Mysterious Britain & Ireland

Mysterious Britain & Ireland

Folklore

Chartley White Park Herd

There is an old superstition that concerns the rare White Park cattle found at Chartley. The herd at Chartley dates back to 1225 when King Henry III removed the protected status of some forests. Some parks were created including Chartley and a herd of the cattle enclosed.

Apparitions / Hauntings

Mary Goffe (1691)

For 19 November 1691 there is a marriage record for a John Goffe of St Margaret’s, Rochester, widower, and Susanna Everest. This may be the same John Goffe who’s wife Mary, died on 4 June 1691 and just prior to this appeared as a crisis appartion to her children.

Hauntings

Oulton High House

The manorial residence in Oulton is known locally as Oulton High House and it has some ghost stories associated with it. Dating from the 16th century, it has been suggested that the house was used for storage by smugglers in the 1700’s when it stood empty for a few years. It has been suggested that the stories were created by the smugglers to scare people away from the building.

Apparitions / Hauntings

William Ridgeway’s Experience (1814)

The following account of William Ridgeway’s (Born 1788 – Died 1864) strange experience was extracted from ‘The Haunted Homes and Family Traditions of Great Britain’ (1897) by John Ingram.

Apparitions / Hauntings

East Denton Hall

East Denton Hall is a Grade I listed building dating from the early 17th century and is the residence of The Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle. Built by Anthony Errington in 1622, his family lost the estate after siding with the King during the English Civil War. Eventually it became the property of Edward Montagu and his wife Elizabeth.

Apparitions / Hauntings

The Ghostly Hand of Draycott

There is a story involving a ghostly hand that concerns the inheritance of Draycott Cerne Manor and arose when Sir Walter Long of Wraxall and Draycott Cerne (Born abt 1565 – Buried 30 October 1610) disinherited his eldest son and heir in favour of his eldest son by his second wife Catherine Thynne of Longleat.

Other Mysteries

The Dead Hand

The "Dead Hand," or the "Holy Hand," as it is sometimes styled, alluded to in the foregoing tradition,is the centre around which quite a galaxy of marvellous tales have gathered. It is known to have belonged to Father Edmund Arrowsmith, a Jesuit, who suffered the extreme penalty of the law at Lancaster, on the 28th August 1628.

Apparitions / Hauntings

Strachur Manse

In his 1897 book entitled ‘The Haunted Homes and Family Traditions of Great Britain’, John Ingram gives the story of a haunt like experience at the Manse in Strachur.

English Folktales / Folklore / Folktales / Witchcraft

Betty Chidley The Witch

Below is the story of Betty Chidley, originally published in Miss C. S. Burne’s ‘Shropshire Folk-Lore’ and then again in ‘English Fairy and Other Folk Tales’ by Edwin Sidney Hartland [1890].