Brook is one of the New Forest's most picturesque spots. Ponies and tourists stroll around enjoying the surroundings while the local pubs provide a traditional welcome - but the village holds an eerie mystery. . .

The incident goes back almost 80 years ago to the Sunday evening of May 5, 1924 when three Southampton cyclists were heading towards Fordingbridge and were about a mile beyond the Bell Inn at Brook. What they experienced on that night has never been satisfactorily explained.

It was a fine evening and it was still light as the three pedalled their way past the Bell Inn. Just a short distance later they overtook a pedestrian, who they were later to recall, was extremely tall and heading in the same direction as themselves.

Their impressions of his actual height differed, but they all agreed it was abnormal. One put it at seven feet, another said that the man "must have been on stilts'' and the third remembered the man wearing a top-hat and long coat of a Dickensian nature.

None of them noticed his face and, apart from his astonishing height and the curious cut of his clothes, there was nothing remarkable about the Tall Man.

When they had cycled another quarter-of-a-mile, however, suddenly to their great surprise they spotted the Tall Man in front of them again.

The Tall Man was walking steadily ahead as before but they were on bicycles. It was quite impossible for him to have taken a short cut, yet somehow he had overtaken and passed them without their noticing him.

They pedalled swiftly past the Tall Man but this time they all began to experience a distinct sensation of the eerie and uncanny.

A further shock was in store as another three quarters of a mile later the Tall Man was again in front of the cyclists, who by this time were totally unnerved by the experience.

The apparition was never seen again but the story of the Tall Man of Brook is told to this day.