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Ashwell Walks Podcast: Episode 3: Who’s afraid of the ghost?
Hello, and welcome to the Ashwell Walks podcast Episode 3. Who’s afraid of the ghost? My name is Sally Fletcher and I have written this Ashwell Walk all about the ghost stories of Ashwell. Our walk begins, on Lucas Lane, the eastern section of the main road through the centre of Ashwell, and it will take about an hour to complete If you need to drive to the start, head for the junction between Lucas Lane and Station road, where the war memorial stands. You may park your car on Lucas Lane opposite the recreation ground. The walk begins at the end of the drive leading to Townsend house, number 24 Lucas Lane. The house cannot be seen from the road, but the cottage to the left of the driveway has a distinctive round window. Pause this podcast until you are standing on Lucas Lane by the driveway leading to Townsend house, then re-start it. With the driveway on your left walk along Lucas Lane towards the centre of the village. We will begin our journey with the tale of the phantom coach and horses. On dark wintry nights when the moon is almost full, there have been sightings of a Victorian coach and horses galloping along the road between Ashwell and Bygrave. You are now following the first part of that fateful coach’s journey. On the night of Sunday, November 26th in 1871, Mr and Mrs John Westrope had been to a dinner party in Weston. They had travelled by coach hired from the Rose and Crown Inn in Baldock. Late in the evening they returned to their home, Prospect House, which is now Townsend House where we began our walk. It was a wild night with lashing wind and heavy rain and the Westropes were relieved to have arrived home safely. The coach and horses however, still had to return to Baldock. The coachman took the road over Claybush Hill that links Ashwell with Bygrave and Baldock. About a or so mile outside Ashwell the road crosses Cat Ditch, the Medieval Parish boundary and as it does so it takes a sudden and treacherous turn. In the rain and the dark the tired coachman missed this bend and ended up in the ditch, which was so full of rushing water that he was carried all the way to Newnham. In the darkness and confusion he sadly lost his life. He supposedly still drives his coach along the road when the moon is almost full trying to return his horses to their stable. Carry on walking towards the centre of the village and Lucas Lane will become High Street. You are heading for St Mary’s church and the tower is easily visible above the rooftops. Walk until you reach the crossroads where the High Street, Kingsland way and Hodwell meet. Here the ill-fated coach would have turned left up the hill to reach the road to Bygrave but we will turn to the right down Hodwell instead. Pause this podcast until you are standing on the junction between High Street and Hodwell, then re-start it. Follow the curving route of Hodwell round towards the left until you reach the churchyard of St Mary’s. Follow the fence-line along until you reach the junction with Swan Street. Continue in the same direction along Swan Street. and walk until you can see Number 5, Tower Cottage on the left side of the road. Pause this podcast until you are standing opposite Tower Cottage, then re-start it. This unassuming white house is said to have a haunted cellar with a ghost that likes to thump and bump about. What could it be looking for? Potatoes? A misplaced bottle of ale? Or could it have wandered over from the nearby churchyard? We may never know. It is likely to be shy of visitors however, so do not linger here but walk on to the junction with Mill Street, turn right and walk down Mill Street to find the churchyard entrance marked by a lychgate. This is a roofed gateway that stands on the opposite side of the road from Crumps the Butchers. . Pause this podcast until you are standing at the St Mary’s lychgate, then re-start it. Stand so you can see the lychgate clearly but resist the temptation to enter the churchyard. The small gateway with its tiled roof dates to the 15th century. Many churches have these small gatehouses marking the entrance to the churchyard but the double form of this one is unusual.. The name lychgate comes from the old English word for a corpse – lych. The lychgate, or corpse-gate if you like, was where the vicar, or priest, would come to meet the coffin and mourners. The coffin would wait beneath the gateway and here the funeral rites would begin. I can’t help wondering if St Mary’s unusual gate allowed space for both the coffin and mourners to be sheltered from the weather. Either way, this gate has played its part in bidding farewell to loved ones for over five hundred years. Keep the church on your right and walk down Mill Street. Just after you pass the Bushell and Strike pub on your left you will see white house called Ashe Cottage on the same side of the street. Pause this podcast until you are standing by Ashe Cottage, then re-start it. One moonlit night about one hundred and seventy years ago