The Creepiest Cursed Locations Around The World You've Probably Never Heard Of

Kinneil Kirk is a 12th-century church with a long and sinister history of curses and death. While part of the building burned to the ground in 1745, the west gable was left intact, and that portion of the church remains in Bo'ness, Scotland.

Even further back than the fire, a minister of the church named Reverend William Wishart supposedly ended his time at Kinneil Kirk and moved to another Presbyterian house of worship. Wishart was at Kinneil Kirk from 1649 until his exodus, with a majority of his congregation believing that the word of God was higher than that of Parliament. This led to the banishment of Wishart and over 400 other ministers from their churches and homes. 

Wishart gave a final sermon at Kinniel Kirk and, with his hand on the Bible, supposedly stated that the first person attempting to tear down the church would not pass from natural causes. Legend says that the first man who attempted to tear the church down was killed by a falling piece of stonework.

The curse lives on today - the church was vandalized in 2015, prompting townspeople to invoke the curse to punish the criminals.

Nestled in the Italian countryside is the town of Colobraro, or, as locals refer to it, That Town. That Town has a reputation in the Basilicata region of Southern Italy that dates back to its christening - the “coluber” root of its name is Latin for “snake.” 

Supposedly, in the 20th century, a successful lawyer Biagio Virgilio exclaimed in the courtroom that if he was lying, the chandelier would crash to the ground - which it did. The lawyer who never lost was connected with bad omens for the rest of his career, and the town's legend grew.

Townspeople began suspecting that witches lived among them, which brought an anthropologist seeking deliverance from an evil-eye curse to That Town in the 1950s. Supposedly he sought La Cattre, an old woman living in the town who people believed was a sorceress. Furthermore, the anthropologist claimed a lot of bad luck plagued him and his team while in That Town. Other investigators coming into That Town were overcome with bad luck as well, according to town lore.

All of this along with the landslides, strange accidents, and supposed witch gatherings in the town cements its reputation for ill omens. Strangely, the townspeople believe the poor luck is only for visitors. Locals were even able to commodify their town with the summer festival Night Dream. Residents dress as witches and other supernatural beings and tell stories to willing visitors urged to come prepared with amulets to ward off evil.

This castle sits in the Southern region of France, high atop a hill with beautiful views of neighboring mountains; however, the castle's outer beauty and its location hide the dark past that earned it the nickname “The Devil's Synagogue.”

Cathars, an early offshoot of Christianity, built Château de Montségur as a hub for their community and a stronghold against the Catholic church that labeled them heretics and spent 20 years attempting to exterminate the group. Catholics saw the castle as a mocking reminder of their failure and went after the group again in 1241. May 1242 brought retribution when some members of the Cathars killed two Inquisition members, effectively reigniting their war with the Catholic Church.

A nine-month siege on the castle failed to starve out the enemy of the Catholic Church, so the army of 10,000 built a catapult and ended their fight with the Cathars in 1244. Over 200 Cathars of every gender and age burned on the castle grounds for their refusal to denounce their beliefs and return to the Church. The invading army then smashed up the castle, and the building at the location today is actually a different stronghold built by the French.

Stories persist about Cathars supposedly escaping the attack and burnings with a secret treasure now hidden in the countryside. Others think the Cathars cursed the ground of the castle so the Catholics could never use it. Some have claimed the daughter of the castle's Lord haunts the grounds in a long, white, flowing dress.

Located in Scotland, the University of St. Andrews is a place of higher learning - and the location where an abbot at the church was burned to death for heresy. Patrick Hamilton used his influence to push reformist views taught by Martin Luther and bring them to Scotland. The church, of course, considered this viewpoint heretical, and Hamilton's archbishop, James Beaton, ordered the abbot be burned at the stake.

Supposedly, the “PH” initials set in the university's stonework mark the spot where Hamilton suffered and perished. Located in a very busy foot-traffic area of the campus, students nonetheless know to avoid stepping on the deceased abbot's initials. Legend says that during his six-hour death, Hamilton issued a curse to anyone stepping on the place where he died. Luckily, any student accidentally stepping on the “PH” can offset that curse and right their luck by taking a swim in St. Andrews Bay.

At the meeting place of Sixth Street and Park Avenue in Louisville, KY, sits an old, gnarled tree locals call The Witches' Tree. According to legend, this location had a different tree used by witch covens in the 19th century to serve as a spot for their ceremonies and rituals. Everything was fine until a planning committee decided the tree had to go before their annual May Day celebration.

This allegedly angered the witches so much that they cursed the town. Eleven months later, a storm slammed the town and lightning struck the remnants of the old witches' tree. Somehow, a new tree began growing from the felled stump, but it grew wrong.

The new tree is lumpy, gnarled, and sprouts hairlike branches all over its trunk. Townspeople, spurred by legend or art, began leaving tributes and tokens on the tree to gain the favor of the witches who cursed it so long ago.

The Earl of Mar owned Alloa Tower in Scotland, and the castle - along with the Earl's title - moved through the Erskine family's generations for centuries. Then, in the 16th century, the Earl of Mar destroyed an Abbey at Cambuskenneth and supposedly received a generational curse from one of its abbots. 

According to the curse, the Erskine family would lose all of its property holdings to strangers before the entire lineage went extinct. Additionally, one Erskine male would see his wife burned alive as his home went up in flames and would have three children who never “saw the light of day.”

The abbot also foretold Alloa Tower's fate as a stable and stated a weaver would work in the grand chamber of the household. The curse would allegedly come to an end only after an ash tree appeared and began to grow atop Alloa Tower. The curse didn't begin during the guilty Earl's time, but it got a running start in 1715: The Earl of Mar attempted a failed rebellion to install a new king and subsequently had all of the Erskine family's land and the title of Earl stripped from their future progeny.

John Francis Erskine was unlucky enough to bear the brunt of the curse: Three of his children were born blind, never to see the light of day; his wife also died in a fire in the mansion built near Alloa Tower in 1800, fulfilling that portion of the curse. Cavalry in the area later used Alloa Tower's remnants as a stable for their horses, and, in 1820, an ash tree was supposedly found growing atop the tower.