With spooky season nearly upon us, it’s time to get cosy and tell a ghost story or two and here in the UK, we’re never short of a few of those. From the stories of beheaded queens running around the Tower of London to the witch trials and the horrors of Jack the Ripper, there are plenty of spooky tales to tell throughout history. We’ve told you several of them over the years, but we thought for this edition of Horrific History, we’ll be delving into some of the spookiest stories from across the UK.
The hairy hands of Dartmoor
Dartmoor National Park in Devon is home to some really creepy stories. Not only did it inspire Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to write the Hound of the Baskervilles after hearing about so called Yeth Hounds, which are said to roam the moor at night and are considered harbingers of doom, but there are also stories of giants, witches and ghostly visitors to graves. One of the best known spooky stories from Dartmoor however involves a pair of hairy, disembodied hands. Supposedly, people travelling along a stretch of road near Postbridge on Dartmoor have been terrorised by the apparition of a pair of hairy hands that come out of nowhere and attempt to force them off the road. While you might think this is a way to explain dangerous driving, stories of these hands have been popping up since the early 1900s. Everyone from army captains to staff at Dartmoor prison and holiday makers have reported seeing the hands – they don’t always go for moving vehicles either, one woman reported that the disembodied hands attempted to gain access to her caravan after she had set up camp for the night.
While some claim that the incidents can be attributed to people who aren’t familiar with the narrow roads around Dartmoor, others say that the hairy hands are just one of the many spirits that call the moor home. After all, there are many tales of witches, giants, pixies and more from those that live on Dartmoor.
Edinburgh’s underground vaults
You might have heard of Paris’ catacombs, but did you know there is some spooky underground goings on much closer to home? Beneath Edinburgh’s Old City, there are a collection of underground vaults and passageways which you can visit as part of a tour via the team at the Real Mary King’s Close.
These vaults were at one time the home to the city’s poorest and were dark, dank and had little in the way of ventilation. The deepest and most extensive of these can be found at Blair Street, with one of the rooms being used as a tavern dealing in illicit whiskey. Unlike the catacombs in Paris, there has been no discovery of human remains, but that doesn’t mean that people didn’t live and die down there, one particularly restless spirit is a little girl known as Abandoned Annie, who likes to grab the hands of visitors. Today, there is a little altar dedicated to Annie, where you can leave donations which then go towards helping Edinburgh’s sick children.
The Hellfire Caves
No, we’re not talking Stranger Things, we’re talking about actual Hellfire Clubs, a series of secret societies for high ranking individuals in England during the 18th century. The first official Hellfire Club was founded in London in 1718 by the Duke of Wharton but the most famous is the Order of the Friars of St Francis of Wycombe, which was founded by Francis Dashwood and included the Earl of Sandwich as a member. This particular Hellfire Club originally met at a nearby pub before moving into the Hellfire Caves, a series of man made caverns near Medmenham Abbey in West Wycombe.
The caves are now a tourist attraction and are supposedly a hot bed of paranormal activity thanks to the stories of the debauchery that went on there. Records show that the members performed parodies of religious rites, held public sacrifices to Pagan Gods and took part in orgies and other bacchanalian activities. Much of the atmosphere in the caves comes from the insinuation that devil worshipping and blood sacrifices took place here, but there are some stories about ghostly goings on that don’t involve either of those things. One of the spirits said to haunt the caves is that of a young barmaid from the village called Sukie. Sukie was lured to the caves by a group of men and thought she was meeting a wealthy aristocrat who wanted to marry her. Though no one is sure what happened, Sukie never made it home and it is said that she continues to roam the caves. Other stories involve the ghost of Paul Whitehead, who was a member of Dashwood’s club and asked that when he died, that his heart and ashes be kept in the Dashwood Mausoleum. His heart was stolen and he apparently terrorises visitors to the caves, looking for his lost heart.
The empty coffin of Scotney Castle
Scotney Castle in Kent has its own creepy mystery. Originally built as a fortified manor house, the castle became the property of the Darrell family, who then lived there for several generations.
In the 1720s, Arthur Darrell set off to visit Europe, where he passed away. His body was so called returned to the family and they held a funeral for him at Scotney. However, during the service, a strange in black, that was stood among the mourners was said to say “that is me they think they are burying.”
Either no one felt the need to question it at the time or any further conversation has been lost to history, however some 200 years later, Arthur Darrell’s final resting place was excavated and instead of finding his remains, the coffin was full of stones. So, did Arthur fake his own death? Was his body never recovered and a funeral was held anyway? Over the years, there have been several reports of seeing figures climbing out of the moat around the castle, many believe this to be the restless spirit of a revenue collector who was murdered by Arthur before fleeing the country and faking his own death.
The creepy tales of Farleigh Hungerford Castle
Located in Somerset, Farleigh Hungerford Castle has a very interesting history. The castle was initially home to the Hungerford family, who lost it during the Wars of the Roses and then regained it again following the Battle of Bosworth. Sir Edward Hungerford was one of the attendants at Henry VIII’s Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520, so this family was a pretty big deal. He also married a murderer – his second wife, Agnes Cotell, was convicted of murdering her first husband, Sir Edward’s steward by throttling him and then disposing of him in the kitchen furnace. She ended up being executed at Tyburn.
Want more? Sir Edward’s successor, Walter worked for Thomas Cromwell and eventually became Lord Hungerford. He might have been in favour, but his wife wasn’t, so he had her imprisoned at Farleigh Hungerford Castle. The so called Lady Tower was her home for three years where she was forced to survive by drinking her own urine and relying on smuggled morsels from the castle’s staff.
That’s still not the creepiest thing about Farleigh Hungerford Castle. Beneath the castle chapel, in the crypt you’ll find a collection of anthropoid coffins, which are lead caskets in the shape of people. There are 8 in total, and it is easy to see which ones are for children, which ones are for women and which ones are for men. The coffins contain some of the Hungerford family and date back to the 1600s. That’s still not the creepiest thing – in the 1800s, people would come to visit the castle and drink coffin juices from these anthropoid coffins. Over the years, holes were drilled into the lead and visitors could try the corpse infused liquids. Coffin liquor is produced when improperly preserved corpses liquify, thankfully, though you can visit Farleigh Hungerford Castle, you can no longer drink from the coffins.
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