Today being the last Monday in the month, it feels strange to not be releasing an episode of Weird in the Wade. It’ll be the first time I’ve missed a monthly episode in 2 and a half years.
The good news is that it’s only 4 weeks until Weird in the Wade returns on Monday 27th October!
As I promised each Monday until then I will share my recommendations of cool things to read, watch, listen to or visit. And today I’m focussing on the home counties.
Bedfordshire is often included in the home counties but it actually doesn’t border London which I believe is the criteria to be a home county. So by my reckoning that makes Essex, Kent, Surrey, Middlesex, Buckinghamshire, and Hertfordshire the homecounties. So I’ve scoured those counties for some recommendations for spookiness.
Eerie Essex
Essex might have been the butt of many jokes over the years, but it’s Essex that is laughing when it comes to hauntings and weirdness. Maybe the most famous haunting in Britain took place in Essex at Borley Recotory. And yes of course it’s trendy for seasoned paranormal investigators to refer to Borley as Boring Rectory; it’s notoriety over satuating ghost hunting narratives for decades now. But this wonderful book The Haunting of Borley Rectory by Sean O’Connor is well worth a read:
It’s packed with social history and delves deeper into the story than anything I’ve come across before.
Essex has so much more to offer than just Borley Rectory, so much more and your one stop shop for all things Eerie in Essex, is of course the wonderful podcast Eerie Essex! Here’s a link to one of the pods latest episodes about fire related folklore and hot hauntedness in Essex. Bethan Briggs Miller and Alisa Clarke, are your eerie besties spilling the spooky tea just for you.
Kent
Obviously I am taking a whistle stop tour of the home counties here, and in all honestly I’m not going to cover Middlesex, sorry Middlesex!
I technically lived in Kent when I lived in South East London, especially so when I lived in Bromley for two years. The people of Bromley are sticklers for including Kent in their addresses.
My recommendation here isn’t so much a ghost story but a historic true crime story, which I unknowingly lived just doors away from the site of on Kingswood Road. I loved Scotland Yard Confidential, it’s a podcast from Noiser and if you like historical true crime then I recommend it whole heartedly. Sadly they’re no longer making it but there are plenty of episodes to catch up on.
But Kent as the garden of England is full of fabulous folklore and creepy tales. Along the coasts it’s smugglers and inland we have marsh and downs haunted by lonely spectres. You can peruse a whole wealth of Kent hauntings here on the paranormal database:
https://www.paranormaldatabase.com/kent/kentdata.php
And I personally can recommend Folkestone as a seaside town to explore. I hope to cover an epiosde on Folkstone next year.
Surrey
Now I have a personal connection to Surrey as well, it’s where my Dad is from, and I spent many holidays in the Surrey Hills at my Granny’s house. I do want to bring you some Surrey stories in the future. I also lived in Surrey, when I lived in Wimbledon for three years.
This article covers quite a few Surrey hauntings including ones from South West London
https://www.essentialsurrey.co.uk/most-haunted-spots-sw-london-surrey/#page=1
Buckinghamshire
I have a very special Buckinghamshire recommendation. And it’s not from the leafy Bucks that I grew up in, until I was seven. No it’s from Milton Keynes.
The wonderful Steph Lay is collating a ghost story / sighting for every square in the grid layout of Milton Keynes check out her work here:
As well as the ghost stories she’s collected from residents and visitors to the city, there is also a page of links to podcasts Steph has guested on, to talk about her project. Steph will be a guest on Weird in the Wade in the future!
Hertfordshire
Last but not least the county of Hertfordshire and Weird in the Wade has visited the county twice, and here are links to those episodes.
Blind George of Anstey
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0kphhzs
And The Secrets of Royston Cave
Weird In The Wade 
I’ve just finished reading Sean O’Connor’s book about Borley and agree totally with you – it’s a great history of the case and if you only read one book about the case, this is the one. I can also recommend The Haunted South by Joan Forman and Kent Ghosts by Peter Underwood for home counties haunting reading. Joan Forman looks at the truth behind the legends and actually visits the places she writes about – she reminds me a bit of you, Nat!
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also have read the Borley book… will certainly follow up in links you have shared!
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