This is an extract from 'Spectral Suffolk', (c)Eric Quigley, Nicola Jordan, CJ, 1992

It appears by kind permission of the authors, and is a chunk of the unedited draft, sans illustrations, funky bits and style. It is not a good way to judge the final version which is miles better!

C

CAVENDISH: Cavendish is close to Borley and apparently determined to rival it. Supposedly haunted by phantom nuns, ghostly hovering lights and an associated drop in temperature. I once experienced a drop in temperature while sitting in my room telling ghost stories and we were quite spooked until a down to earth meteorology student confirmed a drop over the whole area at that time showed up her records!

CHELMONDISTON: Chelmondiston Rectory was haunted, and may still be so. The story goes that the ghost was a former vicar, the Reverend Richard Howarth who was notoriously mean. On one occasion he visited an elderly parishioner and as she was very sick and very poor he promised he would send her "something nice." The next day she was the lucky recipient of ... a cabbage!!! Said to be a miser who hid his vast wealth it is possible that he is trying to lead someone to where he stashed his horde in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Whatever the reason heavy booted footsteps were frequently heard on the stairs when there was no one there, and in 1890 the ghost of the former parson was seen.

CLARE: While investigating another case a charming lady told me how her husband was stopped in his tracks at a certain point on the stairs at Clare Maltings. It is tempting to believe he is picking up on the psychic echoes of some past tragedy.

COOKLEY: A house at Cookley was for many years two workers cottages. An upper room at one end of the house has a "presence" and at least one child refused to sleep in it. Some have suggested that the "presence" is linked to the fact that a previous owner's wife accidently caught fire in the room, although she did not die and later recovered fully. It is unsure whether the presence is a psychic echo of the tragedy or is in fact the cause of the accident.

COVEHITHE: The churchyard at Covehithe is reputedly haunted by a faceless lady. It may be interesting to consider this in the light of one of the author's psychic experience on the Horringer Court estate, Bury St Edmunds.

CRESSING: A haunted railway carriage used to be kept here but is now at Elsenham in Essex. It was the last coach in Winston Churchill's funeral train, but the spectre is not that of the great statesman but is the revenant of a girl murdered in the coach many years ago. The story reminds me of the well known american legend which holds that Abraham Lincoln's funeral train still runs along the path it followed, and is frequently seen...

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DAGWORTH: Noone seems to know where this lost Suffolk village was, and whether it was destroyed by the Black Death or just changed it's name. It was the site in the twelth century of one of the earliest recorded poltergeist outbreaks in Britain, unless of course the whole story and the village prove to be fabrications. I found the story in Harry Price's (of Borley fame) 1945 book "Poltergeist over England" where he cites Ralph of Coggeshall's "Chronicon Anglicanum". The outbreak in 1190 occured in the manor house of Sir Osborne of Bradaewelle, where a voice told all and sundry the secret sins and vices of the inhabitants. The usual throwing of objects also occured according to Price.

DEDHAM: The Sun Inn at Dedham, on the border with Essex, is home to a haunting with a claim to fame - someone wrote a whole novel about it. In 1980 Terry Palmer a local journalist completed "Spook in the Well", published by Corgi. Another fascinating feature is the fact the ghost is seen at midday, and only midday. I find this lack of the usual nocturnal cliche both refreshing and suggestive of authenticity, but I do wonder if the ghost adjusts to compensate for British Summer Time?

The ghost is that of a girl in full skirts seen on the staircase between the two bars. On one occasion she appeared dressed in a brown skirt, weeping, this time sitting on the staircase. The legend says that the men of Dedham burnt her as a witch on the watermeadow behind the pub, but Palmer's book is more respectful of history and has "Elsa" hanged in 1773 (rather late for witchtrials though!) and her corpse thrown down the inn well. Some authorities say the ghost girl is only visible to women, and its easy to see why she might bear a slight grudge against men!

DUNWICH: A lost city, Dunwich was one of the major ports of medieval England and a thriving city until the great gale of January 1326 silted up the harbour. Trade moved to Ipswich and Dunwich went into decline; with the loss of prosperity the sea-wall and timber bundles which defended the coast were more and more neglected until finally almost all of the city fell away into the sea. A single ruined church still stands and is reputedly haunted, and the usual phantom monks prowl the building, the ruins of Greyfriar's monastery. The most famous story associated with the site however is that of the bells of the submerged churches which are still said to ring out under the sea!

