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172 pages

English

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These chilling sightings from the bestselling book Supernatural England certainly give support to the claim that England is the most haunted place on earth. No one can say for certain that there is no such thing as a ghost, and this eerie collection of the unexplained will give even the most hardened sceptic pause for thought. They range from a noisy and scary poltergeist in Lincolnshire, a vampire in Cumbria and an exorcism in Herefordshire, to a love so strong that it spanned the centuries between the Victorian Lucy Lightfoot and her Crusader knight. There are also famous royal ghosts at Hampton Court, where thousands of visitors have reported a sudden drop in temperature and a feeling of dizziness while walking in the Long Gallery. This was the spot where a distraught Catherine Howard, the pretty young wife of Henry VIII, ran to her husband to plead for her life to be spared. Unfortunately for her, the guards caught her before she could speak to Henry and she was dragged screaming back to her rooms to await her execution. Perhaps this emotionally powerful event has become imprinted on its surroundings? A belief in ghosts goes back to earliest history, when our ancestors sought answers to the eternal enigma of what happens after death. Ghost tales have always fascinated us as they offer a tantalising glimpse into the mysteries of the afterlife. Here is an astonishing variety of sightings, many written from first-hand accounts, others so strange and terrifying that they have remained unforgettable over time, making for truly chilling reading.

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Publié par	Countryside Books
Date de parution	31 octobre 2002
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781846748721
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0374€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

SUPERNATURAL
ENGLAND
P OLTERGEISTS G HOSTS H AUNTINGS

EDITED BY
B ETTY P UTTICK

COUNTRYSIDE BOOKS
NEWBURY BERKSHIRE
First published 2002
© Countryside Books and the authors 2002
Reprinted 2003, 2005, 2008
All rights reserved. No reproduction
permitted without the prior permission
of the publisher:
COUNTRYSIDE BOOKS
3 Catherine Road
Newbury, Berkshire
To view our complete range of books,
please visit us at
www.countrysidebooks.co.uk
ISBN 978 1 85306 769 3
The cover picture is from
an original painting by Colin Doggett
and cover design is by Nautilus Design (UK) Ltd
Designed by Kingsclere Design & Print
Produced through MRM Associates Ltd., Reading
Typeset by Techniset Typesetters, Newton-Ie-Willows
Printed by Cambridge University Press
All material for the manufacture of this book
was sourced from sustainable forests.
Contents
Black Magic at Clophill
The Little Blue Man at Studham
The Ghost with a Guilty Conscience
The Phantom of Brockley Combe
Grey Ladies and Butterflies in Bath
The Poisoner’s Tale
College Ghosts
Hauntings, Human and Animal – and Feathered
Haunted Hostelries
Parson Dodge to the Rescue!
St Nectan’s Glen
Seeing Things
The Croglin Vampire
Dickey’s Skull
Something Out of Hell
The Ghostly Highway
The Durweston Poltergeist
The Rider of Bottlebrush Down
The Skull That Screamed
The Ghosts of Raby Castle
The Grey Lady of Crossgate Peth
The Farm in the Marshes
Gloucestershire Ghosts
Littledean’s Haunted Heritage
Down in the Forest
Lucy Lightfoot and the Crusader
The Haunted River Wye
The Exorcism of Black Vaughan
Something Strange at the Cathedral
St Albans’ Haunted Abbey
A King’s Mistress Still Lingers …
The Bromley Poltergeist
Time-Slips
The Ghost of Birchen Bower
The Most Haunted House in Lancashire
The Legends of Papillon Hall
The Spanish Shoes
The Portrait of David Papillon
The Haunted Council House
Scrimshaw’s Poltergeist
The Haunting of Epworth Rectory
The Ghost of the London Tube
A Screaming Queen and Other Hampton Court Ghosts
The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall
Bircham Newton
The Phantom Army
The Restless Ghost
The Haunting of Willington Mill
Nottingham Castle
The Trip to Jerusalem
For Sale – Secondhand Car …
The Ghost with Red Hair
The Ghosts of Stocken Hall
Mysteries at Stoke Dry
The Haunting of Dorothy Blount
The Grey Lady of Sydenham Manor
Things That Go Bump in the Night
The Ghost in the Ladies Loo
Driven From His Home
The Strange Story of Corder’s Skull
The Haunt of the Black Dog
The Death of Percy Lambert
Take Me Home
The Girl with the Golden Ringlets
Mysterious Music
The Cauld Lad of Hylton Castle
The Battle in the Skies
The Legend of Littlecote House
Priors Court, Callow End
A Grey Lady at Ye Olde Seven Stars Pub
Close Encounters of a Deadly Kind
The Haunting of Heath Farm
Secondhand Spook
Foreword
GHOSTS! Belief in ghosts goes back to our earliest history, when our ancestors, like ourselves, sought answers to the eternal mystery of what happens to us after death. Centuries later we are still wondering if reported sightings of spirits and apparitions are proof that there is a life beyond this one. What are ghosts? Our endless fascination with ghost stories gives us tantalising glimpses into the mystery and in making my choices for this anthology it is the sheer variety of phenomena and their intriguing tales that have inspired me.
What do ghosts mean to you? Fear and horror, perhaps? There is the Screaming Skull of Bettiscombe (Dorset), the hideous Croglin Vampire (Cumbria), and Hampton Court’s Haunted Gallery where Catherine Howard is still heard sometimes pleading hysterically with cold-hearted Henry VIII for her life. History? Our long and turbulent history has produced ghosts galore, few older than the Bronze Age horseman of Bottlebrush Down (Dorset), and battles ancient and modern have left supernatural traces from the Civil War’s battle in the skies at Edgehill to the last war’s Bircham Newton airfield.
There’s romance too, love that spans the centuries like that of an English clergyman for the beautiful ghost with red hair (Oxfordshire) or the Victorian Lucy Lightfoot and her Crusader (Isle of Wight). In stately homes and council houses, in castles, abbeys, theatres and pubs, everywhere, there are ghostly shadows and so many absorbing stories, some of which you will find in this book. As the poet Longfellow so beautifully put it:

