What has turned this sleepy Suffolk town into the Satanic capital of Britain? trends now

Behind the bar of the Green Dragon sits a pentagram.

For dark forces are at work, it seems, in the ancient town of Bungay, a serene spot in sleepy Suffolk.

Encircled by the River Waveney with views over lush meadows and peppered with historic buildings, the market town has just been named the Satanist capital of the UK.

Recently released official figures from the 2021 census show that around one in 120 of the local population answered 'Satanism' when asked about their religion – 100 times the national average.

Local politicians and residents insist they have never seen any sign of nefarious activities and suggest it could be a prank. If so, a lot of people are in on it.

And Green Dragon barman Jake Feasey doesn't seem to be overly worried. 

Around the size of a 50p piece, the pentagram – a symbol associated with paganism, witchcraft and devil worship – might have been a dark charm worn secretly by the punter who left it behind. Its current home, draped around the neck of a small plastic action character on a shelf behind the bar, has made it rather less menacing.

'Bungay might attract these people but they don't come out and say 'I'm a Satanist',' said Mr Feasey, 44.

The town certainly has the spooky credentials for those who choose to embrace Satan.

According to folklore, the devil took the form of a black dog, Black Shuck, which terrorised worshippers at St Mary's Church in the town in August 1577.

The fearsome apparition is said to have burst through the doors of the 12th century church, accompanied by a portentous clap of thunder.

It then ran up the nave, killing a man and a boy and causing the steeple to collapse through the roof, before attacking a congregation at a nearby church.

Spine-chilling verse records: 'All down the church in midst of fire, the hellish monster flew, and passing onward to the quire, he many people slew.'

To this day, this snarling hellhound supposedly haunts dark lanes and footpaths with howling that 'makes the hearer's blood run cold [but] his footfalls make no sound'.

St Mary's, which was last used in the 1970s, also lays claim to a boulder called the Druid's Stone in its graveyard. Some say the Devil can be summoned by dancing 12 times around it.

Bungay Castle, built in 1100 by Roger Bigod whose son Roger was a key player in a period in the mid-12th century called the Anarchy, when civil war raged in England and Normandy. Who knows what atrocities may have been committed by its owners.