Some Haunted Houses of England & Wales.

by Elliott O'Donnell

PREFACE

The publication from which the following extracts are taken was printed at Northampton (where the original may still be seen, August 1908) in the year 1764.

It appears that the author, who was officiating there as temporary chaplain to the jail, was a man of indisputable and well-known integrity, and a very popular preacher throughout the county.

In order to render his work useful and instructive, innumerable references are made to the Scriptures, but his quotations are of too great a length for the following abridged tract, which is copied from the original and contains only the account of the interview the author had with Croxford’s Ghost.

THE GHOST

It appears from the account given in a pamphlet reprinted and sold by G. Henson, Letterpress and Copper-plate Printer, Bridge Street, Northampton, 1848, that on Saturday, August 4, 1764, John Croxford, together with three others of the names of Seamark, Deacon and Butlin were tried at the Assizes of Northampton and convicted of murder.

It came out at the trial that the unfortunate victim was a native of Scotland, travelling with goods, and that by chance he called at the house of Seamark, a shepherd’s hut in the parish of Guilsborough, Northamptonshire, where Croxford and his companions used to meet, where they robbed and afterwards cruelly murdered him, and in order to prevent a discovery consumed his body in an oven; which was proved on the evidence of one of Seamark’s children, who was an eye-witness to the transaction, by looking through the crevices of the floor from the room above.

They were all found guilty and executed on August 4, 1764, and Croxford’s body hung in chains on Hollowell Heath, in the parish of Guilsborough, near the spot where the horrid deed was perpetrated—(and no spot more suggestive of such a tragedy could be imagined).

The author of the work—at that time (1764) holding the appointment of chaplain to the Northampton Jail—after quoting passages from various writers to prove the reality of the subject, proceeds to give an account of the appearance of Croxford’s Ghost, as follows:

“I shall now proceed without further lett or impediment to a plain and conscientious account of the ghost or apparition which was the occasion of my troubling the world with this narrative; unless I first observe that the behaviour of the prisoners, one of whom is the subject of these pages, lately tried, condemned and executed at Northampton, for the murder of a person unknown, upon the evidence of Ann Seamark and her son, about nine or ten years old, was such as astonished every beholder....

“Clear and conclusive as the evidence was against them, no arguments, even after condemnation, though delivered and enforced with the utmost energy, precision and perspicuity by a learned and worthy divine, were able to reach their hardened hearts and prevail for an open and unreserved confession of their guilt. Even at the gallows, in their last addresses to the people, they insisted on their innocence in the strongest terms imaginable; wishing the heaviest penalties an offended God could inflict might be their portion in the next world, if they were guilty of the murder that was laid to their charge and for which they were about to suffer.

“Thus did they divide the sentiments of the crowd that many were brought over to a full persuasion of their innocence, while others were left halting between two opinions and severely agitated with conflicting doubts. But mark the event.

“After having instructed my people as a teacher in the knowledge of the Scriptures, I used to spend the superfluous hours of the Lord’s Day in perusing some part or other of the Old and New Testament.

“Accordingly, on August 12, 1764, being the Sabbath, I returned as usual into my study, the door of which is secured by a lock with a spring-bolt, and sat down to my accustomed evening devotion; the business of this day by rotation laying in the New Testament, and in that part of it where St. Paul in his Epistle to the Corinthians proposes, maintains and proves the resurrection of the body. Struck with the sublimity of his thoughts, boldness of his figures, and energy of his diction, and convinced by the number and weight of his arguments, and looking with a pleasing foretaste of happiness into futurity, I was on a sudden surprised with the perfect form and appearance of a man, who stood erect at a small distance from my right side.

“Conscious that the door was locked and that there was no other means by which my visitor could have entered, I was considerably surprised—surprise turning into abject terror—when, glancing with irresistible fascination at the man, I perceived in him something indefinably but most unmistakably Unnatural.

“Feeling sure that I was in the actual presence of an apparition, I contrived, by an almost superhuman effort, I admit, to sum up sufficient courage to speak—my voice seeming dry and unrecognisable.

“I addressed it in the power and spirit of the Gospel; inquiring on what errand it was sent; what was intended by such an application, and what services could be expected from a person of so little note and mean abilities as myself.

“I must here state that although the spectre had inspired me with so much awe, I did not associate it with anything EVIL.

