Selfies

One of Britain’s most magnificent haunts is about to be possessed by ghosts, ghouls, foul creatures and the undead. The stately home and grounds of Blenheim Palace, a Unesco World Heritage Site, are usually bywords for elegance and beauty. But an unholy horde is taking over Sir Winston Churchill’s birthplace from Thursday until November 1, for a sixth year.

They come armed with 134 gravestones, 24 coffins, 118 spiders, 100 crows, 72 skeletons, and the chilling intent of scaring the living day-lights out of people.

Some 10,000 thrillseekers are expected at the 18th century home to the Dukes of Marlborough at Woodstock, Oxfordshire for Halloween at Blenheim. Each, if they dare, will walk the near mile-long, after-dark trail with spooky lighting, sounds, and live-scare actors.

One of them is Esther McCormick, 28, who will be dressed as a pumpkin-headed scarecrow. She says: “In previous years I’ve been a weird Stranger Things-like monster with one long tentacle, another a haunted highwayman, and another a fortune-teller, reading people’s palms by the side of the road.”

Everyone is welcome, she says, from ages 0 – 99. “We tone down the jump scares for the little ones who come while it’s still light, then dial up the fear factor when the night sets in. It’s a lot of fun, people do jump out of their skin.”

Frights will come in all shapes and sizes and tap into many phobias. A gigantic spider puppet will emerge from a 20m-long web tunnel, there will be a ghostly pirate’s wreck, Dracula’s lair, vampire hunters, and a set of spine-chilling catacombs.

Simon Smalley, senior content producer at Culture Creative, says: “We have interactive neon coffins for visitors to take selfies in. There’s a sentence I never thought I’d say! It’s gorgeously ghoulish and fantastic fun. And don’t miss the monster disco, a high-energy finale featuring mirror balls and lights for the whole family to dance under.”

Planning for the trail, which took 15 people 10 days to build and has 500 lighting fixtures, took a year. Simon says: “It’s about how we can make things bigger, better, louder, scarier. Next year the spider might be 50ft tall.”

Rebecca Jenkins, 52, runs Rusticus which provided the seven actors and puppeteers for the event. She said: “There’s such an appetite for Halloween. You might assume that summer sees the biggest crowds, but it’s actually October half-term where we are the busiest.

“People want to be fully immersed. So we’re finding more and more that the whole family might come dressed up. They’re the star of their own Halloween – not just watching from afar.” A recent survey shows 36% of shoppers plan to celebrate this year, up from 27% in 2025.

*Halloween at Blenheim Palace, £19 adults, £13 a child. visit tickets.blenheimpalace.com

This picturesque town attracts thousands of visitors every autumn for its stunning foliage — but residents are fighting back against a surge of influencers with calls to restore peace and safety to their quiet community

Autumn is one of the most beautiful times of year, as trees turn from green to a stunning red, brown, orange, and gold. Getting out to see the seasonal colours is one of the most enjoyable things to do at this time of year – as long as you wrap up warm – and you can get some incredible pictures and video for social media while you’re at it.

But people living in one town which has become world-famous for its spectacular autumn displays have become so fed up of people flocking to their quiet community that they’re putting measures in place to ban influencers entirely. Pomfret in Vermont, in the north-eastern United States, is a peaceful, tranquil community, home of only slightly more than 900 people.

But in recent years it has become a hive of activity every autumn as crowds of people attracted by beautiful pictures of the autumn colours – known to some as ‘leaf-peepers’ – come by to see for themselves. And this has become a real problem for some residents.

‘Rude’ social media influencers

Some have said they have experienced visitors being rude, disrespectful, or downright selfish in their pursuit of the perfect snap or video, with little regard for those around them. According to news.com.au, local farmer Cathy Emmons said she and her husband Bill had witnessed one visitor wander onto private property and set up a portable changing booth, before emerging in different outfits for her selfies.

She has also witnessed tourists brazenly wandering onto her farm and stealing her tomatoes, while another resident described a drone hovering just a few feet above his head as he dined outdoors with his family. In a separate incident, a visitor parked unlawfully in a local’s driveway and used her garden shed as a toilet.

Problems on the roads

The picturesque Sleepy Hollow Farm on Cloudland Road is one of the most popular locations. But the road is not equipped to deal with the amount of traffic it is experiencing, and concerns have been expressed about visitors blocking lanes as they pull over to take photos.

Various measures have been introduced in an attempt to tackle the problem – but with limited success. In 2023, local officials shut the road to non-residents during the peak foliage season, from the middle of September to the middle of October, reports the Express.

The measure has been repeated in subsequent years, and will once again be enforced from Saturday, September 26, to Tuesday, October 13 this year. In a notice confirming the plans, issued in August, the Town of Pomfret Selectboard acknowledged the measures “cannot fully address the significant issues created by fall foliage traffic”.

It went on to say: “We also appreciate these steps may inconvenience area residents, their guests and others. Nonetheless, we believe these actions will significantly improve safety and quality of life for residents most severely affected by increased foliage season traffic, as they did the last several years.”

Fundraiser for road closure

Last year locals established a fundraising page called ‘Save Cloudland Road’, designed to raise sufficient funds to cover road closures and traffic enforcement to tackle the flood of visitors. A message on the page reads: “Over the past several years, Cloudland Road (and the small roads leading to Cloudland Road) have experienced an unprecedented surge in Instagram and TikTok-fueled tourist ‘influencers’.

“During fall foliage season, crowds commonly surge to hundreds of people at one time, and tour bus companies have even joined the fracas. Cloudland and surrounding roads can become impassable during the fall, and poorly behaved tourists have damaged roads, had accidents, required towing out of ditches, trampled gardens, parked in driveways, and verbally assaulted residents.”

The page pleads with people in the community to band together to raise enough money – estimated to be more than $12,000, or around £9,000 – to pay for signs and sheriff deputies to man temporary closures. It says the measures are needed “to bring peace, safety, and civility back to the families who live here”.

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