Pembrey Woods
Brief History of the woodlands
Pembrey woods have been occupied since at least 400BC, when the remains of several iron age hill fort being found in the area. The village itself has been built upon many historical sites, with pieces of Roman pottery found in the area and the remains of a motte and bailey style fort found in the centre of the town.
The village of Pembrey has much history attached to it, but as for the woodland its seems to be quite basic, apart from the odd village or tribe living in them throughout history, but they have definitely become a favourite amongst story tellers of the area.
The most popular story attached to the woods would be of the hatchet men of Pembrey. The tale goes that they were a small group of men who lived in the woods, and would hang around the cliffs after dark holding lanterns and swinging them as if to signal ships that the area was safe to land on.
When the ships would come close enough to the cliffs they would be damaged and get stuck on the sharp rocks, which is when the hatchet men would charge at them, stealing everything on board and chopping up the crew with their hatchets.
Today the woods are a fairly small place, being cut back over the years but they are classed as public ground and are of course open all year round for anyone who wish's to visit them.
Are Pembrey Woods Haunted?
Whatever the real history of the woods is, it doesn't seem to change the fact there are a huge amount of claims and stories of strange happenings here. The woods seem to be have a lot more apparitions than most other haunted places, with ghosts of everything from world war 2 soldiers to cavaliers to strange deformed people roaming through the trees.
Pembrey woods also seem to be home to a poltergeist type spirit who likes to grab people, especially round the ankles to make them fall over. This spirit seems to like to move things around when no one is looking, especially to campers who have found their equipment heaped in a pile in the mornings, or their cooking equipment tossed into the woods.
The popular UK TV show "Most Haunted" have done an episode in the woods, and below is a piece from their forums from someone who spent a night in the woods camping with some friends, the piece is displayed unaltered:
"Went camping in them woods with some friends last year,and I must say omg,I have mediumship but not trained,call it a gift,anyway we set up camp in the woods and made a fire,when night fell I had this strange feeling of we wasn't alone there and it was far from suggestive thinking!anyway I could see shadows moving across the trees and so did the rest of my friends,I also sensed a cavalier type man greeting me at the fire,now the funny thing is I told one of my friends this who was with us and she turned around and said omg I just saw the outline of a man standing by a tree looking over and he had the outline of a cavalier type person,she told me this after I had told her,we also saw strange lights in the distance inside the woods from our camp site,also got mouning in my ear not very nice let me tell you and the last thing I would like to add is when one of my friends went walking around the woods at night he said that it felt like some had gripped the bottom of his leg,hence the reason why he went flying to the ground!! all in all a very nice place to visit but also very creepy and you just know there's something there !!!"