Members of the CFZ outside of Myrtle Cottage. Photo via
In the idyllic English countryside of northern Devon, on Back Street in the little town of Woolsery (nee Woolfardisworthy, population 1,123), sits Myrtle Cottage. For much of its existence, the cottage served as the family home of British Colonial Service Officer J.T. Downes, and was a place of utter normalcy. Now the home belongs to Downes’ son, Jonathan, and since 2005 it has become a rendezvous for people from all over the world to meet and discuss the presence of predatory wildcats on the English moors; proposed expeditions in search of draconic serpents in the swamps of South Sudan; and the validity of a recent spate of anecdotes about Papua New Guinean villagers building stockades to guard against murderous, 30-foot lizards raiding them from the depths of uncharted forests.
Woolsery is now the headquarters for Jonathan Downes’ Center for Fortean Zoology, which operates its museum, library, filmmaking studio, and small on-site publishing house from the cottage. But despite its studious veneer, Fortean Zoology, is not an established and/or respected academic discipline. It’s Downes’s new moniker for cryptozoology, the search for undiscovered and mythical beasts. More colloquially, it’s the world of monster hunters—a world of sincere, often-bumbling believers, but also of hoaxers and profiteers who’ve sullied the title.
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