“Every second tended to strengthen my composure, and when it spoke in a voice rather more hollow and intense, perhaps, than that of a human being, my fears were instantly dissipated. I was now able to take a close stock of it, and observed that in features, general appearance, and clothes it closely resembled any ordinary labouring man; it was in expression and colouring, only it differed—its eyes were lurid, its cheeks livid.

“Raising one extremely white and emaciated hand, it desired me to compose myself, saying that as it was now strictly limited by a Superior Power, and could do no one act but by the permission of God, I had no reason to be afraid, abrupt as was its appearance, and that if I would endeavour to overcome the visible perturbation I was in, it would proceed in the business of its errand.

“At this announcement my heart fluttered with an excitement I found difficult to control. Was the wonderful mystery that had hitherto enshrouded the existence and composition of the Unknown about to be revealed to me—was I going to be initiated into those secrets heretofore denied to man? Eagerly promising to compose myself, and lost to all else save the fascinating presence of my guest, I settled down to listen to anything the phantasm might have to say.

“The room, I must here state, was lighted by a single, though rather powerful, double-wick oil lamp, which I had always deemed sufficient to illuminate the whole apartment, but which now—and I could not help noticing the phenomenon—did not extend its rays beyond the cadaverous face of my intruder, upon which the full force of its light seemed concentrated.

“Commencing in clear and solemn tones, the phantasm stated that it was one of the unhappy prisoners executed at Northampton on the 4th of August, 1764.

“A cold chill ran down my back at this announcement, which was intensified when I recognised for the first time that the figure confronting me bore a startling likeness to one of the prisoners it had been my unhappy lot to address prior to his execution: there was the same hair, brows and beard—black and stubby; the protruding forehead and retreating chin that had so repelled me, the malshaped head and the broken, unsavoury-looking teeth; it was indeed the ghost of one of those diabolical miscreants that stood before me, and, despite the fact that I was brought up in the strict Protestant faith, I inadvertently crossed myself.

“The spectre went on without apparently heeding my action.

“‘It had been,’ so it proclaimed, ‘the principal and ringleader of the gang, most of whom it had corrupted, debauched and seduced to that deplorable method of life, and it was particularly appointed by Providence to undeceive the world and remove those doubts which the solemn protestations of their innocence to the very hour of death had raised in the minds of all who heard them.’

“At this juncture, excitement overcoming fear and aversion, I hazarded to inquire of the phantasm its name.

“Its reply, delivered in the same slow, measured, almost mechanical tones (as if it were only the mouth-organ of some other and unseen agency) was to the effect that its name was John Croxford; that it had express directions to come to me—directions it could not disobey; it furthermore explained the reason the murderers had so persistently insisted on their innocence, lay in the fact, that, while the blood of their victim was still warm, they entered into a sacramental obligation, which they sealed by dipping their fingers in the blood of the deceased and licking the same, by which they bound themselves under the penalty of eternal damnation never to betray the fact themselves nor to confess, if condemned to die for it on the evidence of others, and that they were further encouraged to such measures, since, as Seamark himself was a confederate in the murder, they concluded the evidence of his wife would not be admitted; that as the child was so young, they presumed no judge or jury would pay the least regard to his depositions; that as Butlin had but lately entered into a confederacy with them, and no robberies could be readily proved against him, they thought it would appear impossible for one of his age to begin a career of wickedness with murder (it being observed in a proverb that no man is abandoned all at once); that if they could invalidate the evidence on behalf of Butlin it must be of equal advantage to them all; that though disappointed of this view in court and condemned to die upon the above evidence, they were still infatuated with the same notion even at the gallows, and expected a reprieve for Butlin when the halter was about his neck, and consequently, if such a reprieve had been granted, as the evidence was as full and decisive against Butlin as against them, the sentence for the murder must have been withdrawn from all, their execution deferred, and perhaps transportation only their final punishment.”

Though listening to every word with abnormal attention, I became at the same time aware of a strange and uncanny feeling that the identity of the phantasm was but partly revealed to me in the corpse-like figure opposite; what its true and entire nature might be I dared not even hazard a conjecture.

In the pause that followed its last speech, more to hear myself speak than anything else (I could not endure the silence of THIS THING), I asked if the evidence of the woman and child was clear, punctual and particular; to which it replied, “It was as circumstantial, distinct and methodical as possible; varying not in the least from truth in any one particular of consequence, unless in the omission of their horrid sacrament which she might possibly neither observe nor know.”

