Epping Forest, located in the county of Essex, England, is lush with stories grounded in fact and fantasy. One such story is engraved in local folklore and has fuelled many a spooky bedtime story – the legend of Hangman’s Hill. The story takes place along a certain stretch of road in Epping forest that the locals refer to as ‘Gravity Hill’. According to this chilling legend, many years ago, three men were accused of a crime they did not commit. Despite their pleas of innocence, they were sentenced to death by hanging. The execution site? A tree standing tall on the crest of a hill now known as Hangman’s Hill.The hangings were brutal, ill-received by the populace. Stories tell that while one man was hanged correctly, the other two victims were dispatched in a bodged execution resulting in slow, painful deaths. It was said the two men were left to slowly choke to death, swinging in the air at the end of the noose while their executioner looked on, unaffected. This horrific event ingrained their suffering into the energy of the hill, cursing it.The curse, they say, manifests itself in an eerie phenomenon. If one parks their car at the base of the incline and puts it into neutral, instead of naturally rolling downhill, the car will begin to roll uphill, as if being pulled. Many say this is the spirit of the hanged men seeking revenge, their restless souls affecting gravity on the hill.Despite scientific explanations of this phenomenon attributing it to an optical illusion, the story of Hangman’s Hill and its eerie legend lives on, the chilling whisper of ghostly happenings echoing around the forest’s verdant cover. Even today, many out on a weekend drive, stop by to test if the eerie event will repeat itself, keeping the folklore alive.