The spirit world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapours dense
A vital breath of more ethereal air.
Happy reading!
Betty Puttick
Acknowledgements
The majority of the stories in this book have been written by Betty Puttick. Some have been written especially for this volume and others appear in books by her.
In addition we are very grateful to the following authors for allowing us to use stories from their books:
Bill Amos for Seeing Things and The Croglin Vampire ( Tales of Old Cumbria )
David Bell for Dickey’s Skull ( Derbyshire Ghosts & Legends ); The Legends of Papillon Hall and The Haunted Council House ( Leicestershire Ghosts & Legends ); and The Ghost in the Ladies’ Loo and Driven from His Home ( Ghosts & Legends of Staffordshire & the Black Country )
Sheila Bird for Parson Dodge to the Rescue! ( Tales of Old Cornwall )
Judy Chard for Something Out of Hell and The Ghostly Highway ( Devon Tales of Mystery & Murder )
Jeannie Shorey for The Phantom of Brockley Combe ( Tales of Bristol, Bath & Avon )
Roger Evans for Sydenham Manor and Things That Go Bump ( Somerset Stories of the Supernatural )
Ian Fox for Down in the Forest ( Hampshire Tales of Mystery & Murder )
David Haslam for Nottingham Castle and The Trip to Jerusalem ( Ghosts & Legends of Nottinghamshire )
Polly Howat for Cambridgeshire Colleges ( Cambridgeshire Ghosts & Legends ) and Scrimshaw’s Poltergeist ( Ghosts & Legends of Lincolnshire & the Fen Country )
John Janaway for The Death of Percy Lambert and Take Me Home ( Ghosts of Surrey )
W.H. Johnson for The Bromley Poltergeist and Time Slips ( Kent Stories of the Supernatural )
Kathleen Lawrence-Smith for The Haunting of Dorothy Blount ( Tales of Old Shropshire )
Judy Middleton for Golden Ringlets and Mysterious Music ( Ghosts of Sussex )
Andy Owens for Close Encounters, Heath Farm and Secondhand Spook ( Yorkshire Stories of the Supernatural )
Marian Pipe for Grafton Regis and Hannington ( Northamptonshire Ghosts & Legends )
Betty Smith for Gloucestershire Ghosts ( Tales of Old Gloucestershire ) and The Battle in the Skies ( Ghosts of Warwickshire )
Seán Street for The Durweston Poltergeist ( Tales of Old Dorset )
Frederick Woods for Godley Green, Tushingham and Stanley ( Cheshire Ghosts & Legends )
Illustrations
Eighteen of the drawings were commissioned especially for this book from Trevor Yorke ( Pages 23 , 27 , 33 , 35 , 49 , 80 , 95 , 109 , 131 , 143 , 149 , 150 , 180 , 201 , 222 , 229 , 234 and 252 ). Thanks go to him and to Bisham Abbey – Sport England ( Page 18 ), Don Osmond ( Pages 44 , 52 and 74 ), Nick Wotton ( Page 70 ), Robert Estall ( Page 79 ), Country Life Picture Library ( Page 153 ), Eve Dymond-White ( Page 163 ), Courtaulds Films ( Page 189 ), Brooklands Museum Trust ( Page 213 ), Dave Allen and Leicestershire County Council ( Page 134 ), Nottinghamshire Evening Post ( Page 173 ).
BEDFORDSHIRE
Black Magic at Clophill
S tanding high on the slopes of Deadmans Hill near Clophill in Bedfordshire is the ruined church of St Mary, a place which became notorious in the 1960s and 1970s after a macabre series of events suggested that in this quiet English village the ancient evil rituals of black magic and necromancy were very much alive and still being practised.
One climbs a long, narrow track overhung with trees to reach the ruined church, the gravestones now ranged round the edges of the grassed-over burial ground like a row of watchful grey figures. The ancient church still retains its tower, the nave just a roofless shell with a few strange hieroglyphics scrawled on the inner walls. The site has been tidied up since the days when the churchyard was an overgrown wilderness, its gravestones leaning crazily, but many people still sense an oppressively evil atmosphere in this place where ghoulish vandalism once wreaked havoc.
It was in March 1963 that seven altar tombs in the churchyard of St Mary’s were found to have been damaged. Unknown vandals had apparently attempted to dislodge the heavy stone slabs, but found the entrances to six of the tombs sealed by brickwork. Finally they managed to gain entry into the grave of Jenny Humberstone, the young wife of an apothecary, who died in 1770 at the age of 22. The coffin had been broken open and the skeleton removed.
Jenny’s bones were discovered in the church arranged in a circle, with a cockerel’s feathers scattered nearby. It is said that a child was seen playing with the skull, which had been found impaled on an iron spike.
Was this some kind of grisly hoax? It seemed likely that there was a more sinister explanation such as necromancy, an ancient magical ritual aimed at communicating with the spirits of the dead, and in which a corpse played an essential part. Inevitably the weird happenings at Clophill attracted the attention of the press and television reporters, who were all agog to discover every macabre detail, and to the distress of the parish priest, curious sightseers invaded the village, causing even more damage and desecration to the church and graveyard.
Eric Maple, the writer on ghosts and witchcraft, visited the site on behalf of the Associated Rediffusion programme This Week in March 1963. He said afterwards: ‘There was an atmosphere I can only describe as absolutely evil and I never wanted to go there again.’ A ladder was put into the grave which had been desecr