I then asked why they had behaved with such impropriety, impudence and clamour upon their trial; to which it replied, “that they had been somewhat elevated with liquor, privately conveyed to them, and that by effrontery and a seemingly undaunted behaviour they hoped to intimidate the WOMAN, throw her into confusion, perplex her depositions, thereby rendering the evidence precarious and inconclusive, or at least give the court some favourable presumptions of their innocence.”

I next inquired whether they knew the name of the person murdered, whence he came, and what reasons they had for committing so horrid a barbarity.

To which the phantasm answered, “that the man was a perfect stranger to them all, that the murder was committed more out of wantonness and the force of long-contracted habits of wickedness than necessity, as they were at that time in no want of money; that they first found occasion to quarrel with the pedlar through a strange propensity to mischief for which it could not account but from God’s withdrawing His grace, and leaving them to all the extravagance and irregularities of a corrupted heart, long hardened in the ways of sin; that the man, being stout and undaunted, resented their ill-usage, and in his own defence proceeded to blows; that two only—Deacon and Croxford—were at first concerned, but finding him resolute, they had called up Seamark and Butlin, who were at a distance behind the hedge; that they then all seized the pedlar, notwithstanding which he struggled with great violence to the very last against their united efforts; nor did they think it safe to trifle any longer with a man who gave such proofs of uncommon strength; that with much difficulty they dragged him down to Seamark’s yard and there committed the murder as represented in court.”

I next asked if there was any licence in his bags or pockets, that they might discover his name or place of abode.

It replied, “No! that the paper left behind in its (Croxford’s) writing was of a piece with the rest of their conduct in this affair, a hardened untruth, abounding with reflections as false, as scandalous and wicked, suggested by the Father of Lies, who had gradually brought them from one step of iniquity to another, beginning first in the violation of morality, to the place of purgatory in which they now were.”

It further declared (a statement that interested me greatly), “That though their bodies were unaffected with pain, their souls were in darkness, under all the dreadful apprehensions of remaining there for eternity, far beyond what the liveliest imagination while influenced by the weight and grossness of matter, can conceive; that their doom had been not a little aggravated by their final impenitence, impiety and profaneness in adjuring God by the most horrid imprecations to attest the truth of a palpable and notorious falsehood, and by wishing that their own portion in Eternity might be determined in consequence thereof. Language,” the apparition said, “was too weak to describe and mortality incapable of conceiving a ten-thousandth part of their anguish and despair even at present, and happy would it be for succeeding ages if Posterity could be induced to profit by their misfortunes and be influenced by this account to avoid the punishment of the Earthbound.”

All this the phantasm delivered with such increased distinction and perspicuity, with such an emphasis and tone of voice, as plainly evinced the truth of what it spoke and claimed my closest attention and regard; and as it seemed to hint that I was singled out to acquaint the world with these particulars I told it that the present age was one of incredulity and agnosticism, that few gave credit to fables of this kind, that the world would conclude me either a madman or impostor or brand me with the odious imputations of superstition and enthusiasm, that, therefore, true credentials would be necessary, not only to preserve my own character, but also to procure respect and credit to my relations.

To this the phantasm instantly responded that what I observed was perfectly right and requisite to authenticate the truth of this affair, and that unless some proper attestations were given to accounts of this nature, they would be considered by the rational part of mankind as mere tales, invented only to amuse the credulous or frighten children on a winter’s evening into temper and obedience; in short, that they would have no weight, and disappoint the ends of Providence, who intends them for the good and benefit of the world; that, therefore, in order to encourage my perseverance in supporting the truth of this appearance and embolden me to publish a minute detail of it, it would direct me to such a criterion as would put the reality of it beyond all dispute; and it accordingly told me that in such a spot, describing it as minutely as possible, in the parish of Guilsborough, was deposited a gold ring which belonged to the pedlar whom they murdered, and moreover in the inside was engraved this singular motto:

HANGED HE’LL BE WHO STEALS ME, 1745

“That on perusing it,” the apparition continued, “it (Croxford) had been smitten with grave apprehensions, and, thinking the words ominous, had buried the ring, hoping thus to elude the sentence denounced at random against the unlawful possessor of it, and even escape the vindictive justice of Heaven itself by such a precaution; that if I found not every particular in regard to this ring exactly as it related it to me, then I might conclude there was not a single syllable of truth in the whole, and consequently no obligation lay upon me to take any further concerns in the affair.”