Georgina Covington left Ashe Cottage to walk to Friday-night choir practice and got the fright of her life. Let’s re-trace her steps by walking through the iron kissing gate leading into the churchyard. You will see it on the opposite side of the road a few steps further down Mill Street. Walk through the graveyard, passing St Mary’s north porch on your right and on towards the other, eastern end of the church. Here, on the right you will see a small door leading into the chancel – the area where the altar is found. Stand so this door is on your right and look ahead into the graveyard. You will see a small gravel path leading to a large square house, the Old Rectory, ahead. Pause this podcast until you are standing by the chancel door, looking to the Old Rectory. Until 2011 St Mary’s vicars lived in the rectory and this path was their route to church. On that fateful night however, before she reached the church to meet with the other choir members, Georgina saw a headless figure, dressed all in black on the path. Horrified she watched the ghostly apparition glide silently up to the chancel door, then suddenly vanish. So overcome was she by the sight that as soon as she opened the door she fell to the chancel floor in a dead faint. Needless-to-say choir practice was cancelled that night. Although no-one has seen the ghostly figure since, it is said to bring bad luck if sighted. It certainly was bad luck for Georgina who sustained rather a nasty bump to her head. Walk on around the church, keeping it on your right side until you have walked right round and back to the lychgate. As you walk up towards the lychgate you will see the area of the churchyard to your right has no gravestones. This is because this is the final resting place of all the victims of the Black Death, bubonic plague, that came to Ashwell in 1349. The Black Death spread into Europe from Asia through Italy. Horrific symptoms were associated with the disease and I will spare you the worst details but it was called the Black Death because an infected person developed egg-sized black swellings called ‘buboes’ in the neck, groin and armpit. In a world that lacked antibiotics death followed rapidly. It is estimated that, worldwide, bubonic plague killed up to two hundred million people. Traditionally, rats were blamed for carrying the fleas that carried the infection. Now careful modelling of disease transmission indicates that it was human fleas and lice that were responsible. So stop blaming the rats! In Hertfordshire, between a third and a half of the population perished; the very young and old were most vulnerable. In some Hertfordshire villages, the mortality rate was above 70 per cent. So as you pass by, give a thought to the victims whose families has no time to even erect a headstone. I hope they are resting in peace. Exit the churchyard through the lychgate and turn left to walk back up Mill Street towards the timber-framed building that houses the Ashwell Museum. Then continue up the alleyway called Alms Lane to the left of Ashwell Museum which will bring you to the High Street. While we walk let us think about some of the things people did in earlier times in order to ward off evil spirits. Graffitied symbols were used to protect against witches between the 16th and early 19th centuries. Examples can be seen carved into the walls of St Mary’s church but they have also been found in old houses and barns. Marks were scratched into stone or woodwork near doorways, windows and fireplaces, to protect inhabitants and visitors from evil. A common type of mark is a daisy wheel made using a pair of compasses to draw a six-petalled flower. The endless lines were supposed to confuse and trap evil spirits. Other common marks are concentric circles, an endlessly entwined Solomon’s knot, and the letters VV or AM, which refer to the Virgin Mary. Pause this podcast until you have walked down Alms Lane, arriving at High Street. Turn right and walk a short distance until you are standing in front of the Rose and Crown pub on the left side of the road, then restart it. The Rose and Crown is the oldest pub in the village and may well have been an inn since it was built in the late 15th century. The building has two ghosts – and both appear to be sociable and friendly as you might expect of ghosts that live in a pub. One is a gentlemen wearing striped socks who wanders around, the other ghost plays a spectral piano. On dark wintry nights you may catch a faint echo of ghostly music if you are walking home late. Perhaps you can pop in and raise a glass to the friendly spectres. Walk through the Rose and Crown car park and continue along the footpath in the right-hand corner, which will lead you to Silver Street. Taking care as you emerge from the footpath, cross the street and turn right towards the junction with Bear Lane. Walk the short distance to the junction leaving Ashwell Primary school on your left. Keen as I was to have spooky tales of demonic teachers and vampire dinner ladies it appears that since it opened in 1878, the scariest thing to happen