Maps of the Lost
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mapsofthelost.com
Maps of the Lost
@mapsofthelost.com
470 followers 330 following 170 posts
The maps to the lost places and the secret histories. Be cautious: if you follow them, you may become lost yourself.

stories/Substack/podcast. Substack probably the place to start.

https://linktr.ee/mapsofthelost
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Reposted by Maps of the Lost
julie-phillips.com
When I wrote this a year ago I had no idea how bad things would get. Today, eight years after she left us, I'm trying to follow Ursula's advice: write and worry. Write and act. Worry and keep writing.

lithub.com/the-way-of-w...
The Way of Water: On the Quiet Power of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Activism
In the past two months, I’ve found myself thinking back to an essay Ursula K. Le Guin posted on her blog in November 2016. It was one of her last long essays, and she wrote it at a time when she—li…
lithub.com
January 22, 2026 at 5:48 PM
Reposted by Maps of the Lost
alexdavis1981.bsky.social
Three weeks to go until we present a packed line-up of ghost story goodness, all happening online so you can join us from the comfort of your own home! And some line-up we have incoming too... www.ticketsource.co.uk/ukghoststory... #onlineevent #onlineevents #onlinefestival #onlinefestivals
January 17, 2026 at 3:30 PM
mapsofthelost.com
A footpath best left alone, directions to places that don’t exist, gifts from birds who know too much, a man with far too many names, books that aren’t ghosts but haunt you anyway, a ghost story festival, and why you never want to meet Ash Francis.
mapsofthelost.substack.com/p/maps-of-th...
Maps of the Lost 30
...from the path to the deep dark woods
mapsofthelost.substack.com
January 24, 2026 at 10:06 AM
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alexdavis1981.bsky.social
Spooky season will be going into overtime in 2026, with the UK GHOST STORY FESTIVAL ONLINE running from the weekend of 6th-8th February! Let us bring the hauntings to you for the weekend... www.ticketsource.co.uk/ukghoststory... #ghosts #ghoststory #ghoststories #hauntings #gothic #gothicfiction
January 12, 2026 at 7:30 PM
Reposted by Maps of the Lost
peteglastonbury.bsky.social
Avebury Cove stones from a frosty tree.
#StandingStoneSunday
Avebury Cove stones from a frosty tree. #StandingStoneSunday
January 11, 2026 at 2:03 AM
Reposted by Maps of the Lost
juliansimpson.bsky.social
Dressing Up Dogs: https://www.cartoongravity.com/dressing-up-dogs/
Dressing Up Dogs
January 11, 2026 at 10:12 AM
mapsofthelost.com
Very much looking forward to going to this at the end of February.

www.ukghoststoryfestival.co.uk
Home
2026 DATES NOW CONFIRMED! 6th-8th February 2026, Online via Google Meet Pick up your tickets here 27th February-1st March, In-person at QUAD, Derby Pick up your tickets here
www.ukghoststoryfestival.co.uk
January 11, 2026 at 11:36 AM
Reposted by Maps of the Lost
hiddenbritain.bsky.social
'SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES' CLOCK

Huge thanks for all of yesterday's orders for our new 'Schools and Colleges' clock. Last few available in the shop for shipping in February.

hiddenbritain.bigcartel.com/product/scho...
January 10, 2026 at 12:03 PM
Reposted by Maps of the Lost
captainpooky.bsky.social
Timeline Cleanse: Please enjoy this photo of a praying mantis that was sitting on top of my car windshield, but the angling and lighting were so weird it looks like a giant praying mantis wandering a corn field in Iowa.
What appears to be a giant praying mantis wandering a corn field is actually a normal sized praying mantis that's actually sitting on my windshield
January 10, 2026 at 1:03 AM
mapsofthelost.com
Excavations at the Roman fort at Reculver found a number of skeletons of babies within the foundations and the walls. Local legend has it that the fort is haunted by the sounds of a crying baby. If you visit on the right night, you might hear it.

