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A creepy village in the south of England, a stone circle and a black hole make for some creepy happenings.

Simon and Eugene discuss the Children of the Stones.

Synopsis: 

Professor Adam Brake and his son Matthew arrive in the small village of Milbury to conduct a 3 month research project .  Milbury is built inside a neolithic stone circle and Adam has come to conduct measurements on the magnetic properties of the stones and the general area.  

As they learn about their new home, they discover that things are stranger than they could imagine.  Most, but not all of the people are the village are “happy” and seem a  bit-trancelike.  Their children, in school, demonstrate prodigious mathematical skills.  Only the recent arrivals in the village seem normal.

Matt and Adam make friends with Sandra and Margaret.  Margaret is the recently-arrived museum curator and Sandra is her daughter.

At the head of it all is the village leader, Mr. Hendricks, a famous astronomer and discoverer of the Hendricks Super-Nova.  He seems to have a sinister agenda.

Strange events begin to pile up.  The stones can impart electro-psychic shocks to Adam and Matt.  Matt begins to be able to get psychic visions, and perform psychometry, the ability to remote sense activities while touching an object associated with the target.

A year before their arrival, Matt found and bought a painting that appears to depict Milbury’s stone circle during some form of supernatural event – a beam of light emitting skywards from the center of the circle while people stand, in awe, circling the light.  In the distance a man and a boy run away from the light.  The picture appears to be a key to an event that has happened before and might be happening again.

Each day it seems more and more of the normal people show up transformed into the Happy Ones.  One day day, Dr. Lyle – the semi-retired local doctor has to leave town to visit an old patient.  Matt inadvertently psychically reads the events from Dr. Lyle’s gloves.  As he attempts to leave town something stops him.  The next day, he and his son have joined the Happy Ones, leaving only Adam, Matt, Margaret and Sandra.

The transformation seems to coincide with a dinner invitation from Mr. Hendricks, who has an extensive computer system and atomic clock in the disused church which he and his butler Mr. Link uses for precise astronomical calculations of his super-nova.

When Margaret and Sandra are next and turn up the next day as Happy Ones, Adam and Matt decide to abandon his research and leave.  They are stopped at the edge of the circle and find themselves trapped in Hendrick’s house, awaiting their fateful dinner appointment time with the next conjunction with the super-nova.

With some clever use of an oscilloscope, they manage to throw off the timing of the event and leave, pretending to be Happy Ones.  Unaware that the timing is off, Hendricks is caught in the beam instead and chaos ensues.  The villagers are transformed into the stones as Adam and Matt escape to sanctuary.

The next day, the village has been “reset” – the villagers are normal, then know Adam and Matt, but they are no longer Happy Ones and seem to have no recollection of any of the events.  Adam and Matt still decide to high-tail it out of town.  As they leave,  a new person arrives, Sir Joshua Lytton, looking very much like a young Mr. Hendricks.  He is greeted at the manor house by a young-looking Mr. Link.  Not only is the village in a circle of stone, it is in a circle of time, too.

https://fusionpatrol.com/2019/08/19/433-children-of-the-stones/

#childrenOfTheStones #podcast

Produced as a children’s TV series back in the 1970s, Children of the Stones has stood the test of time as one of the spookiest television programmes ever made. And now you can watch it on YouTube!

Find out more about it in my latest blog post: https://grammaticus.blog/2025/02/19/children-of-the-stones/

#television #Retro #1970s #childrenofthestones #folk #horror

Retro TV tip: Children of the Stones

Produced as a children’s TV series back in the 1970s, Children of the Stones has stood the test of time as one of the spookiest television programmes ever made! 

grammaticus

Retro TV tip: Children of the Stones

Produced as a children’s TV series back in the 1970s, Children of the Stones has stood the test of time as one of the spookiest television programmes ever made! 

The series is set in the fictional English village of Milbury (based on and filmed in Avebury, Wiltshire). Adam Brake, an astrophysicist, and his teenage son Matthew move to the idyllic rural setting where Adam is supposed to conduct some scientific research. However, right from the beginning, they realise there is something very wrong about the place: the locals act strangely, almost as if they’ve been brainwashed. As the story progresses, there are various scary events going on, all somehow connected with Hendrick, a local leader, and the mysterious megalithic stone circle – Milbury’s most prominent feature.

The series has only seven 25-minute episodes, each filled with elements of sci-fi, English folklore, and supernatural mystery, aided by the eerie chants and music composed by Sidney Sager. It’s definitely not your typical children’s show! Half a century since it was first broadcast, it still feels very original and wonderfully creepy.

In spite of its enduring popularity and the cult status, it was shown on British television only twice, in 1977 and 1978, but it was made available on VHS in the 1980s with additional DVD releases in the early 2000s. Thankfully, nowadays you can also find the entire series on YouTube, at least for the time being.

If you’re a fan of classic TV, especially with a touch of folk horror and the supernatural, you’ll probably love Children of the Stones! In which case, you can also read the book first published in 1977 or listen to the 10-episode radio drama series available on the BBC Sounds platform.

NOTES

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#Avebury #ChildrenOfTheStones #England #folkHorror #retro #retroTelevision #retrophile #scienceFiction #television

Before you continue to YouTube

Watching Children of the Stones. Made in 1976 when "children's" programmes were allowed complex plots and proper acting.
And weren't afraid to scare the shit out of the audience 😀
#ChildrenOfTheStones #NoOneLeavesTheCircle #HappyDay #Avebury
Visited #Avebury Stone Circle where they filmed that creepy programme #ChildrenOfTheStones - who remembers that ? 🪨 👻

I'm going through my DVD collection at the moment. I've watched as many episodes of Sledge Hammer! as I can for now (the main character makes me think of a stereotypical Trump supporter!), and just started on Children of the Stones, a 1970s children's TV series

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sledge_Hammer!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_the_Stones

#TV #ChildrensTV #SledgeHammer #ChildrenOfTheStones #HTV

Sledgehammer (disambiguation) - Wikipedia

“We don’t believe in hauntology, though we’ll surf that tide if it ever laps towards us. You never run out of men who loved #SapphireAndSteel & #ChildrenOfTheStones & #TheWickerMan & old Spotter guides and Usborne books about Devils. We should know & we are sincere even in our cynicism.”
@antje I don’t think so, It’s part of the large stone circle around the village of Avebury. A long time ago a spooky childrens program was filmed there! #ChildrenOfTheStones

@KydiaMusic There was an eerie 1976 children's #TV series called #ChildrenoftheStones, set in Avebury. Happy day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwT0wLnT7Rc

Children of the Stones - full series

YouTube

HAAAPPYY SOLSTICE, WILDLY SEXY PAGANS!

And what a great excuse to post this barminess again:

https://youtu.be/SwT0wLnT7Rc

This remains as fucking spooky as #QuatermassAndThePit with nary a generated pixel in sight.

#ChildrenOfTheStones #Horror #70sKidsTV #Blakes7

Children of the Stones - full series

YouTube