Haunted North Cornwall E-Book

Michael Williams

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

Seitenzahl: 165

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Steeped in legend and mystery, the dramatic coastline of North Cornwall is riddled with stories of hauntings throughout history. The eerie wilds of Bodmin Moor, the haunted historic castles and of course the spirited, rugged coastline all have terrifying tales to tell. Michael Williams has been at the heart of some incredible investigations, and shares here some of the most chilling accounts of hauntings. Including previously unpublished accounts of ghostly activity, this is a treasure trove of original material and re-examined cases. It unravels stories which will send a shiver down the spine of anyone interested in the rarely advertised scary side of North Cornwall.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Title

Foreword by Peter Underwood FRSA

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Introduction

one Inventor at The Castle, Bude

two Bossiney

three Tintagel

four Boscastle

five Launceston and St Clether

six Warleggan

seven Airfield Mysteries

eight Haunted Jamaica Inn

nine Famous Ghosts of North Cornwall

ten More Ghostly Evidence

eleven Some Final Reflections

Select Bibliography

Copyright

FOREWORD

THERE can be no better guide to this ghostly realm than the deeply knowledgeable and widely experienced Michael Williams. A man of complete integrity, deep understanding and rare wisdom, it is always good to see him.

I love Cornwall and have been visiting the area for more years than I care to remember. Certainly we took the children there when they were young and impressionable and today, as old-age pensioners, they still remember those magic days of long ago. For a good many years now I have been visiting this jewel of the West Country twice a year and my visits are enriched, enhanced and brightened by Michael and his delightful wife Sonia.

On one visit we explored The Castle at Bude with its singular atmosphere and it is good that this interesting treasure of Cornwall is researched and investigated in this volume by Michael and his excellent Paranormal Investigation group. The Castle is just one of the many places in Cornwall that Michael and I have visited, and I am never disappointed when he takes me to some deserted airfield or battlefield or ancient place of unusual interest. In this volume not only are we treated to visiting haunted places but we invariably learn something of the history of the place and we appreciate some of the mystery and fascination of the unknown, for Michael is a much respected Cornish bard, an author and writer of considerable experience and an accepted authority on Cornwall.

This is a valuable volume that will accompany me on future visits to my favourite county. Michael and I share the same interests, and having talked, officiated, investigated and broadcast together, I hope the future holds new exciting explorations, missions and achievements and causes yet to be conquered. And as history lengthens like a shadow behind us, anyone can enjoy some of the secret wonders of Cornwall with this volume in their hands.

We are indebted to Michael Williams for exploring, explaining and writing entertainingly about the ghosts of North Cornwall, a place where you never know when you may encounter a ghost or ghostly activity, and this book will help you to know the best places to frequent – or to avoid!

Peter Underwood, 2014

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am deeply grateful to Peter Underwood for writing his generous foreword. Once more I owe so much to my wife, Sonia, and Elaine Beckton, two invaluable allies on this and many other projects. Elaine and the Paranormal Investigation team have given insights into paranormal exploration, especially mediumship, throughout this volume. I am also very grateful to Zena O’Rourke, editor of The Cornish Guardian, who allows me to write on the paranormal from time to time. Stephen Cleaves, a member of the paranormal group, has contributed a rich harvest of photographs, and David Flower, in his busy life as a press photographer, has found time to take three photographs. Appreciation to Declan Flynn and Lucy Simpkin for their help and encouragement at The History Press, and also to Luke Thompson for reading the proofs. I am touched too by the generosity of the Q Memorial Fund – Q’s Mystery Stories (1937) is here in my St Teath library. And my thanks to all the people who have loaned illustrations. Last but not least, I am indebted to those who have given interviews revealing insider knowledge and, of course, the ghosts themselves.

All photographs and illustrations, unless otherwise indicated, are attributed to and remain copyright of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MICHAEL Williams is a Cornishman and Cornish bard. He and his wife Sonia founded Bossiney Books and were regional publishers for twenty-five years. They live near St Teath, North Cornwall. Michael has written and broadcast on the paranormal for many years. His recent authorship includes Writers in Cornwall and The Three du Maurier Sisters. He is the president of Paranormal Investigation, a group exploring the edge of the unknown in the South West, and he is currently writing and researching conversations with eminent Cornish personalities.