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January 2, 2026 at 3:24 PM
mapsofthelost.com
December 28, 2025 at 9:55 AM
mapsofthelost.com
The last Maps of the Lost newsletter of the year is out. Clouds showing you the way, evil on the 8:14, the edge of the map in a cul-de-sac, two great podcasts, getting more lost than lost can be, avoidance of the Christmas Bone Man and more.

mapsofthelost.substack.com/p/maps-of-th...
Maps of the Lost 29
from a quiet suburban cul-de-sac
mapsofthelost.substack.com
December 23, 2025 at 9:43 AM
mapsofthelost.com
TIME TO GO You might be enjoying a quiet Sunday afternoon, when there’s a knock at your door. Perhaps you’re reading a book, baking, or catching up on your latest streaming favourite, and you sigh and go to the door. You can’t remember having ordered anything for delivery, so you open the door bracing yourself to say no thank you to someone selling something. But it isn’t anyone selling anything, it’s you. You stand there, dumbfounded, and look at yourself standing on the step smiling. “I’m sorry,” the you outside says. “Despite all the memories you think you have of your life, you have only been in existence for a week while I had to be away in another place, very far away.” You stare, lost for words. The other you places a gentle, warm hand on your arm, and in a kind, sad voice says, “It’s time to go now.” As everything starts to fade you will feel distress, but it won’t last long, and anyway, you’re not really you, are you?
December 14, 2025 at 5:44 PM
mapsofthelost.com
THE COURTYARD If you’re walking past a huddle of grey tower blocks in East London, you might see a very narrow alley, just wide enough for one person to walk down. You won’t know this, but it doesn’t appear on the council plans for the estate, or on Google Maps. If you’re curious, and take the alley you seem to walk much further than the length of the tower blocks, but it eventually opens up into a small courtyard wet with rain. A woman is opening a bright red umbrella, a man has stopped and is checking his watch as if he’s not sure it is working, and a small boy is dropping his astronaut toy onto the ground, picking it up, and dropping it again. A few paces along the alley leading out of the courtyard and you’ll find yourself back outside the tower blocks, the sky getting dark as if it’s about to rain. Another day, another time, you won’t find the alley again, no matter how hard you look. Someone else may do though, and they’ll eventually find themselves in a small courtyard wet with rain. A woman will be opening a bright red umbrella, a man stopped and checking his watch as if he’s not sure it is working , and a small boy is dropping his astronaut toy onto the ground, picking it up, and dropping it again, over and over.
December 12, 2025 at 5:44 PM
mapsofthelost.com
A small library in a small town somewhere on the east coast of England extends its collection by offering a wide selection of audiobooks online. If you meander through the menus on their website, you may come across a folder simply titled 4791Q. The naming hardly sells the contents as a must-read: most people don’t find the folder, and most who do never bother to click into it.⁣ ⁣ Those that do though, will see a single audio file, simply named Empty Chapter. There’s no author, no bibliographical information. It plays directly from the library’s site. If you listen, you’ll hear a rather dull narrator describing a room in a flat and unhurried voice. Most people click away at that point.⁣ ⁣ If you don’t, sooner or later you will realise that the room the narrator is describing is the one in which you sit. The moment you do, the narration dissolves into a fierce burst of static, playback ends. When you look back at the library site, there is just a folder marked 4791Q with nothing in it.⁣ ⁣ Sadly for you though, that’s not the end of the matter.
November 23, 2025 at 5:22 PM
mapsofthelost.com
When it’s yet another record-breakingly dry summer, and the grass is yellowed and feeble, an aerial photo of a particular hill in Wiltshire will reveal the faint outline of a very old carving in the chalk underneath. It’s an awkward depiction of a strangely elongated horse with an brutish, oversized head. If you talk to any of the farmers who work the land near the hill, especially after a few drinks, they might tell you of how none of their horses, and none of their cattle, will ever stand facing that hill.
November 18, 2025 at 7:58 PM
mapsofthelost.com
Pay attention if wandering around Richmond. You might see a woman, in her early thirties. She wears a raincoat no matter what the weather, and has a frizz of blonde hair as if it has been raised by static.

(🧵1/2)
November 7, 2025 at 7:36 PM
mapsofthelost.com
There’s a country path in County Durham that was where a railway line serving the pits once ran. Now it’s tarmacked and used by cyclists and dog-walkers. On a quarter-mile stretch of the path, the trees close in around it, and almost meet to obscure the sky above. A few times a year that stretch is shrouded in a low fog that hangs between the trees like it is trying to smother the space below. On those days, the cyclists and walkers emerge at the end a little confused, as if they can’t remember what they’ve been doing. Sometimes, once they are back home, they will find something unfamiliar in their coat pocket, or bag: a key, a coin weathered long past legibility, an old child’s toy, or a train ticket to a destination they don’t recognise.
November 1, 2025 at 3:09 PM
mapsofthelost.com
New Maps newsletter out now.⁣
⁣
Why audio tape's buried under standing stones, thoughts on disappearances, a little man with a whistle, wrap yourself up in the Discomfort Blanket, the Ooser’s holiday, and red twine hung and an innocent woman hanged.⁣

