Haunted Cotswolds E-Book

Diz White

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

Spine-chilling tales of ghosts, ghouls and the undead have been gathered here from every corner of the Cotswolds, revealing in heart-stopping detail this region's unexplained events and the creepy elements that lurk just beneath its rolling hills and beautiful vistas. These stories, illustrated with more than sixty photographs, include: King Charles I's headless haunting of Chavenage House; the ghost of Warwick Castle as he emerges from his portrait; the ghouls of the Ram Inn, the most haunted building in Britain; the banshee of Banbury Cross; and a ghostly Guy Fawkes and his conspirators who still plot to blow up Parliament. In this volume, descriptions of Cotswold architecture and history are woven into thrilling stories of supernatural happenings, promising those with an interest in the paranormal terrifying dreams for years to come.

Leseprobe

All the photographs in Haunted Cotswolds are by Randall Montgomery

CONTENTS

Title Page

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Introduction

one Manor House Manifestations

two Oxfordshire Entities

three Creepy Cotswold Castles

four Eerie Inns

five Cadaverous Cotswold Kings and Queens

six Gloucestershire Ghosts

seven Chilling Chippy

Sources

Copyright

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

British-born Diz White, together with her husband Randall Montgomery whose photographs illustrate this book, divides her time between a career in Hollywood, USA, as an actress and screenplay writer, and her cottage in Gloucestershire, which she uses as a base for writing books about her beloved Cotswolds. In addition, she runs a DVD and mobile phone entertainment production company and can be reached through her website: www.dizwhite.com

Other books by Diz White:

The Comedy Group Book (Smith & Kraus).Haunted Cheltenham (The History Press), to be published August 2010.Cheltenham: History You Can See (The History Press), to be published 2011.

Diz is currently putting the finishing touches on her comedic memoir about the Cotswolds, Life isJust a Bowl of Cherries: Fun Adventures Buying an English Country Cottage.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book is dedicated to my husband Randall Montgomery, a professional photographer, who took all the photos for this book. I wish to thank him for these images, for his invaluable editing and computer expertise, and most of all for his incredible patience and hard work as he lovingly helped me put this book together. I also dedicate this book to my mother, the poet Josephine Ashley, and to my dear family.

I also wish to thank Monica B. Morris, author of Goodnight Children, Everywhere: Voicesof Evacuees (The History Press) for her help, encouragement and superb editing skills.

This book would not have been possible without the vision of my commissioning editor, Nicola Guy. I wish to convey my thanks to her and her excellent team at The History Press.

Another thank you is gratefully given to all the helpful inhabitants of the Cotswolds, surely the most beautiful place on Earth, who told me their spooky stories and shared their ghostly haunts.

Map

INTRODUCTION

This book guarantees a spine-chilling ride through the entire haunted Cotswolds region, with its surplus of spooks, spectres, glowing orbs, disembodied voices, phantoms, wraiths, banshees, shades, hobgoblins, ghouls, ghosts and the undead. All these entities will do their best to turn even the hardiest reader into a staring-eyed, gibbering, trembling blob who is assured terrifying dreams at night.

The unusual amount of ghostly activity noted in this region is most likely due to the perfect combination of the many gory battles fought throughout its history in the struggle for power and the fact that the Cotswolds is an ideal setting for otherworldly visitations.

The history of this area provides enough murder, mayhem, bloodshed, intrigue and treachery to prompt the spooky set to take up residence here, particularly after finding a comfortable home in many of the Cotswolds’ centuries-old underground chambers, walled-off rooms, unexplored attics, lonely stagecoach routes, priest holes, ruined creepy castles and secret cellars. It is no wonder, therefore, that these spooks frequently run rampant, scaring the wits out of any poor soul they encounter.

The ghosts and other spectres that haunt this area are a creepy lot. There are headless kings, mad monks trailing blood, ghostly coaches and four, crying Cavaliers, an incubus and succubus, dematerializing dogs, invisible clanking chains, forlornly sobbing wraiths and preternatural poltergeists. All these entities seem to take delight in tormenting the inhabitants and visitors of this region; ghost hunters, however, are in for a lot of fun.

The grisly goings-on that unfolded in the Cotswolds, particularly after the Norman Conquest, must surely have been a catalyst for the large population of spectres who haunt the region to this day. Blood and gore were in good supply here, especially during the ruthless Roman occupation of Britain. At this time a large segment of the British population were forced into slavery and subjected to unspeakable torture. Back home in Italy, the typical Roman citizen’s idea of a fun day out usually involved taking a picnic to the Coliseum in Rome and watching wild lions tear the heads off a bunch of Christians, so we can only imagine what these Romans did to the citizens of the lands they conquered. Despite their brutality, the Romans lived in an organised and sophisticated way, but when their empire unravelled England sank back into its previous barbarism.

