It was a chilling, uncanny few moments as the family watched a modern-day Norfolk town slip away to be replaced by a terrifying scene that felt as if it was from another century.

Standing beside a busy road filled with traffic and in broad daylight, the atmosphere changed in a second, seemingly transporting the trio to somewhere quieter, darker and more dangerous.

The unsettling ‘time slip’ in King’s Lynn was reported anonymously to a website which no longer exists: but it was reposted on Richard Holland’s uncannyuk.wordpress.com.

An account given to the website by someone who preferred not to give his real name read: “I just wanted to report my time slip experience which was experienced by myself, my father and my sister. It happened in the late 1990s in King’s Lynn, Norfolk.

“My dad, sister and I were in the town to send my sister off on the train and we were passing the time standing by a fence near the railway station from which one could see a road and roundabout ahead.

“It was about noon and we had no agenda at that time other than to wait before heading to the station. There was a lull in the conversation.

“We were all casually looking straight ahead when suddenly the atmosphere changed. The sound of the traffic around us stopped abruptly – as if someone had literally turned the volume right down. The air seemed to change, too; it became very still; spookily still and no sound could be heard. None of us spoke.”

The man then describes what he saw.

“Then there came the sound of horse’s hooves on the road and within a few seconds we saw a horse and cart, driven by a large, angry-looking man, dressed in what I estimate to be 18th century clothes.

“He was of very rough, dirty appearance and his cart was well-used. He drove the cart around in a circle, all the time staring around, sometimes directly at us, sometimes away but looking absolutely furious as though he was looking for someone he wanted to kill.

“His face was red with hatred and he was a big, rough-looking man – someone you would definitely not want to cross. Eventually, he turned the horse and cart around and drove it off down the same road from which he had appeared and we could hear the horse’s hooves disappearing into the distance.”

As quickly as it had happened, the family found themselves by the side of a busy road watching traffic speed past them.

“Immediately the sound had gone, the atmosphere changed back again and the sound of modern traffic and the din of a modern town returned again,” the witness wrote.

“We all three looked at each other; shaken and almost disbelieving but once we had asked the inevitable ‘did you see that?’ and received the answer ‘yes’ we were even more shaken. It was such a peculiar experience and one which I shall never forget.

“Was this a time slip? We didn’t notice any other changes; the buildings and road layout seemed the same but that part of King’s Lynn had remained unchanged for many years (although I understand it is quite different now) so I don’t know but it spooked us all for sure!”

There are many stories from across the world of inexplicable time slips where people find themselves in another dimension or what feels like a parallel universe.

Two are from our neighbour, Suffolk: the first happened in October 1957 when three 15-year-olds were taking part in an orienteering exercise on a Sunday morning when they walked into the village of Kersey and, apparently, a completely different period in time.

Another tale is told in Rougham where a stately Georgian home is said to appear and then vanish, leaving no trace: the Rougham Mirage has been spotted since 1860 and up to 2007.

In Norfolk, there have been reports of unsettling time slips at Horning where a family found themselves in an eerie version of the Broadland village that hadn’t been seen for decades.

And then there is the curious case of the Great Yarmouth shop where a man stepped into a smartly-painted shop from a traditionally cobbled road to find himself in a shop from a different time while a few minutes away, a house on the Acle Straight appears and disappears without warning.

That there have been a number of such experiences is a matter of record. But just how can a houses, villages, towns and shops simply flicker in and out of existence at will?

Another ghostly carriage in King's Lynn is recounted in Dr Paul Lee's comprehensive book, The Ghosts of King's Lynn and West Norfolk - at the original St Ann's House, once attached to what is today the Tudor Rose Hotel.

Dr Lee quotes from Personal Recollections: by a Lynn Sexagenarian by Mr J Dyker Thew, published in 1891: "Numerous stories have been circulated with regard to the house being haunted. One of these is to the effect that a gentleman was to be seen driving round in the courtyard at midnight in a coach drawn by four ghostly horses."

Do you have a story for Weird Norfolk? Email stacia.briggs@archant.co.uk