mapsofthelost.substack.com/p/maps-of-th...
Maps of the Lost 28
From up on the hill and under the stone
mapsofthelost.substack.com
October 24, 2025 at 6:04 PM
mapsofthelost.com
Somewhere in Cumbria there is a disused railway platform that served a line that no longer runs. It appears on a few maps, but probably none that you would have access to. You can only reach it by following fox tracks through the morning mist, and if you arrive there at the right time you might see a train that passes without stopping. It only has one passenger, and he will turn to watch you as the train goes by. You'll not quite make out his face, but that's probably for the best.
October 18, 2025 at 10:39 AM
mapsofthelost.com
Walk down a Manchester street in the late evening, and you might pass a closed down shop between another selling phone cards on the one side, and a scruffy travel agent on the other. There’s a flat above it, lit up, the sounds of a party coming from open windows, and the door to the street is ajar. It sounds as if everyone is having a grand time, and you may be tempted to go in, and to climb the stairs to the party.⁣ ⁣ Don’t.⁣ ⁣ A few days later you may be glad of this advice, when your work happens to take you down that same street, and there it is, between a shop selling phone card on one side, and a scruffy travel agent on the other, just a gap like a mouth with a tooth missing where a building once was, old foundations overgrown with weeds.
October 13, 2025 at 7:20 PM
mapsofthelost.com
If you ever are in town - and who is in town these days - you may notice a vape shop which hardly had any customers inside it at the best of times. You might wonder how they pay the rent, and speculate about whether it’s a front, for drugs or money laundering. You’re right, but only partly. It is indeed a front, but the two bored looking staff who look out from behind the counter are no criminals, they are people who have been raised from infancy to a life’s work of spotting and destroying the things that you might walk past unknowing, because they look just like people in town, wandering the streets. There is a war going on, and you do not know it. Only seventeen people are alive who do.
October 12, 2025 at 2:06 PM
mapsofthelost.com
If the weather is right and you are one of a particular group of people who don’t know that they are one of a particular group of people, you might be tuning an analogue radio and find a particular broadcast. Most will miss it, but you might dial past, hesitate, move the dial back a little because maybe you did hear something faint. And so you did. It sounds like sighing at first, or the waves, and maybe you move the dial on or maybe you leave it where it is because it’s soothing, like white noise. After a while though, you turn up the volume and you listen intently, your ear close to the speaker. What you are hearing is a chorus of voices whispering, coming and going, overlapping. Much to your frustration, you can’t quite make it out. If you ask anyone else, they’ll listen, close their eyes as if it helps them listen better, and and then they’ll shake their head and tell you that there’s nothing there. When you next turn on the radio, it’s gone, and you cannot find it again. The whispers stay in your mind, like a face you can’t quite put a name to, or something you once knew well but have forgotten apart from knowing that it exists. It annoys and frustrates you, and everyone around you thinks you are in a bad mood for days. Sometimes though, you wake from a dream and you know - as strongly as you have ever known anything in your life - that in your dream you heard it, you understood what the whispering was saying. But as soon as you wake, it’s gone, just out of reach no matter how hard you try, like holding out your hand and trying to catch the fog between your fingers.
September 26, 2025 at 5:27 PM
mapsofthelost.com
A woman in Skelmersdale has seen a vision of the end of the world. She cannot tell when it will happen, but her vision of how it will happen is the truth.
September 20, 2025 at 9:57 AM
mapsofthelost.com
At the top of a hill in the Lake District, is a trig point marking the highest part of the hill. It’s an unexceptional part of the Lakeland Fells, with no real challenge in the ascent and one of the least impressive views. You may well find yourself the only person up there. But if the wind is coming from the north-east, and the day is one of the two equinoxes, then pause at the top. After a while, you will hear voices coming on the wind, and those voices will tell you secrets that mean that the person who goes down the hill will not be the person who went up it. What they tell you is a hard burden to bear, but you will be able to make a difference to the future course of the world, before in time you are gone and your voice will join the chorus on those particular days, on that particular hill, when the wind is from the north-east.
September 15, 2025 at 5:01 PM