Michael was founder of the Cornish Crusaders Cricket Club, which he ran for over half a century. He continues to support and encourage young cricketers in Cornwall. He is a patron of the Broomfield Horse Sanctuary near St Just in Penwith, is a member of World Horse Welfare and patron of Animals’ Voice, and campaigns nationally on animal welfare issues.

Author Michael Williams exploring the haunted coastline of Tintagel – Trevena on old maps. He is convinced that the high percentage of phantoms in the area is due to the powerful atmosphere and the fact that so much history has taken place hereabouts. (Photograph courtesy of David Flower)

INTRODUCTION

NORTH Cornwall and the paranormal come together naturally. I have been a ghost hunter for over forty years and have experienced more of the unknown in this area than anywhere else in the South West. It is quite simply one of the most haunted areas in all of Britain, outside London.

To the north is Morwenstow, with its contrasting territory of deep wooded coombe and beautiful but terrifying cliffs. It is the first or last bit of Cornwall before Welcombe. ‘Here,’ reflected the Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman, ‘one is reaching not only the end of Cornwall but it seems the end of the world.’ Morwenstow is also known as Hawker Country, and of all the parsons parading through Cornish history, Robert Stephen Hawker is the most famous.

Hawker was the vicar here for forty-one years. He died in 1875, an earthly end coloured in controversy. Though he is buried in Plymouth, some say he has never left North Cornwall.

He lived in an era before the motor car and travelled by horse or pony, riding or driving a cart. He dearly loved a pony called Carrow and they covered hundreds of miles around this border territory. On one occasion, as the pair of them journeyed from Welcombe back to Morwenstow Rectory, the great man recalled: ‘As I entered the Gulph between the Vallies today, a storm leaped from the Sea, and rushed at me roaring – I recognised a Demon and put Carrow into a gallop and so escaped.’ He never forgot his encounter with the demon and thereafter sang hymns whenever he rode through these valleys – and sang them loudly.

Over the centuries, layer upon layer of mystery has grown up, on and around parts of this coastline and countryside. Many of us think some events can leave ‘an atmosphere’, which the subconscious can play back like a piece of old film. The diversity of the North Cornwall phantoms is remarkable: human footsteps; horses’ hoofbeats; the old butler ascending an original staircase at a different level from today’s; the kitchen corridor haunted by the smell of frying onions; the ghost train which is always on time; the grey van in a narrow lane near Helston, there one moment and gone the next; and the ghostly black dog seen near Tintagel, all make for a curious catalogue, of which these are only some examples.

Why is North Cornwall considered such haunted territory? There are various reasons: one is that ghosts often manifest near granite, and this terrain has more than its share of granite.

I cannot make this journey across North Cornwall without saluting Colin Wilson, one of the greatest paranormal writers in literary history and who happens to have resided in Cornwall. until his death in December 2013. Conversations with him and reading his books – there are about twenty of them in my St Teath library – have shaped a deepening awareness.

In our cottage, I once asked him, ‘Why are so many intrigued by ghosts?’

‘It’s quite a cocktail,’ Colin replied. ‘Mystery and adventure, romance and a kind of other-worldliness all play their part.’ He was fascinated by the fact that some of our North Cornwall villages boast not one ghost but several.

Colin Wilson, distinguished writer on various facets of the paranormal, who lived in Cornwall with his wife Joy, a garden historian. (Photograph courtesy of Joy Wilson)

On another occasion he recalled when he was commissioned to write a book called Afterlife. He was far from sure about the evidence for life after death, but when he had finished the manuscript, he explained that ‘the evidence pointed unmistakably to survival’.

Why is North Cornwall Such a Ghost Land?

Areas rich in history seem to generate manifestations (spirits/ghosts/images of the past) and North Cornwall is full of history: King Brychan of Wales fathered twelve boys and twelve girls, all of whom became saints or martyrs, and they brought their transforming power to the area. It was almost certainly their missionary work which prompted the old saying, ‘There are more Saints in Cornwall than in Heaven’. There was also the Civil War, which bitterly divided families, and the smugglers and the highwaymen who stained dark nights with darker deeds and sometimes blood. There is a creative chemistry found here by painters and writers who have discovered and continue to find inspiration; even in more modern times, characters like Organ Joe, the organ grinder tramping towns and villages, turning the handle of his music machine wherever people gathered and were likely to throw a coin into his hat, have found stimulus here.