Under the water the murk is thick and visibility almost zero. A diver must grope around the seabed and trust to instinct, and several divers have complained of the uncomfortable feeling they were not alone while diving amidst the sunken ruins. Safely back on the beach you may well see a young man clad in the bright clothing of an Elizabethan sailor. Don't hail him; he is another of Dunwich's many ghosts...

Inland lies modern Dunwich and the woods. If you go down to these woods tonight you could be in for a very big surprise, for they are roamed by not one but two ghosts! The first has a pretty story attached. In life he was the brother of the Lord of the manor who wished for nothing more than to be allowed to marry his true love. Sadly this was not allowed for she was a mere serving maid and his brother expressly forbade them to marry. Furthermore he was never allowed to see the girl again. In despair he took to wandering the path that leads through the woods hoping for a glimpse of her, but alas this was not to be. One day he could stand it no longer and dropped dead of a broken heart. So the story goes; I personally suspect pneumonia caught from the biting cold wind off the sea more than a heavy heart as the reason for this romantic heroes demise! At least today he has more company of equal social stature, for the other apparition is that of a Victorian squire galloping through the woods on a fine Arab horse, doubtless off to evict some poor widow into the snow or tie an innocent hearted maid to a railway track, moustache twiddling as he does. Well it's a nice idea anyway...

No ghost book is complete without a shaggy dog story and Old Shuck, eyes as big as saucers pads his way down to Dunwich headland to scare to death those unfortunate enough to see him cross their path. Dunwich lives on in the imagination of horror story lovers, in the story "The Dunwich Horror" by the American writer H.P.Lovecraft, although his Dunwich is a fictitious town in Massachusetts, U.S.A.

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ELMSWELL: At "Willow Farm" in 1988 the then owner dug up a horse head. The farm has no history of haunting but I mention this in connection with spirit wards, which are discussed in detail in the entry for Fakenham Magna.

ELSENHAM (ESSEX): A haunted railway carriage today stands here. However it used to be at Cressing in Suffolk and details may be found under that entry...

ELVEDEN: Black cat sighting. (See under "Thetford Forest") Elveden also boasts the most impressive war memorial I have ever seen. Watch out for it as you drive down the A11...

ERISWELL: In August 1989 a Bury man and his family were enjoying a quiet drink in the car park of "The Chequers" at Eriswell when they saw a large black cat run across the field beside the car park, "about the size of a labrador". Several others then saw the cat, which was by this time about a quarter mile distant across the field. Enquiries directed at locals were answered with the claim that black pumas were a common sight and didn't harm anybody. I would suggest a safari in Suffolk could reap rich rewards if anyone owns a telescopic lens camera.

EXNING: An amusing story is told of Exning. A house in the village was once a brothel and since that time only women feel comfortable there, men feeling quite unwelcome. Indeed if a couple move in divorce is said to be inevitable!

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FAKENHAM MAGNA: "Park Cottages" date back to the seventeenth century, and here we find an unusual story dating from the 1970's. During this period builders were called in to make some major structural alterations and in the process discovered two mummified cats in the roof space. Curious and undeterred they continued work, only to find the remains of another cat with two kittens in the wall spaces.

This is in fact not that unusual. In ancient times it was customary to place a human sacrifice under the foundations of any new bridge or important structure, and in Denmark a horse was often used for this purpose. (See entry for Elmswell for possible Suffolk example). Cats were incorporated in new buildings so their spirits would act to ward off witches and ghosts; small glass balls were sometimes hung from windows for exactly the same purpose and can be seen in New England to this day. (See the entry on Thorington Hall for another ghost-ward)!

Evidently the cats were succeeding in keeping the spooks away. The site foreman decided the cats would make an interesting souvenir and took them home with him to Ingham. Immediately things started to happen. Workmen at the cottages noticed a strange atmosphere, one hefty Glaswegian brickie telling a reporter he was "totally afraid" while at the site. Another worker kept a pick axe handle to hand after hearing footsteps coming down the gravel drive! Then most of the workers heard footsteps walking on what used to be a ceiling - but they had just finished removing it! Meanwhile over at Ingham the site foreman's wife started to hear strange noises and a tapping at the kitchen door. Although I don't know for certain I suspect the cats were hastily reinterred.

I have a suspicion that what was happening here was classic poltergeist behaviour: something about removing the cats preyed on the foreman's conscience, until he started to create the haunting by his own psychic abilities. Far fetched? Maybe, but Corder's skull (Bury St. Edmunds) seems another case of a similar nature and recently one highly respected authority on crop circles suffered a poltergeist outbreak after removing a soil sample from a (subsequently proven to be) hoaxed formation. Draw your own conclusions.

