Haunted Britain and Ireland
Page 2
The Boat Inn is linked to another tragedy in Blisworth Tunnel. Following a fire in the tunnel at the end of the nineteenth century, bodies were carried to the Boat and laid in the tap room.
Trips through the tunnel are available, starting from the Boat Inn, Bridge Road, Stoke Bruerne, Towcester, Northamptonshire NN12 7SB; Tel: (01604) 862428; Website: www.boatinn.co.uk
The Caxton Gibbet
The Caxton Gibbet stands on a small knoll a mile and a half from the village of Caxton, Cambridgeshire, on what was once common land near a crossroads. Here criminals were gibbeted – imprisoned in an iron cage hanging from a gibbet until they died from starvation or exposure. Their head would be clamped at the top and their body left to putrefy for several months as a warning to others.
The gibbet at Caxton today is a replica which was probably built using the timbers of a nearby cottage. The original gibbet was blown down during a gale.
Nearby there is a Chinese restaurant, formerly an inn called the Caxton Gibbet which catered for people who came to view the gibbeting. It was also the place where the bodies were laid out after they had been cut down.
The story runs that in the eighteenth century the landlord of the inn – or possibly his son – decided to rob three wealthy travellers who were staying there. After the men had spent the night drinking and had reeled off to bed, he went into their room and started to go through their belongings. One man woke up and, in a panic, the landlord killed him. Then, to prevent the others from discovering the murder, he had to kill them too. He threw the bodies down the pub’s well. Nevertheless, the travellers were missed and the landlord eventually convicted of the murder. He was hung from the gibbet within sight of his own pub.
Today the room in which the murder took place is said to be colder than the rest of the building. Footsteps have been heard walking from that room down to the foot of the stairs, which is the site of the old well.
The Caxton Gibbet is situated near the junction of the A14 and the A45, on the road from Cambridge to St Neots.
Yim Wah House Chinese Restaurant and Bar, Caxton Gibbet, Caxton, Cambridge CB3 8PE; Tel: (01954) 718330; Website: www.yimwahhouse.com
Open seven days a week. Offers a menu from all regions of the Far East.
Dunwich Heath
Dunwich Heath is a lowland heath on the very edge of the fast-eroding Suffolk coast. Classified as a Regionally Important Geological and Geomorphological Site (RIGS), it is one of Suffolk’s most important and scenic conservation areas.
In medieval times this lonely and windswept shoreline was a busy and prosperous area. Dunwich village was a large port, similar in size to London, and the capital of East Anglia. Its thriving trade in woollen goods brought wealth, and the town had many churches, two monasteries, a bishop’s palace and even a mint. All that remains today, however, is the ruins of a few cottages, a Franciscan priory and a leper hospital. Over the years, erosion of the unstable sand and flint cliffs, together with a series of violent storms, brought the village crashing down into the sea. By 1677 the sea had reached the market-place, and All Saints’ Church, the final church left standing, collapsed into the sea around 1920.
With the village, according to legend, went one of the three holy crowns buried around the coastline to protect England from foreign invasion shortly after the Norman Conquest. Another of the crowns was dug up at Rendlesham, then melted down for its silver content. The third has yet to be found.
The desolate atmosphere of Dunwich Heath has inspired many ghost stories, including those of M. R. James, who grew up near Bury St Edmunds and spent holidays at Aldeburgh, just down the coast from Dunwich. He used Dunwich as the setting for one of his most famous stories, ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’, published in 1904.
The ruins of the village themselves have a sinister reputation. Malformed figures have been seen flitting through the former leper hospital, strange lights have been seen in the old priory and it is said that the former inhabitants of the village return from the sea to walk on the clifftops. Below the waters, the sunken ruins are also believed to be haunted, and are shunned by divers. On quiet days it is said that the church bells can still be heard ringing out from beneath the sea…
Dunwich Heath, Dunwich, Suffolk IP17 3DJ; Tel: (01728) 648501; Website: www.nationaltrust.org.uk
Dunwich Museum, St James’s Street, Dunwich, Saxmundham, Suffolk IP17 3EA; Tel: (01728) 648796. Open from the beginning of March to the end of October. The museum chronicles the history of Dunwich from Roman times.
