Learning no lessons from horror films of yore, Britain has plans for a high-speed rail project that will lay tracks over the ruins of a medieval church. And, apparently, the project has run into some trouble with witches and dark spirits.
According to archaeologists working at Stoke Mandeville, a village that lies in the path of the proposed railway, an early excavation of the site’s 700-year-old church revealed stone beams etched with strange circular patterns known as “witch marks.”
These markings, which look like the spokes of a wheel with a hole drilled into the center, were created to “ward off evil spirits by entrapping them in an endless line or maze,” project officials wrote in a statement.
Michael Court, lead archaeologist at HS2 Ltd (the company behind the rail project) said the unusual markings offer a “fascinating insight into the past” at a site that has long been lost to history.