in the school is long division. Pause this podcast until you are standing on the junction between Bear Lane and Silver Street, then re-start it. Cross Bear Lane and walk on down Back Street. We are now going to walk to the western end of Ashwell. Take care at the far end of Back Street, once you have passed Wilson’s Lane, because the pavement has only a ghostly presence and is largely invisible. As we walk let’s talk about witches. In the past, people took witches, demons, ghosts, elves and goblins far more seriously than they do today. Of all these supernatural beings witches were the most frightening because they existed in human form. Worse still they could be living nearby disguised as friend or a neighbour. Prosecutions for the crime of witchcraft were at their highest between 1580 and 1630. At this time many rural towns and villages had healers who practised magic and dealt in herbs and medicines. Many of these were older women, and often they were poor. In a superstitious society these were the people most vulnerable to the accusation of being a witch. The Calendar of Assize Records in the reign of James I mentions that Agnes Smyth, a widow of Ashwell was charged with witchcraft. She was accused of bewitching both people and horses to death between 1605 and 1615. She was put on trial twice and the second time found guilty of only one of the charges – of bewitching a horse. She was nonetheless sentenced to death. Witch hunting gripped East Anglia between 1644 and 1647. The area was Puritan in its outlook and easily persuaded that witches were a real threat. A man called Matthew Hopkins, set himself up as the ‘Witchfinder General’ and was responsible for over 300 executions in towns such as Bury St Edmunds, Chelmsford and King Lynn. Professional witch finders earned a rich living from revealing witches. If you had the misfortune to have any kind of physical blemish such as moles, warts, birth marks, facial hair or flea bites you could be accused of having Devils Marks. These would be tested by pricking under the belief that a Devils Mark would not bleed when pricked with something sharp like a needle or pin. The charming Matthew Hopkins, mindful of his witch finding fee, used a spike mounted in a hollow wooden handle. The retractable blade gave the appearance of piercing the accused’s flesh without drawing blood or causing pain. The swimming test was similarly loaded in the witch finder’s favour. Tied up and flung into a river or pond – only those innocent of witchcraft would drown. If you survived you were sentenced to death as a witch. The accused would lose their life either way. Fortunately for the older female population of East Anglia, Matthew Hopkins died in 1647 but not before he had published The Discovery of Witches. In the years that followed, the contents of this book helped to guide the trials and executions for witchcraft in America. Some of Hopkins' methods for example, were used in the Salem witch trials. Walk on comforted by the knowledge that laws against witchcraft were repealed from 1736 allowing many women of a certain age to be left to live their lives in peace. Walk until you can see the junction where Back Street meets the main road again marked by a small thatched cottage. Just before the junction there is a footpath leading off to the right. Follow this a short way until you are once again standing on the main routeway through the village – here called West End. Pause this podcast until you are standing where the footpath meets the main road at West End, then re-start it. We are now standing in the stomping ground – or should I say swooping ground – of the West End ghost. This mysterious shrouded figure is said to like sitting on the high walls you can see running alongside the road in this part of the village. These walls once surrounded Mr Joshua Pages, brewery house – now known as Westbury house. On dark nights the ghostly white form will suddenly swoop down on any hapless female walking past but apparently it is never seen by men. Perhaps he’s a colleague of Matthew Hopkins, looking for witches? Ladies therefore take extra care, when walking to the Village Hall at night -you have been warned. Don’t look up. We are now going to begin the return to the start of our walk at the eastern end of the village. Continue back along West End towards the village centre where the road once again becomes known as High Street. Pass Wilsons Lane on your right and walk on until you reach a building at 91, High Street called Dixies Farmhouse, also on your right. It stands opposite an open field known locally as Donkey Meadow. As we walk let’s think about other ways that people protected themselves from ghouls, goblins, witches and wizards in days gone by – other, that is, than by putting innocent women to death. One option was to prepare a witch's bottle. The person who believed they had been bewitched would place their own urine, hair or nail clippings in a bottle. They might also add rosemary, needles or pins and red wine or port. The bottle would then be hidden in the house, beneath