Felbrigg Hall
Felbrigg Hall is one of the best-preserved seventeenth-century houses in East Anglia. Built by Robert Lyminge on the sites of a medieval property dating back to 1400, it was the home of the Windham family for over 200 years and contains many fine examples of eighteenth-century furniture and paintings. The traditional walled garden features a working eighteenth-century dovecote and the national collection of colchicums (naked ladies), which flower in September. The park is renowned for its aged trees, especially around 200 beeches. A ‘Victory V’ formation of 200,000 trees planted to mark VE Day can be seen from the air. There are 500 acres of woodland in total, and many waymarked woodland and lakeside walks.
The Gothic library of the hall is said to be haunted by the ghost of the second William Windham, a member of Pitt the Younger’s Cabinet who inherited the estate in 1749 and began to compile the library. He was a passionate book-collector, but his love of books led to his death. In 1810, while in London, he tried to rescue a friend’s books from a burning house, but fell over and injured his hip. An operation was required, but surgery was still relatively primitive at that time and it resulted in his death. However, he still returns to his old library from time to time. It is said that when his collection of Samuel Johnson’s books are set out on the table, he will come back and browse through them.
Felbrigg, Norfolk NR11 8PR; Tel: (01263) 837444; Fax: (01263) 837032; Email: felbrigg@nationaltrust.org.uk; Website: www.nationaltrust.org.uk
The house and gardens are open daily, apart from Thursdays and Fridays, from 19 March to 30 October.
Felbrigg village is two miles south-west of Cromer on the B1436.
Hamilton Stud Lane and Newmarket Racecourse
Hamilton Stud Lane in Newmarket is haunted by the ghost of the famous jockey Fred Archer, who rode his first flat race as a 12-year-old in 1869. He won his first classic, the 2,000 Guineas, at the age of 17, and became champion jockey the same year. He went on to become champion jockey for 13 consecutive years, from 1874 to 1886, and to win 21 classics. But success had a price. At 5 ft 10 in., he was very tall for a jockey, and only very strict dieting and a disgustingly strong purgative, known as Archer’s mixture, kept him down to his racing weight of 8 st. Then misfortune struck: in 1884 his wife Nelly died in childbirth. Archer was desolate. Two years later he was 1lb overweight and lost the Cambridgeshire by a head. The effects of dieting and grief brought on a fever. Delirious, he shot himself on 8 November 1886. He was just 29 years old.
Soon after his death a local woman reported seeing Fred Archer riding down Hamilton Stud Lane towards her and her daughter and then disappearing into thin air. Since then, others have seen his ghost riding along at the same spot. It is also said that the ghost of Fred Archer haunts Newmarket Racecourse, the scene of some of his greatest triumphs. At a certain spot on the course, horses have swerved, stopped or fallen and their jockeys have reported seeing a strange white shape hanging in the air.
Newmarket Racecourse, Westfield House, The Links, Newmarket, Suffolk CB8 0TG; Tel: (01638) 663482
DEREK’S TIP
Remain open-minded. Sometimes people can be too logical and if the full manifestation of a spirit person were to come up and shake them by the hand, they still would not believe in the existence of a world beyond.
Happisburgh
The village of Happisburgh (pronounced ‘Hazebro’) lies on the Norfolk coast. It has a beach, sand dunes and two distinctive landmarks: a t
all church tower and a red and white striped lighthouse, built in 1791. It also has a unique ghost: the Pump Hill Ghost, otherwise known as the Happisburgh Torso.
One night in 1765, three smugglers at Cart Gap, Happisburgh, fell out over the division of their spoils. A fight broke out and shots were heard. The following day large pools of blood were found on the beach, but there was no body to be found.
