The Screaming Woods (Dering Woods)

Between Pluckley and Smarden, in the Ashford district of Kent, Dering Woods form part of a rural landscape whose history extends well beyond their reputation as the Screaming Woods. Pluckley was recorded in the Domesday survey of 1086, and the surrounding countryside retains its agricultural character. The woods belong to this older landscape of settlements, fields and wooded ground: a place without a single founding moment or architectural centre, where paths and trees provide the setting for successive layers of local tradition. The Dering name connects the woodland’s identity with a family prominent in Pluckley’s history. Their presence remains particularly visible at the Church of St Nicholas, where the Dering Chapel was built in 1475. Sir Edward Dering, the seventeenth-century antiquary and baronet, lived at nearby Surrenden Manor and is buried locally. These associations place the woods within a landscape shaped by landed families and their estates, although the chapel and manor are separate sites rather than structures within the woodland itself. Today, Dering Woods are known both as a place for woodland walking and as a destination for people drawn to Pluckley’s supernatural reputation. The village has long attracted ghost hunters, and its numerous legends have received considerable attention through paranormal television. The woods occupy a distinctive position within that wider tradition. Unlike the stories attached to particular houses or church monuments, their haunting is spread across an outdoor setting, with encounters described along paths, between trees and in stretches of woodland where an unseen sound can seem difficult to locate. The name Screaming Woods comes from accounts of cries heard among the trees, especially after dark. In the lore, these are the voices of people who became lost in the woodland and never escaped. Other versions attribute the cries to particular violent deaths. The recurring feature is a human-sounding disturbance without a visible speaker: a scream carrying through the darkness, or voices apparently rising from somewhere beyond the path. The stories turn the ordinary act of losing one’s bearings into something more enduring, with the dead imagined as still searching for a way out. A highwayman is among the best-known figures associated with these sounds. Some tellings name him as Robert du Bois and place his death in the eighteenth century. The circumstances vary: in one account he is discovered hiding in a tree and killed with a sword; in another he is dragged into the woods and lynched. A further version describes villagers fastening him to a tree before beheading him. These are alternative forms of the legend, rather than a single consistent account. His suffering is said to survive in the screams heard within the woodland, with a tree serving as the central setting of his death. Another tradition concerns an army colonel who is said to have taken his own life by hanging in the woods during the eighteenth century. His apparition is described as remaining suspended from a tree, repeating the appearance of his death. A ghostly soldier is also said to wander the woodland paths, although the stories do not always distinguish this figure clearly from the colonel. Together, these accounts give the haunting both a fixed focus among the trees and a moving presence encountered by those travelling through them. Not every reported encounter involves a recognisable figure. Visitors have described dark shapes appearing to follow them through the woodland, while footsteps and whispers are particularly associated with foggy conditions. These accounts emphasise the impression of company without a visible companion: movement nearby, a voice among the trees, or a shadow maintaining its distance. The reported activity is generally attached to the woodland and its paths rather than to one consistently identified clearing or landmark. The enduring character of Dering Woods’ lore lies in this combination of sound, obscured movement and tragic figures. Its named ghosts provide individual stories, while the anonymous lost supply a broader explanation for the cries. Within Pluckley’s wider haunted landscape, the woods remain the setting where voices are said to travel beyond their speakers and footsteps continue without anyone coming into view.