In 1992, vocalist Martin Wilson, keyboard player Louis David, and guitarist Julian Hunt were in a band called Shadowland. When bass player Sean Speer, and drummer Mark Robotham joined, they realized there was another band using the Shadowland name. Not wanting to run into this problem again, they chose to name themselves after an obscure 1978 movie, starring Charlton Heston, and a pre-Superman Christopher Reeve. Thus GREY LADY DOWN was born.

Egdon Heath is a fictitious area of Thomas Hardy’s Wessex inhabited sparsely by the people who cut the furze (gorse) that grows there. The entire action of Hardy’s novel The Return of the Native takes place on Egdon Heath, and it also features in The Mayor of Casterbridge and the short story The Withered Arm (1888). The area is rife with witchcraft and superstition.