Maps of the Lost
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mapsofthelost.com
Maps of the Lost
@mapsofthelost.com
470 followers 330 following 180 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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mapsofthelost.com
Ashes There's a grey-looking man who moves around South London, never settling in one place too long. He's thin, with intense eyes. He's grey-looking not just because his hair is grey, or because his clothes began that colour, or faded to it, but because he looks as if a fine layer of ash has settled on his skin. He does have a name, but he's forgotten it. He's nearly six hundred years old, and as long as he keeps feeding will live at least another six hundred more. You might read that and think him a vampire. Maybe he is, of sorts. But he has no interest in blood. The grey-looking man stands at the back of funerals where everyone thinks someone else has invited him, and he will stop and stand nearby if he passes someone being evicted from their house. He sits over a tea in bookies while men around him lose the money they had promised their wife would pay the rent, and he finds a seat in the public gallery of the court at murder trials, as near the family as he can. He browses food-banks without ever taking anything, and he'll wait in a hospice car park, pretending to be on his phone. He will spend evenings waiting to the side of bridges that are notorious for suicides, and he lingers outside coroners' courts, and in the back pew at memorial services. He'll stand by shop doorways where homeless people freeze and despair, and he'll wander that far section of the graveyard that is covered with teddy bears and bright plastic windmills, holding some flowers, drifting close to those sobbing as if their heart breaks again with every breath. He feeds and he feeds and he feeds, and he will never, ever go hungry.
February 4, 2026 at 5:54 PM
mapsofthelost.com
Tonight’s watch. No, never blow a whi- oh. Too late.

Decent adaptation of Elizabeth Jane Howard‘s excellent “Three Miles Up”.
February 1, 2026 at 9:22 PM
mapsofthelost.com
There's a young dentist, new to practice, working in Rochester. Once every so often, when he is working with patients having a routine check-up, he thinks that he can see a tiny symbol, so faint that it almost might not be there, etched into the molar on the left-hand side, so delicate and tiny it does not compromise the tooth in any way. He's thought about raising it with the senior dentists in the practice but he doesn't because it is so faint that he is not sure whether he might be imagining it, and doesn't want to look ridiculous or prejudice his career. He also doesn't raise it because every time he thinks about doing so he feels cold, as if he has just stepped into ice water, and he has a night of dreams which he can't remember in any detail beyond that they are furious and terrifying. He is also trying very hard to stop running his tongue over his left-hand rear molar.
February 1, 2026 at 10:20 AM
mapsofthelost.com
Reading and watching over the last week, and up next for this weekend, The Turn Of The Screw/The Innocents, The Haunting Of Hill House/The Haunting.

Up next for tomorrow, The Uninvited.

Got to say though, Henry James, end a sentence once in a while, PLEASE. Shirley Jackson’s prose though 😘
January 31, 2026 at 4:56 PM
Reposted by Maps of the Lost
alexdavis1981.bsky.social
Not long to go now - the UK GHOST STORY FESTIVAL ONLINE starts on Friday 6th Feb, with three days of talks, interviews, workshops and more! www.ticketsource.co.uk/ukghoststory... #ghost #ghosts #ghoststories #ghoststory #writing #writers #authors #darkfiction #supernaturalfiction
January 31, 2026 at 3:01 PM
mapsofthelost.com
Next time you’re in a public Zoom meeting with many participants, keep an eye out. It might be a social gathering, a talk or lecture, an educational event or a seminar. Look out in the list of participants for a man named Michael Kilgolfen. He’s easy to spot, with his bright red hair and engaging grin, nodding away as if everything that anyone says is insightful and wise. He won’t ever speak, but there he is. If you’ll see him a second or third time, you’ll wonder if you have mutual friends, how it’s funny you don’t know each other as you have such intersecting interests.⁣ ⁣ You might message him, but you won’t get a reply.⁣ ⁣ If you ever find yourself logging in to two Zoom meetings at once, or three, or four, is that you may see Michael Kilgolfen in all of them, smiling and nodding away. No big deal, you think, after all I’m in more than one meeting at a time, so…⁣ ⁣ Then you realise that the Michael Kilgolfen you see in each of these meetings is nodding and smiling at different times, and one of them scratches his head for a moment, and the others do not, and as you realise this all of the Michael Kilgolfens stop smiling and look very intently into their cameras, as if staring at one person.⁣ ⁣ Which indeed they are.
January 31, 2026 at 4:33 PM
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
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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.

(🧵1/2)
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