There are histories that are recorded and histories that are felt. Not in dates or documents, but in the way the air shifts, the sense of a presence, the inexplicable certainty that a place remembers more than it reveals. So, when we walk through a landscape shaped by centuries, are we ever truly alone?
Today I turn to Ghost Encounters: The Lingering Spirits of North Devon by Helen Hollick and Kathy Hollick, a Devon travel guide that resists the theatrics of the supernatural and instead offers something far more enduring: the suggestion that the past does not haunt, it remains.
Set within the layered landscape of North Devon, the book unfolds as a lively journey through place rather than a catalogue of fright. From narrow hedged lanes to the wide solitude of Exmoor, from timeworn inns to the intimate space of the authors’ own farmhouse, each encounter is rooted in location. And it is precisely this grounding that gives the narrative its authority.
The stories from Ghost Encounters: The Lingering Spirits Of North Devon are not adrift in imagination; they are observed and, above all, lived.
What distinguishes this collection is its tone. There is no urgency to convince, no reliance on spectacle. Instead, Helen Hollick and Kathy Hollick approach each presence with measured curiosity. A grieving young woman, a dutiful farmhand, a man forever bound to his final errand — these are not apparitions to be feared, but lives interrupted, emotions unfinished. Even the more unsettling encounters are handled with restraint, shaped by empathy rather than alarm.
And history is never absent. Each account is gently contextualised, drawing the reader into the rhythms of rural life, the echoes of national upheaval, the quiet tragedies that ripple outward through time. The result is a narrative that feels intimate, where the boundary between past and present is not forcefully broken but naturally thinned.
There is also a subtle argument at the heart of this book.
Against the noise of modern ghost-hunting and its appetite for spectacle, the authors offer a solid perspective: that what lingers does so not to terrify, but to be acknowledged. Memory, after all, does not vanish simply because time has passed. Isn’t it?
Ghost Encounters: The Lingering Spirits Of North Devon is not a book that demands belief. It is a volume that invites reflection. It asks the reader to consider whether history is ever truly absent or whether, in certain places, it simply chooses to remain close – as is evident through the large array of lavish black and white photographs included in it.
So I leave you with this question to ponder: when we walk through a landscape shaped by centuries, are we ever truly alone?
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In GHOST ENCOUNTERS, The Lingering Spirits Of North Devon , mother and daughter writers share their personal experiences, dispelling the belief that spirits are to be feared.
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