Hampton Wood Exorcism

The following account was extracted from ‘The Ghost World’ by T F Thiselton Dyer 1893 ‘Referring to spots where murders have taken place, a Shropshire tradition informs us how, at a certain house at Hampton’s Wood, near Ellesmere, six illegitimate children were murdered by their parents, and buried in a garden. But, soon after this unnatural event, a ghost in the form of a man, sometimes headless, at other times not so, haunted the stables, rode the horses to water, and talked to the waggoner. Once it appeared to a young lady who was passing on horseback, and rode before her on her horse. Eventually, after much difficulty, this troublesome ghost was laid, but ‘the poor minister was so exhausted by the task that he died.’

According to the story, the exorcism the undertook required three days of prayer. He forced the ghost to transform into a cat, then shrank the cat n size so that he could trap it in a bottle. The bottle was then buried under a barn within three iron chests.