Dogs have to be my favourite animal, and I love just about all animals. I’ve grown up with various of their kind, and think that mankind could benefit from being much more like it’s best friend. But there are certain dogs, in Britain’s folklore, which aren’t the kind to greet you with a licking tongue and wagging tail when you come home of an evening, or to bring you your slippers and newspapers. I’m talking about big black dogs here, phantom hounds.

Haunting the lonely roads, coasts, moors and churchyards of many counties across our fair isles, these hounds are variously thought of as spectres, omens or even the very devil incarnate: but who will ever know for certain? The explanations are even more various than the names these otherworldly canines go by: Padfoot, Snarleyow, Guytrash, Shriker (from the old English for ‘demon’) or Barguest (from the German ‘spirit of the funeral bier’). Witch hounds, in some places wish hounds, devil dog or Black Shuck are other names you don’t often hear your regular dog walkers calling out. The wonderful Conan Doyle was inspired to write ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ when a friend told him of the local legend over a round at Cromer golf course, in Norfolk.

Myself, I have had one personal experience so far with such a creature, or at least what may have been. Let me tell you about this rather eventful night, and see what you make of it.

I was a mere lad of 18, and spending a holiday in Derbyshire. One evening, the three of us – myself, Rob and John – were loading ourselves up on delightful local beers and the finest of pub cigars, generally having an enjoyable lad's night on the town. Increasingly, the pubs we stopped at were becoming more and more remote, as the eerie landscape of haunted Derbyshire dosed around us.

And so we drove through the dark of night, sending little shivers of delicious terror down one another's spines with our horrific tales of ghostly experiences etc. Until eventually all the pubs were shut and so, naturally, we drove out to legend-soaked Rowter Rocks behind the remote Druid Inn.

It was a fine night - the pitch black sky was lit by endless twinkling stars in the dearest of heavenly displays, and everything was incredibly silent as we made our way up the roughly hewn steps in the hillside. The hilltop is covered in huge rocks, throughout which are numerous strange caves, passages and stairways. In the midst of all this are three strange little seats carved out of the stone by some mad clergyman centuries past, and which apparently have supernatural forces. Such an evocative place later led me to write the story ‘A Room of His Own’, in which a dark kind of magic lures a visitor to become forever trapped in there.

So there we were, the three of us groping round in the darkness, with one tiny batter-powered torch between us which we all huddled round like moths, unwilling to be left behind in the impenetrable darkness. Apart from our frightened whispers the night was totally silent, although perhaps we would have heard the occasional token spooky-night noise, such as unexplained rustlings, owl cries etc....

Whichever one of us had the torch, and it was me who eventually wrestled it from Rob, would lead the way not quite bravely, and the rest of us would stay very close behind, getting even closer whenever we heard the latest token spooky-night noise (wolves howling in Derbyshire? Demonic cackling laughter on a Saturday night? Surely not!). Somehow we managed not to plunge to our deaths from the rocks in the dim torchlight and made it to the very top of the rocks where I was volunteered to lead the descent down a narrow, steep flight of rough steps and into the very innards of the rocks themselves.

I did so, clutching the torch in one fist and plunging ungracefully into the cave, flickering the beam wildly back and forth to ascertain that I wasn't interrupting some subterranean creature's midnight munchies. John and Rob followed close behind, cooing at my bravery (or was it drunken stupidity?). And then we were in the bowels of the rocks - ancient darkness pressed up against us as we shuffled nervously down the narrow winding passageways and I led the way into a chamber which I knew to be off to my left (I'd visited the place a day or two previously, but during the comfort of daylight). This chamber had the disturbing knack of making you think it was endless, until your eyes gradually adjusted and you saw that it was just another cave... but in that minute or two of uncertainty, who knows what nameless terror might lunge at you from the infinite darkness?

I stepped in, and switched off the torch.

Immediately yelps and screams of torture were heard from my two companions.

Immediately, adrenaline coursed through my veins as I prepared myself for action. What was wrong? Had they fallen down some jagged, bottomless pit, or been seized by some undead cave dweller? To it bluntly, no. The big girls were afraid of the dark.

