywhere near the creepy region of Romania bordered by the Carpathian mountains.
In Britain, however, there have been 206 reported cases of vampire encounters over the same period, equating to two sightings a year.
The findings were compiled by paranormal investigator Rev Lionel Fanthorpe, who uncovered 11,000 reports of unexplained phenomena here since 1914.
And though he is used to exploring the unsettling and unknown even he was shocked by the number of reports involving the undead.
“I really only expected to find one or two instances in Britain,” he says. “So I was amazed when I discovered one story after another. And I really didn’t expect to find more here than in somewhere like Transylvania.
"It is in a part of Europe where folklore and fairytales are widespread, but in fact we could find only nine or 10 reports there over the same period.
“There are lots of potential explanations. One is that after the publications of Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1897 more people were prone to use vampires as an explanation for all sorts of weird things.
“Another might be that we are an island nation where many people have come in from other parts of the world – Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings. So if these creatures came here as part of invasions they stayed and had no means of getting out again.”
The study, which was commissioned to mark the start of new vampire TV series The Strain, was compiled by studying historical archives, police reports, eye-witness accounts and 50 years of paranormal investigative records.
More than 11,204 reports of paranormal activity were filed over the last century with sightings of general ghosts and phantoms being the most commonly reported in the UK. Yorkshire was found to have the most reported cases of spooky goings-on with 615 sightings of the unexplained, followed closely by London (567), Lancashire (511), Essex (475) and Sussex (417).
Lionel said: “Our research has suggested that certain areas of Britain may be referred to as horror hotspots not solely because of their vampire reports but also because of the number of reports of general paranormal phenomena emanating from them.”
New vampire-horror TV series The Strain launches on entertainment channel Watch tonight at 10pm
The Birmingham Vampire
In January 2005 residents in the Saltley, Small Heath and Alum Rock areas of Birmingham, were attacked by a man who bit them. On one occasion when he attacked a passer-by, neighbours came to his rescue and tried to apprehend the man – but he was said to have unusual strength, fighting them off and making his escape.
The Surrey Vampire
A woman claimed that on three separate occasions over three months in 1938 she was attacked by some sort of vampire. The flying creature attempted to bite her neck at the same location in Thornton Heath, Surrey. Many people believe it was an animal which may have escaped from a zoo or a private menagerie, but the mystery was never solved.
The Lady Vampire
Derelict Baron Hill Hall in Anglesey, Wales has a bloody history of vampirism. Legend has it that the ghost of a young girl, the youngest member of the ancestral Bulkeley family, still roams the grounds, but only at night. Speculation that she might be a vampire arose because, while the rest of the house lies in ruins, the tomb in which her body was interred remains intact, locked and bolted.
The Croglin Vampire
There are still tales of sightings of this historic monster in the Cumbrian village of Croglin. With a brown shrivelled face and long bony hands, it attacked young girls in the years after the English Civil War. The story goes a Miss Cranswell was forced to the ground and bitten on the neck after a horrifying figure climbed into her bedroom through a window. Her two brothers gave chase with pistols but it moved too fast. They dismissed it as a lunatic, but when the creature returned and attacked again, one brother managed to fire his pistol, hitting it in the leg as it again escaped. The villagers banded together and went to the local graveyard, where they found a vault with all coffins smashed but one. Inside was a mummified shrivelled corpse... with a leg badly damaged by a pistol ball.
The Blandford Vampire
Evil steward William Doggett stole thousands of pounds after his master moved abroad from Eastbury house near Blandford, Dorset, in the late 18th Century. When his master returned, Doggett shot himself. But that was not the end of him. His blood-covered face was seen after dark, as he stalked the village. When his body was exhumed in 1845, it was not decomposed, and had a rosy tint to the cheeks.
The Highgate Vampire
The famous statue of Karl Marx is scary enough, but in 1969 Highgate Cemetery in North London was the location for a vampire scare. Dead animals drained of blood began appearing in the undergrowth and witnesses reported a “tall dark figure” with “hypnotic red eyes”, some even being attacked. It was said a King Vampire of the Undead had been buried there after being brought over from Romania in a coffin and modern satanists had brought it to life. It all went a bit vampire crazy with amateur hunters digging up a number of graves... until the sightings died out.
The Iron Toothed Vampire
n Glasgow in 1954 a group of local schoolboys claimed to have seen a vampire with iron teeth. It had “strangled and devoured” two small boys, despite there being no record of any missing children in the area. It led to hundreds of schoolchildren vampire hunting in the city’s graveyards, causing a nightmare for police if no-one else. The incident was put down to the popularity of an American comic series which contained stories about vampires.
The Berwick Vampire
The Northumbrian town of Berwick-upon-Tweed is home to one of the earliest accounts of a British vampire. During the mid 12th Century writer William of Newburgh said: “A great rogue, having been buried, after his death sallied forth (by the contrivance, as it is believed, of Satan) out of his grave by night, and was borne hither and thither, pursued by a pack of dogs with loud barkings; thus striking great terror into the neighbours, and returning to his tomb before daylight.” The locals eventually found his resting place and set his corpse alight.
The Alnwick Vampire
It’s known as the home of the Duke of Northumberland, but in previous years it was also known as the home of one of the country’s most terrifying vampires. This particular bloodsucker had a hunchback and in the Middle Ages he would stalk the grounds of the castle spreading terror and disease. The local peasantry apparently grew tired of his nightly raids, rounded on him with pitchforks and torches and reduced him to ash.
The Animal Vampire
In 1991 after hearing stories from locals of animals being found drained of blood, ghost hunter Tom Robertson and his wife went to Lochmaben Castle near Lockerbie in search of evidence of the cause. Walking into the woods around the castle, leaving his wife in the car, he swiftly encountered the bodies of small animals. He also met a tall figure dressed in sacking with a hood over its head. The creature leapt into a tree and swung away. Realising he had left his wife alone, he raced back to her. He afterwards said: “There is a creature slinking around in those woods, baying for blood.”
Source : Mirror.co.uk