Famous residents include Prince Chula of Thailand at Tredethy, J.B. Priestley at Old Borough House in Bossiney (he had interesting theories about the character of time), and the celebrated bonesetter Mr Edwards at Sladesbridge near Wadebridge. Eminent visitors like Noel Coward who, as a young man, stayed at Knights Mill near St Teath and, earlier still, the actor Sir Henry Irving who paid a Boscastle witch to undo a bad spell.

Does the key to at least some of these phenomena lie in the drama and tragedy of past events? Maybe a disaster down a mine, smugglers clashing with customs men, and other dramatic events have somehow been photographed and become images printed on the ether, to be replayed later. Sir Oliver Lodge, a distinguished scientist, was brave enough to research ghosts and certainly thought along these lines.

Tredethy near Helland Bridge when Prince Chula of Thailand lived there: that is his royal standard flying. The ghost of an old butler has been seen ascending the staircase at the original levels.

It is this curious replaying of happenings long ago that intrigues. For example, in 1357 William Penfound, the vicar of Poundstock, was murdered in his church by ‘certain emissaries of Satan’, and there have been reports of the murdered priest reappearing occasionally.

Frederick William Marshall was vicar here from 1945 until 1955, and in the early 1970s I asked him, ‘Did you ever see the murdered cleric’s ghost in your decade at Poundstock?’ To this he replied:

More than once at Poundstock I was conscious of someone standing aside to let me go to the altar. I never saw anyone but I was definitely aware of someone stepping aside. Imagination? No, I don’t think so. Of course, being a Celt I suppose I’m psychic. Actually, one of my Poundstock parishioners did see the murdered priest. One August, she went into the church and saw me kneeling at the altar rail, preparing myself, as she thought, for confessions. I’m one of these characters who often goes into the church an hour before the start of a service. She knew this, so she wasn’t surprised to see me there. Time went by; she remained kneeling and the figure of the priest remained at the altar rail. She, kneeling further back in the church and preparing herself for confession, couldn’t understand why I didn’t make a move. Normally, I didn’t keep people waiting long when they want to come to the confessional, but the minutes went by and nothing happened. Then, hearing movement and sound of footsteps, she looked up in time to see the priest walking straight through the wall.

The topic of ghosts is as broad as the Atlantic Ocean, and all through history a percentage of men and women, many deeply religious, have believed in contact between the living and the spirits of the departed.

North Cornwall also has its fair share of four-legged phantoms, and interestingly eminent ghost hunter Elliott O’Donnell reflected, ‘When investigating a haunted house, I generally take a dog with me because experience has taught me that a dog seldom fails to give notice of the proximity of a ghost.’

Paranormal Investigation, a small, influential group here in the West Country, is obtaining more and more information on the paranormal. We study both history and hauntings in the here and now, linking the past and present. As for the future, major breakthroughs are likely in the next decade or so and, on past evidence, North Cornwall could well be the setting for some of them. These are exciting times for the parapsychologist. The evidence for the existence of ghosts is growing. The Doubting Thomases are on shaky ground.

In the meantime, let us look at manifestations, ancient and modern. Hopefully the spirit of my hero Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould will be travelling with us. He had a golden rule for ghost hunting: ‘When you encounter a phantom, don’t move and don’t speak.’ If not for this incredible gentleman, I should probably never have hit the haunted trail.

Enough preamble. Let us head for The Castle at Bude, where Cornish inventor Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, who died in 1875, awaits us.

Michael Williams, 2014

1

INVENTOR AT THE CASTLE, BUDE

THE castle in Bude is one of the man-made glories of North Cornwall. It was built as a private residence for the Cornish inventor Sir Goldsworthy Gurney in the 1830s, on land leased from Sir Thomas Acland of Killerton in Devon. There is a whiff of the Gothic about The Castle at Bude, and you can imagine it as a location in an Iris Murdoch novel. Sir Goldsworthy built the castle, determined to prove it was possible to construct a sizeable building on sand. Since 2007, The Castle has been a heritage centre – a real asset for the area – and there has been a whole sequence of events defying logical explanation.