A few months later two local farmers saw a strange figure in the vicinity of Whimpwell Street. Dressed in sailor’s clothes and clutching a rough brown sack to its chest, it seemed to be walking but had no legs, and its head was dangling down its back attached only by a few thin strips of flesh. When it reached the village well it started to climb in, then suddenly disappeared.
The apparition was seen several times and the village council finally decided to investigate the well. A man was lowered into it and found a sack containing a pair of legs.
After this the well was drained and a larger sack was found. Inside was a rotting torso in sailor’s clothes. Hanging from its neck, by some decomposing strips of flesh, was a skull.
Each time the well has been disturbed the Happisburgh Torso has walked. It has been seen several times moving from the shore towards the coast road with its head bouncing down its back.
Happisburgh has another ghost – he is an eighteenth-century coastguard who walks along the front, laughing.
DEREK’S TIP
A thermometer is a must for any serious ghost hunter as it will then be possible to detect subtle fluctuations in the temperature of a room.
The Lantern Man at Thurlton
Marsh gas, or the will o’ the wisp, is common in the flat lands of East Anglia and has been personified as the Lantern Man. He is said to lure people to their deaths by drawing them to his light and then drowning them in thick mud and water.
At Thurlton, a village to the south of the river Yare, a gravestone to the north of All Saints’ church tells of the death of wherryman Joseph Bexfield at the hands of the Lantern Man in the nineteenth century. He would take his wherry up and down the Yare between Norwich and Great Yarmouth and would often tie up for the night at Thurlton Staithe, halfway between the two, and stay at the White Horse Inn. On 11 August 1809 he was at the inn when he remembered he had left a parcel for his wife on the wherry. It was pitch dark and another of the wherrymen warned him that the Lantern Man would be out and about, but he said he knew the marsh too well to be led astray by any Jack O’Lantern. Days later his corpse was washed up between Reedham and Breydon. People say that on misty nights his ghost wanders the marshes still.
The Battle of Naseby Battlefield
The Battle of Naseby, fought in the open fields between the villages of Naseby, Sibbertoft and Clipston in Northamptonshire, was the decisive battle of the English Civil War. It started at about 9 o’clock in the morning on 14 June 1645 and lasted about 3 hours. The Royalist army numbered about 12,000 men, the Parliamentarians 15,000. The Royalists were routed and only about 4,000 escaped the field, most of whom were either cavalry or senior officers.
On the anniversary of the battle, two ghostly reenactments take place: a convoy of grim-faced soldiers has been seen pushing carts down an old drovers’ road and the entire battle has been seen taking place in the sky above the site, complete with the sounds of men screaming and cannon firing. For the first century or so after the battle villagers would come out and sit on the nearby hills to watch it.
Grid Reference: SP684799 (468490, 279990); OS Landranger map:141; OS Explorer map: 223. The battlefield is easily accessible via minor roads, though there are few rights of way.
The Norfolk Broads
The shallow waters of the Norfolk Broads are the result of medieval digging for peat. Nowadays they are a popular venue for boating and fishing. Reed-fringed Oulton Broad in Suffolk, the southern gateway to the Broads, is one of the finest yachting lakes in Britain.
Hickling Broad
Hickling is the largest of the Broads. It is a very popular spot for sailing and for fishing from boats, especially for rudd, tench and bream. The three Hickling villages – Hickling village, Hickling Green and Hickling Heath – lie to the north of the broad.
One winter during the Napoleonic Wars a poor drummer boy from Hickling home on furlough fell in love with the daughter of a rich man in Potter Heigham. Her father disapproved of the match, so the lovers met secretly in a small hut at Swim Coots in the marsh on the Heigham side of Hickling Broad. Each night the drummer boy would skate out across the frozen broad, beating on his kettledrum to let his lover know he was coming. Then one night the drum fell silent – the boy had fallen through the ice and drowned. Since then, however, he has often been seen on February evenings, skating along and beating his drum.