For the next few centuries wild, marauding tribes roamed the land with many bloody battles being fought between the Mercian and Saxon kings. Next up was the Norman Conquest in 1066, with its virtual annihilation of the Saxon people. Following this even more blood was shed over the next several centuries as various monarchs struggled for power. it is not for nothing that the site of the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471 became known as ‘Bloody Meadow’.

Next, during Tudor times, the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII led to the wholesale massacre of religious dissidents and, in addition, many priests of the Roman Catholic Church. Added to this were the fought-to-the-death battles between the Royalist and Parliamentarian forces in the English Civil War. The rich history of this area feels as if it unfolded just yesterday, perhaps because this parade of villains and victims lives on through their ghosts, many of which are described in this book.

The shades of plotting kings, wronged servants, treacherous Roundheads, intriguing earls, Gunpowder Plot conspirators, romantic highway robbers, hanging judges, lords of the manor, harried housekeepers and unpleasant pagans, among others, provided characters for these stories and all that was needed was the perfect setting. For this, the Cotswolds region fits the bill admirably.

This area extends south-west to north-east through six counties: Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Somerset, Worcestershire and Wiltshire. Its exact boundaries are sometimes in dispute, but it lies approximately east of Wales with its southern edge ending a little below Bath. It extends north as far as Stratford-upon-Avon and its eastern boundary stretches from Swindon up to Banbury.

It is thought that the Cotswolds acquired its name from the sheep’s enclosures or ‘cots’, combined with the description of the hills which were known during those times as ‘wolds’. The thin soil here was not deemed suitable for arable farming but was ideal for raising sheep. These halcyon hills, so idyllic in the summer sunshine, can turn misty and mysterious at night. The long barrow burial mounds that are a feature of this region make eerie shadows in the light of the full moon. It seems that sometimes the long-dead souls inside them slip out of their resting place and roam the hills, causing consternation wherever they go.

Other mysterious forces are felt by many people who visit the Rollright Stones near Chipping Norton. These are a circle of ancient megaliths, somewhat similar in appearance to Stonehenge. There is a definite aura of spookiness around them and many hauntings must have originated from their Bronze Age beginnings. The Rollright Stones are situated on ancient ley lines. These lines, the study of which sceptics dub a pseudoscience, have been shown to align these megaliths with ancient sites of importance. It is well documented that ancient societies found it useful to establish tracks between important sites, and these would be marked in straight lines, some measuring hundreds of miles. The Rollright Stones site also seems to have been used over the centuries by a number of different religious sects and if the horrific tales of human sacrifice are true, they must surely have caused more than a little spiritual disturbance.

After the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Cotswolds prospered in a small way with sheep rearing and the trading of wool produced by the flocks that grazed its rolling hills. Several of the large market towns founded at this time were built around elaborate, perpendicular churches which became the salient feature of many of them.

The local stone is for the most part oolitic limestone and is used as the construction material for the cottages, manor houses, churches and drystone walls that give this area such a distinctive appearance. This stone varies in colour from pale ivory to a rich yellow-cream and when the sun sets it turns an attractive honey-tinted hue.

The skills learned from the Norman conquerors, who were expert masons, helped give the Cotswolds the unique appearance that it has to this day. Fine examples of stone cottages, parish churches, manor houses and barns are in abundant supply.

A spooky Cotswold gargoyle.

Wool production started even before the Roman occupation, literally as a cottage industry, and increased in importance over the next few hundred years. By the fifteenth century the entire area was heavily dependent upon it. The streams and rivers from the steep hills of the western part of the Cotswolds provided the energy to power the mills. Money poured into the ‘wool’ churches, making them even grander, while large manor houses were also built to reflect the great prosperity of the time.

However, from 1700 until the mid-1800s, the Cotswolds’ dominance in the wool trade dissipated as other wool producers competed against its output and won. This meant that there were no longer any funds for new building. It was this era of poverty that led to the Cotswolds of today having a ‘frozen in time’ appearance. It also saved it from the ugliness of Victorian remodelling which has blighted so many other areas of Great Britain. Thankfully the Cotswolds seems to have avoided the fate of this style of architecture, much of which appears to have won competitions for the ‘Ugliest Building in Great Britain’. It is ironic that this lack of money contributed to the architectural unity that we see in the area today and which is now so highly valued. Nowadays, very little new building is allowed in the Cotswold area and what little there is has to blend in with the existing architectural styles. There are strict conservation rules in place and gaining new building permits can be very difficult. This all works to the Cotswold ghost population’s advantage as these otherworldly visitors seem to prefer their original location to be undisturbed.

The spectres who have taken up residence, it seems, feel very much at home in the centuries-old Cotswolds buildings and churches where even the decorative elements lend themselves to a ghoulish atmosphere with their grotesque gargoyles, griffins, green men, misericords and macabre church effigies.