After exploring the cave, the two chaps left me alone in it, but that was fine because what I needed to do right at that moment didn't require an audience. Having blessed the cave with my holy water, we continued on our way out along the rocks, and stopped dead in our tracks just as we were about to enter another cave.

We all saw it - the single red ember of hellfire glowing deep within the stygian blackness. What could it be? The single eye of a fiendish creature crouching in wait for us? Whatever it was, we found no explanation and decided that now might be a good time to leave.

We made our way down the steps, probably hearing strange noises of the night in the undergrowth around us, when suddenly John called "Bloody hell, there's something behind me" and we plunged down those desolate steps at breakneck speed and didn't rest until we were back in the safety of the car.

Whatever it had been John felt or sensed behind him was to remain another mystery. This one venture into the mysterious twilight world of the unknown had left us shaken up. Fearful and trembling with dread of unexplainable things.

"Lets go to Stanton Moor now." somebody said.

Stanton Moor, dear reader, is one of the eeriest places known to man. By day, walkers have turned back and vowed never to return again; indeed no birds ever fly over it and the place seems devoid of any kind of life. The things John and I had experienced during the daytime there (and the things in woods beyond it...) would be enough to cure the most frightful case of constipation, let me tell you. Steeped in legend and rumour, and a favourite haunt for bloodthirsty, baby-killing devil worshippers.

Off we drove in the Mystery Machine.

As we neared it, strange, shapes loomed out of the darkness before us... Parked along the roadside at one edge of the moor was a trail of cars, which at this ungodly hour and venue could man only one thing...

"Shit, dude! Devil worshippers! Put your ****ing foot down!" cried Rob the brave from the back seat.

John did put his foot down, but only so we could go round the corner onto an even darker, creepier and quieter lane and then explore the accursed delights of that most devilish of moors. What brave chaps we were. Having said that, I will not choose to spoil the illusion by telling you that we held hands all the way and crowded round that tiny little torch, jumping ten-foot or more at the slightest of noises.

But the frightening atmosphere of the place was incredible - the torchlight didn't reach too far and beyond it lay the impenetrable blackness of those lonely, silent moors. At the edge of the moor is a huge upright rock, and initially we decided that this was as far as we'd go, and then tremble our way back to the car. We reached the rock and paused for a while. Somewhere we heard a lone hound barking and howling, but strangely thought nothing of it. I think Rob may have even yelled at it to "Shut up dog dude!"

Anyway, we did eventually press on further into the dark loneliness; fearless men that we were, and then decided we'd better make our way back before it was too late. And I don't mean time there! Satisfied that we were indeed men, we held hands and trembled all the way back to the car, clambered in and locked all the doors and windows very securely indeed.

In the car, we'd brought a book explaining some of the true-life mysteries surrounding the Derbyshire countryside, and we decided to read from this about the moor we'd just returned from. Imagine the chill that ran down our spines when we read that the rock on the moor's edge was haunted by the ghost of a huge black hound... For hadn't we heard such a creature at that location just moments earlier?

Suitably chilled and discomforted for the sleepless night ahead we headed back towards the town lights and cheerily began singing a song of our own making which involved honks on the car horn at strategic points during the verse. The verse was cut short however when we turned a corner to find a huge snarling black hound in the headlights, eyes glowing with hungry hellfire.

A car has never moved so fast before - forget the current official owner of the World Land Speed Record, that night it was truly won by three horror writers in a Vuaxhall. (We did recover, enough to yell abuse at the devil worshippers on the way back, though, but we were soon speeding off again, and guaranteed a sleepless night for Rob by promising he would hear scratchings and snarlings at his door).

So there you go - it's all true and you've heard it from someone who was previously a hardened sceptic, though I’ve since had many more weird and wonderful inexplicable adventures. If you think any less then I defy you to follow our example and journey into a few of your own favourite 'dark places' after midnight with only a tiny torch with the batteries running out. Oh, and if you're foolish enough to ever set foot on Stanton Moor, don't forget to take a jumbo pack of beef flavour Bonios.

Dogs are lovely, but you don’t want one of these monsters deciding you’d make a top of the range chewy toy.

This article was previously published in the animal rescue charity anthology 'Dog Tales', 2005.

A slightly different version first appeared in 'Saccade', 1999.