Ranworth Broad
Ranworth Broad is haunted by the ghost of Brother Pacificus, who was a monk at the nearby St Benet’s Abbey, a Benedictine monastery built in 816. In the 1530s he was restoring the rood-screen in Ranworth church and would row across from the abbey every day with his dog. One summer’s evening when he arrived back at the abbey he found that it had been pillaged by Henry VIII’s troopers and that many of the monks were dead. For many years afterwards he lived as a hermit in the abbey ruins. He is buried in Ranworth churchyard, but occasionally at dawn a monk in a black habit can still be seen rowing across the broad in a small boat with a dog sitting in the bow.
The ruins of the abbey are also haunted by a monk. At the time of the Norman Conquest, he betrayed his brethren and handed the abbey over to William the Conqueror’s soldiers in exchange for the promise that he would be made abbot. He was indeed made abbot – and then nailed to the bell tower door and skinned alive by the Normans. Every 25 May he can be seen hanging there and it is said that his screaming can still be heard at other times. Very little remains of the abbey today, but it can be visited either by river or by walking across the fields from Ludham. It lies close to the confluence of the Ant and the Bure and the remains of a windmill can be seen in the ruins of the gatehouse.
According to legend, the marshes near Ranworth Broad also see the reappearance of the Devil himself. In the eighteenth century the Old Hall, Ranworth, was the home of Colonel Thomas Sidley. He was a huntsman notorious for his hard drinking and debauchery. On New Year’s Eve 1770, at the biggest meet of the season, he challenged a neighbour to a race. Unfortunately he fell behind and it was soon obvious that he was going to lose. Undeterred, he calmly shot his opponent’s horse. The rider fell and broke his neck.
Later that night the colonel was celebrating his win over dinner at the Old Hall when he was interrupted by the arrival of a stranger, who threw him across his saddle and rode off into the stormy night. He was never seen again and it was claimed that it was the Devil himself who had carried him away. Every New Year’s Eve it is said that he can be seen riding across the marshes with the colonel still slung across his saddle. The Old Hall has since been demolished.
The Old Ferry Boat Inn
The Old Ferry Boat Inn at Holywell, on the River Ouse, is one of the oldest in England, having originally been built in Anglo-Saxon times. The ‘holy’ well in the village is said to have provided Boadicea with fresh drinking water and is supposed to cure blindness.
The Old Ferry Boat is haunted by the ghost of Juliet Tewsley, who was born in the eleventh century. She fell in love with a local woodcutter, Tom Zoul, who did return her love but preferred to play ninepins with the other village lads than spend time with her. Juliet became more and more miserable as a result and one day, while Tom was drinking with his friends, she hanged herself from a willow tree beside the river. As a suicide she was not allowed to be buried in consecrated ground, so instead she was buried at a crossroads near the river with a stake through her heart and a slab of grey stone over her grave.
When the Old Ferry Boat was rebuilt, the new building was constructed on top of the grave and the stone slab became part of the flooring of the new pub. Since that time Juliet has often been seen rising from
her grave and floating towards the river on 17 March, the anniversary of her death, which is known locally as Juliet’s Eve. Mysterious music has been heard coming from the bar on that date, but it can only be heard by women.
The Old Ferry Boat Inn, Back Lane, Holywell, St Ives, Cambridgeshire PE27 4TG; Tel: (01480) 463227; Website: www.oldferryboat.com
There are seven rooms, all with en-suite facilities, and a restaurant serving both traditional and more exotic food.
The Old Hall Inn
The seventeenth-century Old Hall Inn stands a short way away from the shore at Sea Palling, Norfolk. It was formerly a farmhouse; today it is a traditional public house with two bars, an à la carte restaurant, a lounge, family dining area, beer garden and several guest bedrooms.
On several occasions the figure of a woman in grey clothing has been seen sitting on a window ledge in the television lounge and a drop in temperature has been recorded.
From time to time an inexplicable bluish shadow has also appeared and there has been the smell of strong tobacco. A manager’s wife once saw a ‘column of grey smoke’ move across the dining room towards the kitchen. This was observed on two later occasions by other witnesses.