the hearth or in the roof, walls or perhaps the chimney. There it would quietly capture evil, by impaling it on the pins, or drowning it in the wine. Rosemary was believed to send the evil away. As long as the bottle remained hidden and unbroken – it would continue to do its job. Another intriguing practice was hiding shoes around the house. The Hidden Shoe Index at Northampton Museum, (yes did hear that correctly – the Index was begun by a curator there in the 1950s). The Hidden Shoe Index lists about 3,000 shoes found all over the UK, although the south-east of England seems to have the most examples. The earliest hidden shoe was found behind the Winchester Cathedral choir stalls, which were installed in 1308. Like witch bottles, shoes were tucked away in places where easy access could be gained by a malevolent spirit such as chimneys or fireplaces. They were perhaps supposed to stop witches or other supernatural threats coming into the house – although no-one is really sure. The practice continued for hundreds of years but finally seems to have died out around 1900. Pause this podcast until you are standing outside 91, High Street, Dixies Farmhouse, then re-start it. Turn and look at numbers 91, and 93 High Street as both houses were once one and formed the farmhouse for Dixies Farm. The building dates from the late 15th or early 16th century – so it is at least 500 years old. It is the only building from Dixies Farm that survived the Great Fire of Ashwell in 1850. The fire started near Wilson’s Lane which you have just walked past and destroyed a significant part of the village. Dixies Farm lost all its farm buildings but they were re-built on the old court-yard plan. You can now see this as Dixies Yard to the left of the farmhouse. These buildings were re-purposed as houses and business units in the late 1970s. Inside Ashwell Museum there is a large stone with a hole through the middle that once hung in the stable of Dixies Farm. Stones like this are called witch stones, hag stones, hex stones, fairy stones, eye stones or just holy stones and have been credited with incredible powers against evil forces. After the fire the stone was not re-hung in the new stable at Dixies Farm. Three horses were then struck down by a disease of their glands and, surprisingly, a horse doctor recommended replacing the hanging charm. The stone was duly hung from the rafters and the horses supposedly suffered no more ill-health. Stones with a naturally formed hole through the middle are also believed to protect from witches, nightmares, human illness, storms at sea and snakes. Farmers would hang a witch stone outside barns to protect their cows’ milk from turning sour and to prevent horses from being taken for a night-time gallop by witches - presumably when their broomsticks were in for repair. Now walk further along the High Street towards the village centre until you see Bear Lane on the right. Pause this podcast until you are standing next to Bear Lane on the right, then re-start it. Standing on the corner of the High Street and Bear Lane is Bear House. This home is more than 500 years old and marks the last point of interest on this ghostly-themed walk. Not to be outdone by the Rose and Crown nearby, it is also said to have two ghosts – one can’t help wondering if the pub ghosts and the house ghosts ever visit each other for a pint. If you have a car to collect continue walking down the High Street back towards Lucas Lane and Townsend House where we began our walk. Do be careful not to encounter anything ghostly as you go. You have been listening to Sally Fletcher and the Ashwell Walks podcast, Episode 3, Who’s Afraid of the ghost? I do hope this walk hasn’t left you too worried about ghoulish inhabitants in Ashwell as most of us are friendly and very much alive. You could always try popping a shoe up your chimney just in case. I’d like to thank Juliet Shackleton for getting in touch about Ashwell’s ghosts and Christine Schwick for suggesting the spooky theme for this walk. I’d also like to thank David Short for his information about Agnes Smyth. If you have something to share with the Ashwell walks team please do email us on [email protected] . As a final bit of entertainment please keep listening for this episode’s bloopers. ..................................................................................... Cover photo by Diane Jacoutot Music in this podcast: I'm Afraid to Come Home in the Dark by Billy Murray Don’t Be Afraid by Brad Parsons Band Ghost by Rachel Ries Be Not Afraid By Robert Farmer Every Ghost by Flugeldar Cinematic Chanting Gregor Quendel One Night Stand with a Ghost by The Deltorers Ghost by Forget the Whale Ghost Surf Rock by Loyalty Freak Music Have You Seen the Ghost of John? by The Undermasks Witch Hunt by Dead End Canada Old House by David Mumford Ghost Story By KerryDan
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AuthorAshwell Walks have been created by Dr Sally Fletcher and produced by Diane Jacoutot. Archives
October 2020
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