Steph Lay

@stephlay.bsky.social

452 Followers 515 Following

Folk horror, real ghost stories & parapsychology. I'm mapping Milton Keynes’ unlikely hauntings in my 'Revenants on the Redway' project, and I look after Content & Analytics for Into The Fog. Links! https://linktr.ee/stephlay

An AI generated (ChatGPT) image of the light pyramid in Milton Keynes, imagined for a folklore and storytelling festival. Text reads: Milton Keynes Midsummer Festival - June 21st 5pm - Mapping A City Of Secrets
A shot of the stage and audience at the BBC radio theatre for the recording of the Uncanny Halloween special, October 29th 2025
A screenshot of an article in Haunted Magazine all about Milton Keynes. The link to order is hauntedmag.com
A cover image for a story called "Bless The Light" by Steph Lay. The picture shows a snowy village in a valley, all the houses blazing with candlelight, except for a dark cottage in the foreground, only one window lit.
A dramatic nighttime photograph of The Rose memorial in Milton Keynes, with the city skyline in the background. Four lines of text read: Milton Keynes City of Secrets I've found dark stories for a quarter of the grid Help me find the rest!
View of The Point in Milton Keynes as seen from the shopping centre car park. It's abandoned, derelict and sprayed with graffiti.
An AI generated image of a shadow figure standing at the foot of the bed in an 80s bedroom. The image *should* show hands grasping at the sheets, but the AI has created these as elongated things that look more like feet.
A photograph of a pile of rough concrete blocks piled up into a tower about two feet high. It’s sitting on a verge at the side of a main road, with a roundabout visible in the background.
A promotional image for a story called “What Lies Drowned May Rise” by Stephanie Lay. This is an AI generated image produced using Midjourney v7. It shows a dystopian vision of the light pyramid in Campbell Park in Milton Keynes on fire, surrounded by flood water, with a figure in a hazmat suit in the foreground. An ominous tentacle is rising from the waters.
A promotional image for the Milton Keynes City of Secrets project, showing a night-time shot of the MK Rose, the Hotel La Tour and theatre in the background. The text below reads "A Ghost Story In Every Grid Square".
A photograph of a park bench covered in graffiti. In the middle of all the random tags is the phrase “YOU ARE LOVED”
A photograph of a stack of postcard-sized flyers lying on a flattered envelope. The image shows a picture of the MK Rose at night, with the text “Milton Keynes City of Secrets: a ghost in every grid square?”
A picture of a derelict farm, with tumbledown buildings in the background. A security fence has been pushed aside, leaving a tempting gap!
A screenshot of a notification from the JetPack app that says "10K' surrounded by confetti. Underneath is the text "Congratulations! Your site, City of Secrets, passed 10,000 all-time views." and a button that says "Take a deep dive"
A photo of graffiti under a bridge. The centre of the image shows a weird creature in black and white paint. It could be a bear, but its eyes aren't in the right place and it had disturbingly large teeth.
A picture of graffiti under a bridge in Milton Keynes. It shows a stylised heron against a blue and green stylised background. The tag above reads 'Arkade'.
An image of a table lamp in the shape of a spooky hare with a forbidding expression. It's sitting on top of a copy of Barrowbeck by Andrew Michael Hurley
A long shot showing two derelict barns against a bright blue spring sky. The barns are part of the abandoned and now partly demolished farm at Shenley Dens, locally known as Devil's Den farm.
A picture of the donut and coffee van at Willen Lake in Milton Keynes. The only customer is a large swan who looks pretty hungry ;)
A screenshot of the Milton Keynes Literary Festival's shortlist for the 'Home' competition, spring 2025. The text reads: "Creative Non-Fiction 20+ SHORTLISTED And where do you... ? - Guy Russell Following the Long Thread Home - Steph Lay Home Vlog - Ralph Keats Moving On (Ode to my Lair, Ode to my Lion) - G D Carrion The Fire - Jerard Bretts The Fire She Left Behind - Ondia Morris"
A screenshot of statistics for referrers to my blog - 51 views in total, 36 from Facebook, 6 from BlueSky, 5 from search engines, 5 from Twitter and 1 from mumsnet.
