There are some places where you can laugh off the ghost stories.
You can stand there in daylight, phone in hand, telling yourself that old legends grow bigger with every retelling. You can make jokes. You can act brave. You can even convince yourself that the strange little ghost-hunting apps used by YouTubers are little more than theatrical nonsense wrapped in static and robotic voices.
That was roughly my attitude when I visited Potsford Gibbet. Shortly after starting Lowestoft Wire I decided to visit Potsford Wood, just west of Wickham Market to the village’s haunted gibbet.
For those unfamiliar with the story, Potsford Gibbet is linked to Jonah Snell, the axe-wielding maniac who attacked a father and son before hogtying their bodies to a beam in Letheringham water mill. He was reputedly the last man in Suffolk to be “hung in chains” after his execution in 1699. The idea alone is grim enough. A body displayed in a gibbet cage, left as a warning to others, hanging in the open air in a remote place.
The gibbet's location is not a polished tourist attraction. It is not some neatly packaged ghost walk with a guide, a gift shop and a comforting cup of tea at the end. It is remote woodland. Quiet. Dark. The sort of place where the mind starts filling in gaps long before anything actually happens.
And before anyone gets ideas, safety comes first. I made sure people knew where I was. I had a phone. I was not taking silly risks. Remote places and spooky stories require common sense. But common sense has a habit of thinning out when you are standing alone somewhere with a history like that.
I had one of those ghost apps you often see paranormal YouTubers using. You know the type. It throws out words, noises, odd little responses and half-formed phrases in a robotic voice. Sometimes it sounds dramatic. Sometimes it sounds ridiculous. Most of the time, if you are being honest, it feels like a toy designed to make your imagination run wild.
At first, that is exactly how it felt.
I turned it on and started getting the usual strange responses. Robotic. Half male. Half mechanical. The sort of voice that makes everything sound sinister even when it is probably just spitting out random nonsense.
After a while, I started to relax.
Then I got a bit cocky.
That is always where these stories go wrong. It was getting dark, and whatever part of your brain is responsible for fear seems to be perfectly happy to wait until you have said something stupid before it goes into overdrive.
I remember making a sarcastic comment about leaving. Something along the lines of, “Well, if that’s all you’ve got, I might as well go.”
I was not scared at that point.
In fact, I was probably more smug than I should have been.
Then the voice changed. “Stupid Boy”
What came through the app was not the same robotic half-male voice I had been hearing. It was female.
Clearer.
Stronger.
Sharper.
And it said:
“Stupid boy.”
Now, I’ll be honest, fear really was not my first reaction. I was offended.
There I was, alone in a remote wood, trying to act like a serious adult, doing a serious investigation and this ghost app - or whatever it was - had just insulted me like a Victorian schoolteacher.
So, still feeling brave and slightly wounded, I answered back. Not politely.
I rolled my eyes, half laughing, and said, “Yeah? And why am I stupid?”
There are moments in life where, immediately after speaking, you realise you may have just made a poor decision.
This was one of them. The same female voice came back.
No hesitation.
No crackle.
No nonsense.
Just two words.
“You’re alone.”
The Bravery Left Immediately
That was the point where the fun ended.
It is one thing to laugh at a strange app when it is throwing out vague words and spooky noises. It is another thing entirely when a voice appears to respond directly to you, in a different tone, with exactly the sort of answer you did not want to hear.
The hairs on my arms stood up.
Then the hairs on my neck.
Then, somehow, every hair I owned seemed to join in.
Suddenly I could hear movement near the gibbet.
All the clever scepticism vanished. All the sarcasm went with it. The brave version of me packed its bags and left the building.
Or, more accurately, left the woods.
I found myself doing what many people probably do when their confidence and bravado collide with something ancient and unpleasant.
I apologised. Quite sincerely.
I may also have recited the Lord’s Prayer.
Not in a calm, dignified way. More in the rapid, slightly panicked style of a man who had suddenly decided that perhaps mocking the unseen in a remote place linked to a gibbet was not his finest idea.
Then I made a hasty exit.
A very hasty exit.
A Glitch, a Coincidence, or a Warning?
Now, there are sensible explanations.
Of course there are.
Ghost apps can generate random words. They can be designed to sound eerie. Human beings are excellent at spotting patterns, especially in dark places with grim histories. The brain can turn coincidence into meaning very quickly when fear is involved.
Maybe the app simply produced two phrases that happened to fit the moment.
Maybe I gave it too much weight because of where I was.
Maybe the female voice was nothing more than audio variation, programming, or chance.
That is the rational explanation. And in daylight, sitting comfortably with a cup of tea, it is probably the explanation I prefer.
But standing there, alone, near a place connected to one of Suffolk’s darkest punishments, hearing a voice tell me exactly why I was stupid?
That did not feel like entertainment.
It felt personal.
Whether you believe in ghosts or not, places like Potsford Gibbet have a power of their own.
They remind us that history is not just something in books. It happened in fields, on tracks, in woods, at crossroads, and in lonely places where people still walk today.
The story of Jonah Snell and the gibbet is grim because it belongs to a period when punishment was not only about death, but also about control of people and villages, before the internet and media really existed. Most people couldn't read, but a gibbet with a body swinging in the wind was a warning: "step out of line, and this is what happens". The landscape itself became part of state control and the sentence.
Perhaps that is why such places linger in the imagination.
Perhaps we bring the fear with us.
Or perhaps some places remember.
Would I Go Back?
In daylight? Possibly.
At night? No.
Definitely not alone, next time I'll drop the sarcastic attitude and I will not be bringing a ghost app.
Because even if the whole thing was coincidence, it was a powerful one. Powerful enough to turn me into a jellyfish in the space of two words.
There are many things you might expect to hear in a dark wood with a grim history.
A branch cracking.
An owl calling.
The wind moving through the trees.
But a woman’s voice calling you a stupid boy, then reminding you that you are alone?
Nope. Not for me.
So if you ever visit somewhere like Potsford Gibbet, take care. Tell someone where you are going. Respect the place. Don’t trespass. Don’t go alone if you can avoid it.
And above all, if something unseen calls you stupid…
Maybe don’t ask it to explain why.