A church misericord

Surely, on a dark and misty night, a ghost would feel quite inclined to emanate from a good example of these ghastly church effigies, located in the twelfth-century St Mary’s Church of the Virgin near the small village of Swinbrook in Oxfordshire. Here, wall tombs contain six life-sized marble likenesses of the male line of the Fettiplace family who lived close by for over four centuries. From the seventeenth century, this important landowning family commissioned these marble effigies for the church and they are to be found in the sanctuary and the choir. These very spooky marble figures are stacked one on top of another on stone shelves, almost as if they were reclining in bunk beds. Their gilded figures lean awkwardly on one elbow and are portrayed fully dressed, even wearing swords, gauntlets and lace jabots and sporting, in some cases, shoulder-length curly hair.

It is not hard to imagine an apparition rising out of these scary stone men in the middle of the night, carrying their disembodied souls with them as they restlessly roam the countryside. Church effigies such as these appear in a number of other Cotswold churches, including those at Chipping Norton and Burford.

Gargoyles also seem to attract ghosts as they are often exhibited with carved faces showing horrific expressions. The word ‘gargoyle’ is thought to be a translation of the French word gargouille, which means ‘to gargle’. Often decorating the exterior of churches, gargoyles were originally used as rain spouts. Medieval stonemasons seemed to compete with each other in an effort to carve ever more grotesque visages. These gargoyles began to disappear after the innovation of downspouts in the eighteenth century. Other examples of church decorations include screaming monsters, serpents, devils, centaurs, daemons, cretins and fire-breathing dragons.

Another inspiration for ghosts is the grinning carvings of Green Men which adorn many churches and secular buildings in this area. These Green Men were first used as decorations during medieval times and their insanely grimacing and often menacing expressions are modelled on human likenesses which are then surrounded by carved foliage. During the pre-Christian era, these Green Men were used in pagan rituals, usually to signify the season of spring. Some of them are depicted as skeletons and appear to be haunting the churches they decorate.

Yet another scary architectural decoration seen in Cotswold churches and public buildings are griffins or, as they are sometimes known in Middle English, gryphons or griffons. These strange creatures are depicted as having lion’s bodies and eagle’s heads. This combination is meant to symbolise that griffins are both human and divine, and combine both great strength and intelligence. Their preternatural appearance, however, with their sharp eagle’s claws and massive beaks, certainly contribute to a ghostly atmosphere when viewed in a dimly-lit ancient church.

The ghost stories in this book have all been well researched and documented by dozens of witnesses. Some manifestations have even been captured on film. Many sceptics scoff and dismiss ghost stories as ‘a lot of old malarkey’, but research into these sightings has shown that, on many occasions, witnesses have reported the same haunting independently of one another. Sometimes these reports have been hundreds of years apart and the witnesses were found to have had no previous knowledge of other, earlier sightings. In most cases these witnesses gave a description of a particular haunting that was amazingly similar, in every detail in fact, to previous reports.

According to J.A. Brooks in his book TheGhosts and Witches of the Cotswolds, in past times ghosts have been sufficiently disturbing for a recipe to be concocted by a Cotswold vicar in the seventeenth century for ridding a house of these spectres:

Lay a half pound of Brimstone [another word for sulphur in those times] in an iron dish, supported by a pair of tongs over a bucket of water; the fireplace and all openings to be closed, a shovelful of burning coal put on the brimstone, the door quickly shut and the room kept closed for six hours. This is one of the best ways of laying a ghost.

Perhaps some kind of fourth dimension exists in which shades reside and somehow they have the ability to repeatedly slip through a tear in the time/space continuum to make contact with mortals again. However it works, there is too much evidence of their existence for ghost hauntings to be discounted as a joke. The sceptics are challenged to be brave enough to read this book and remain unconvinced.

Those of you who already believe that visitations from the other side are a fact of life and know that ghosts walk among us can look forward to meeting a very interesting collection of creepy Cotswold spooks.

Because the Cotswolds is an area of outstanding natural beauty (it was designated as such in 1991), readers will also enjoy a virtual tour of the region as a pleasant addition to the chills and spills of the ghost stories themselves. In these pages there are anecdotes from Uley, Painswick, Wotton-Under-Edge, Minchinhampton, Gloucester, Burford, Banbury, Warwick, Faringdon and many other beautiful villages and towns.

The Cotswolds region is a well-known and loved tourist destination visited by holiday-makers from all over the world. Its chocolate-box-top, picture-perfect villages like Bibury, Upper and Lower Slaughter, Broadway and Bourton-on-the-Water, among others, are well worth a visit, but the wilder, less well-travelled spots in this area are of even more interest to those who delve into the paranormal. A visit to the windswept banks of the River Windrush, the remote trails of the Cotswold Way or the misty waters of the upper reaches of the Thames will enrich the reader’s imagination and set the scene for the spooky tales that are told in these pages.