Avoid the woods
In 1994 I had friends renting in the Abbots Leigh and Clifton areas around Bristol. We noted the official figures given for rurally homeless people and homeless people in Bristol were woefully underestimated. The ‘Bear Pit’, bus station and subways in central Bristol and various parkups and camping areas were, by day, clearly full of people with no other place to go; but homeless people were strangely less apparent at night. I ascertained, from asking directly, that a lot of homeless people felt in the ‘Bear Pit’ there was prolific drinking and drug use, and too much noise. [The ‘Bear Pit’ is a failed townplanning scheme, intended to be a retail and pedestrian ‘hub’ with tunnel walkways and a central circular space.] Less lit areas attracted violence and harassment; predominantly, people asleep in doorways and arcades were at risk of being kicked and/or urinated on. Parking bays had vehicle and fire risks. Sleeping out could earn you repetitive police harassment and vagrancy convictions with resulting court dates, warrants and escalating fines.
So, I repeatedly enquired, where were people sleeping? There were hints and vague answers, none enlightening. Maybe, I supposed, a lot of vehicle/tent dwellers and itinerants were dossing in the nearby Ashton Court, Leigh, Abbots Leigh and Failand forests? In early September I discovered otherwise. Substantial groups were sharing empty property, usually ex-offices or basements. In a road adjacent to my friends’ flat, one basement was opened from an external street floor level every night after 9pm. Between 10 and 25 mostly young sober people would turn up with small bedrolls and dash in via a hatch as discreetly as possible. Locals had no cause to complain; there were no signs of forced entry, no litter, no excrement, no noise. If you didn’t see people entering, or scarpering before 6am, you had no idea they stayed there. Also quietly populated at night were a lot of gardens, church and
brewery properties and pockets around Temple Meads station.
Nobody was sleeping in the woods, apparently. In summer, this didn’t make much sense to me. But people of various ages, races and backgrounds unanimously insisted they would never be on the downs or in the woods after dusk. Ashton Court house has a reputation for loud bangs, doors and windows slamming or opening, and shrieks that people insist are not wildlife, imagination, or weather-related. There are, I was often told, ‘trouble’ and ‘things’ in these woods, and dog owners maintained their pets wouldn’t stay there overnight. Despite many risks, people took their chances at night in the town, maybe stayed up all night, but did not ever consider Leigh. Not even in a van. A lot of vehicle dwellers were based around
two cemeteries, apparently not remotely gothic, atmospheric, or haunted, compared to the woods around the city.
Another site nobody would sleep in was the vast warehouse complex below Clifton, approaching the Hot Wells site (now inaccessible). The yarn told me was of a homeless man who had been discovered dead in the complex in the 1980s – no identification was made. His restless/ confused shade wandered around near the ‘P&O’ warehouse and would on occasion alarm security patrols. An exsecurity guard informs me there were accounts of hauntings on that site and at another in town, but that these were allegedly silent sightings of “ghosts of ‘Roman dressed’ men”. Security guards were vigilant in keeping anyone from being in Temple Meads or the warehouse complexes, he confirmed, mostly to avoid potential falls or drowning.
There are other social groups I’d expect to find in rolling hills, verdant copses, and unpatrolled parkland on summer evenings and after dark around very populated urban centres: bored teenagers and students; ornithologists and wildlife enthusiasts; hardened late night tokers. Also, that staple of the topiary border or sand dune: men cruising. Hampstead or Holland Park and our local coast in the same era could often be busy with single men taking casual strolls on certain pleasant warm nights.
But nothing human seems keen to patrol or cruise or examine Leigh Woods. No evidence of teddy bears’ picnics, no backpackers roughing it, no youths, no romantic trysts, no dispossessed seeking a space to sleep or sit out empty hours in peace. Not even a solitary ABC. I was earnestly warned not to research the place alone. “Watch it”, frowned a cider-sipping veteran on the Cathedral Green. “Stay well away… Something bad is up on the Downs”.
Lucy Brown
Pilton, Somerset