The Castle, Bude. Strange happenings have occurred here. (Photograph courtesy of Stephen Cleaves)

Our team of investigators visited the castle on a grey, misty morning in May 2008 and, according to Tom Lethbridge, the man they call ‘the Einstein of the paranormal’, it was the perfect conditions for an investigation.

In the cellars, a member of staff, who had been working down there all day, vacuumed up dust from the carpet at the top of the stairs, yet later the white dust reappeared inexplicably and without any evidence of how it got there.

The bell from the former HMS Bude has been rung by an invisible someone and, in the Castle Restaurant, the sound of a body or heavy object being dragged has been heard, while some visitors to the Sea Room claim to have felt seasick and lights at the centre have come on during the night, but there was no evidence of intruders.

During our visit to The Castle cellars a hostile atmosphere was detected. ‘We were virtually ordered out of the cellars,’ was the view of two team members.

The high point of our investigation was when medium Pamela Smith-Rawnsley made contact with the spirit of Sir Goldsworthy himself. Sir Goldsworthy was angry that vested interests had prevented him from developing his steam-driven transport which would have meant he would have invented the earliest form of motor car: he seemed more concerned about his place in history than the loss of any fortune.

Pamela Smith-Rawnsley, the St Austell medium, using her pendulum on the rim of Dozmary Pool and attempting to link up with Doniert, one of the last kings of Cornwall. (Photograph courtesy of Stephen Cleaves)

Apparently, when giving his lectures, the inventor had handled some of the models on display at The Castle today, and something of Sir Goldworthy’s creative chemistry remains in ‘the cinema of time’. His gallery oozes atmosphere. So much so that Elaine Beckton said, ‘The hair stood up at the back of my neck.’ It was in the 1830s that Sir Goldsworthy perfected the Bude Light, used first here at The Castle and later in London and the Houses of Parliament. It was also developed for lighthouses with flashing lights.

Though no ghosts were seen on this investigation, we had little doubt spirits haunt the building and, on occasions, I felt more than our number present. Despite modernisations, The Castle has, in places, a strong sense of the past: there is a sense of being in a vortex – and that you may bump into the inventor himself.

2

BOSSINEY

MY paranormal genesis is all due to the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould, squire and parson at Lewtrenchard, just across the border in Devon. He died in January 1924, yet is a profound influence and inspiration. He was an amazingly versatile character: an archaeologist and folklorist, song collector and hymn writer, novelist and artist, biographer and conservationist – and ghost hunter. He married a Yorkshire mill girl named Grace, paid for her education and turned her into a lady. They would go on to raise fourteen children.

It was Sabine Baring-Gould’s writing on Bossiney that opened the supernatural door for Michael Williams.

Baring-Gould made numerous trips to Cornwall, often visiting Bodmin Moor, rebuilding holy wells, excavating ancient burial grounds and collecting material for his books.

It was in 1965, when Sonia and I were in our first year of a decade at Bossiney House Hotel, on Bossiney Mound, that I came across some writing by Baring-Gould. Here is the fragment which stirred my curiosity in the paranormal: ‘According to Cornish tradition, King Arthur’s golden Round Table lies deep in the earth buried under this earthen mound; only on a Midsummer night does it rise, and then the flash of light from it for a moment illuminates the sky, after which the golden table sinks again. At the end of the world it will come to the surface again and be carried to heaven, and the saints will sit and eat at it, and Christ will serve them.’

Bossiney Mound is about 200 yards from the hotel – a visit just before midnight was the natural appointment. Would the table appear tonight? Of course it wouldn’t, surely.

Paul Broadhurst, an eminent Arthurian writer in modern times, in his book Tintagel and the Arthurian Myths had this to say about Baring-Gould’s words: ‘If the Norman castle had superseded a former ritual site, this fabulous tale of Arthur’s magical table appearing every Summer solstice accompanied by a dramatic light phenomena, could, in mythic terms, signify some ancient understanding of its original purpose.’

We know that Bossiney Mound predates the bigger, more famous Tintagel Castle and we recognise that the grass meadow in front of the mound is surrounded by a strange atmosphere. I have calculated that Bossiney Mound stands on a ley line which began at Looe Island – and this may account for the unusual aura here.

Anyway, there were three hotel visitors, plus yours truly and our Jack Russell terrier Tex, who went to Bossiney Mound that night.