FARTHING DROVE: Farthing Drove is a tiny hamlet on the edge of the Suffolk Fens and home to several stories. The phantom cyclist is listed under the entry for Lakenheath. In 1949 however a poltergeist at Farthing Drove plantation became so severe that a respected exorcist was called in to deal with the problem. Milk in the dairy was upset at midnight and washing was hoisted off the clothes lines by unseen hands. These tyricks sound very similar to the doings of the seventeenth century witches and I wonder how many innocent old ladies suffered for the pranks of the "noisy spirit." Lest these incidents seem to be too trivial to be taken seriously there are several accounts in the annals of psychical research of seemingly paranormal disruption of washing... perhaps the insanitary spectre has replaced the sanitary inspector!

FLEMPTON: In 1982 three chaps were walking through the snow in the woods east of Flempton when they came across what appeared to be giant cat's pawprints in the snow. They took notice largely because a local woman had seen a black cat there earlier that week and one of the chap's wives had seen a cat the size of a dog there earlier that week! One of them took several photographs of the prints with a packet of cigarettes by them to give scale but the photographs have since been mislaid.

FORNHAM ST. GENEVIEVE: There are many stories of phantom battles that are still refought, but the best known is probably that of Edgehill from the English Civil War which still reputedly replays in the Warwickshire skies. Unfortunately it is hard to distinguish between truth and seventeenth century propaganda! The only "replay" of a battle of which I am aware in Suffolk is that of the Battle of Fornham St.Genevieve which took place in October 1173.

During the troubled reign of Henry II the Earl of Leicester staged a rebellion. He landed at Walton-on-the Naze with 300 Flemish mercenaries, a body of archers and some forty knights he had persuaded to join his cause. After unsucessfully attacking Dunwich (then an important port) he marched on to Risby, en route to Leicester where presumably he intended to raise a more substantial force.

In the meantime the King's loyal supporters had not been idle. The Lord Chief Justice of England Sir Robert de Lucy gathered together 300 knights and proceeded to Bury where he was joined by the High Constable Sir Hugh de Bohun and the earls of Gloucester, Arundel and Cornwall. Between them they raised a force of some 1,200 Bury men who were willing to fight for their cause and the future of the Crown. (It is ironic that forty two years later the Barons met again at Bury to draw up and prepare the Magna Carta, designed to limit the power of the Crown.)

Battle was inevitable. The Royalist forces took the high ground on Barton Hill, and watched as Leicester's tiny rebel force attempted to ford the Lark. It is said that the Earl's men were unable to find a crossing place, although this seems hard to believe today, for the river rarely exceeds four feet in depth, although things may have been different then. Perhaps Leicester decided the crossing would disorganise and weary his men and allow the enemy to fall on them from behind.

Leicester must have realised defeat was inevitable. None the less he drew up his men and prepared to make a stand on Fornham meadows with the river protecting his right flank. He made a heroic speech, and seems to have truly inspired his road weary and out numbered forces.

The battle began with the heroic charge of Walter Fitz-Robert who was beaten back. Then the Earl of Arundel marched forward, only to be met with withering fire from Leicester's archers. This was followed immediately by a charge by the High Constable's knights. It is fascinating to try to imagine the armour, plumes and pennants fluttering from the steel tipped lances as the mighty war horses thundered down the hill and across the meadows towards Leicester's tired men. One hundred men, mainly archers were captured yet still the rebel ranks held.

De Lucy decided enough was enough and through his main force forward to the attack. Leicester's wife now fled in terror, losing her jewellery and to no avail as she was captured by the (hopefully) gallant knight Sir Walter de Wahull. Leicester saw his mercenaries cut down and no realised the day was lost. Falling back to the parish church of St. Genevieve (this particular building burnt down in 1782) he and his knights made a desparate stand, until overwhelmed by weight of numbers they chose surrender rather than death. It was a wise choice, for the prisoners were merely deported to Normandy and then confined to Calais for their treason...

FORNHAM ST. MARTIN: Black Shuck was seen here by a chap in the late seventies. A few days later his brother died, so it seems the spectral hound may have been an omen or death warning. Another story from Fornham is fortunately a little less grim. A young lady of my acquaintance saw a male pair of legs in smart trousers in her bedroom one day in the 1980's. No body, just the legs! She found the incident more amusing than alarming and told me the apparition was sepia in colour, like a faded out old photograph.

In the nineteenth century the ghost of Old Red Hannah was said to linger around the gates of Fornham Park and scare the local children.

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