A colour photograph of St Mary's Church, Clophill on an overcast February day. The church looks dark and gloomy, with bare winter trees all around. This is an animated GIF, and in the bottom left of the image there's an occasional bright white flash - I have no idea what it is. The picture was taken when only three people were there and none were close to that part of the site.
A picture of a small white church with a black roof set up on a hill. The church is surrounded by a mossy grassed churchyard with crosses and headstones. In the background, you can just see the sea - the waves are quite fierce!
An error screen for the BBC iPlayer that says this content can only be played in the UK.
The image shows a screenshot from an Instagram story posted by the societyofinkslingers. The text reads "Into the second half of our day and now looking at some specifics of the uncanny: Dr Stephanie Lay is sharing her research into the uncanny valley and how humans perceive faces." Below the text is a screenshot of a Zoom event, with my Powerpoint slide titled 'Faces both Familiar and Strange: Walk with me through the uncanny valley' on the left, and a still from the video of me in my study on the right. I look very pleased with myself!
Screenshot of a Tweet from December 17th 2020 6:57pm - it reads: "David Szymanski @DUSKdev One of the most frightening things I've ever heard is when someone pointed out that the existence of the uncanny valley implies that at some point there was an evolutionary reason to be afraid of something that looked human but wasn't."
A picture of a bottle of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab’s “Wolf Moon” perfume standing on a bookshelf. Text on the label reads “Wolf Moon - a little lunacy - 2004”
A long-exposure picture of the weir at the Teardrops Lake
A picture of a derelict building with shattered windows. In the middle of the image, a row of cobwebs have formed in one window and they are thickly coated in frost.
A picture of bright yellow 'FIRE DO NOT CROSS' tape caught in a thorny bush, covered in a very thick layer of frost.
A long exposure picture of a lake with a rather ghostly looking swan. The photo has been filtered to appear particularly cold and blue.
An image of a table lamp with the base in the shape of a metal hare.
An screenshot image of an advert for a product sold by Temu - a Zen garden consisting of a tray of blood-red sand with different tools for creating contours in the sand, along with “spooky” ornaments to stand in the garden e.g gravestones, skulls, skeletal tree.
The picture shows a tortoiseshell cat sitting in the middle of a green pine-tree style Christmas garland, lit with fairy lights.
An image of a modern house on a foggy residential street called "Hubble Drive". You can see the street sign, the road and the house, but the image is blurred and made indistinct with streaks of what look like white light.
Several red and yellow roses from a bouquet lying scattered in long grass.
A stack of books resting on a leather sofa. The titles are The Shocking Horror Colouring Book, Hauntology by Merlin Coverley, Barrowbeck by Andrew Michael Hurley and The Haunting of Borley Rectory by Sean O’Connor. Happy Christmas!
A bar chart with the title "One year - 28 writing courses! 37 whole days of events!". The chart shows the number of days spent on writing courses along with the number of courses I've done. The full stats are: Course Days spent Number of courses Alex Davis Events 15 10 Arvon 7 4 MK Lit Fest 4 1 Comma Press 3 1 Nottingham Writer's Studio 2 2 Romancing the Gothic 1 3 Smokelong Quarterly 1 1 Retreat West 1 1 Writers Online 1 1 London Lit Lab 1 1 Fractured Lit 1 1 ProWritingAid 1 2 Grand Total 38 28
A black and white photograph showing a silhouette of a dark church against a stormy-looking sky, with dark trees in the background.
A view of the smashed and graffiti'd windows of a derelict building. In the middle, looking through to a wall at the back, you can just make out what looks like a blackboard with the words reading (possibly) "I know you won't read this but you're special" . The words are very indistinct.
The picture shows the chapel at Bradwell Abbey, Milton Keynes, on a rainy winter day. The chapel is a small stone building with a heavy door and stained glass window. It sits in an open grassed area, and there's a rough stone wall visible on the left-hand side. Bare winter trees can be seen in the background, and the sky is grey and cloudy.
A snow-covered branch with red berries and green leaves
The Milton Keynes Rose memorial at night, reflecting the lights of the city.