Engaged in this interesting and all-absorbing conversation, I suddenly became aware it was very late—the silence throughout the house for the first time appalled me, and I was about to make a movement towards the door to make sure all was safe without, when the light from the lamp once again became normal. With a startled glance I looked for the phantasm—it was gone; nor was there any other means by which it could have taken its departure save by dematerialisation.

Bitterly disappointed, my fears being now entirely removed, at so abrupt a disappearance, I sat down very calmly, and in the coolest manner canvassed over the whole matter to myself, reflected seriously on every particular, and was induced to conclude from the coherence and punctuality of the account that it was impossible it should be fiction or imposture. I laid particular stress upon the circumstance of the ring, the singularity of its motto, and the minute description of the spot where it was deposited.

I considered, moreover, from the tests I had made by shutting my eyes and pressing the balls with my forefinger, that I had been perfectly awake, had had the full use both of my senses and reason, and was as capable of knowing the figure and voice of a man as the size and print of the book I was reading at the time the ghost made its appearance.

In short, firmly persuaded of the truth of what I had heard and seen, I resolved on the morrow to search for the ring, and thereby clear it up beyond all possibility of doubt.

Accordingly on Monday morning early, between four and five o’clock, I set out alone, making directly to the spot the phantasm had described; found the ring without the least difficulty or delay; examined the motto and date of it, which corresponded exactly with his account of it, and fully convinced me of my obligation to communicate to the world the particulars of the whole.

With this resolution, immediately on my return I sat down and drew up the whole conversation as near as I could recollect, neither omitting nor adding any circumstance of consequence in the manner you now see it, and trusting it will prove of use to the public for whose benefit it seems intended.

The original manuscript, to which the author appends his name, concludes with a very fervid exhortation to piety, coupled with an equally strong warning against indulgence in vice and crime.

The story of the ghost, judging by the interest that is even now (1908) taken in it, must have created a considerable sensation at the time—so much so that I think a brief history of the crime—gruesome though it be—will bear repeating.

Prior to doing so, however, I should like to relate a ghostly experience that happened to me, Elliott O’Donnell, in the same neighbourhood, August 1904.

The village of Guilsborough is on an eminence 10 miles N.W. by N. of Northampton, 4 miles from the source of the Avon at Naseby, 10 miles N.E. from Daventry, 11 miles from Lutterworth, 10 miles S.S.W. from Market Harboro’, 12 miles E. from Rugby, and 76 miles from London.

The adjacent country, consisting of large stretches of smiling meadows, dales, and table-lands, is very fair for the eye to dwell upon, and it is only at night, when the shadows from the many spinneys are cast upon the gleaming roads and silent tarns, or when the wind, rustling through the elms and oaks, sound like the breaking and falling of surf on the seashore—it is only then that the place presents an entirely different aspect to the psychic mind and one conjures up—GHOSTS.

During the period of my early visits to Guilsborough, the history of the village was unknown to me, nor did I for one moment associate it with superphysical manifestations till I was staying at the hamlet of Creaton, some three miles distant, and had to tramp home late at night.

I must confess, then, that I was unquestionably glad to leave the crossroads at the top of Crow Hill and the lonely turnpike behind and find myself snugly ensconced within the very material precincts of the Cricketers’ Arms.

The route I took, led me past the long-disused burial-ground of some Nonconformist Fraternity, a spot one never seemed to notice by day, but which struck me as singularly eerie at night.

On this particular night in question, I did not leave my friend’s house in Guilsborough till close on twelve, an hour when all village folk are in bed and the place is wrapped in the most profound silence. The sound of my footsteps, as I briskly pounded down the road, echoed and re-echoed through the village. I welcomed the sound; it was nice to have even that for a companion. I am not as a rule nervous, I have been too much by myself in life to be an abject coward, yet I must confess I never anticipated the walk from Guilsborough along the lonely turnpike-road after nightfall without an uncomfortable itching in my back.

I was just beginning to get that sensation when I arrived at the rusty gates of the cemetery, and was confounded beyond measure on seeing a curious, grotesque sort of creature climb over the iron bars and confront me. The moonlight was so powerful that it left nothing uncovered or concealed.

A frightful terror laid hold of me—what—what in the NAME OF HEAVEN could it be?

Gazing at it with a fascination as hideous as the thing itself, I took in every feature—the long, loose limbs, the thin body, the huge hands and feet, the little repulsive head, the white fulsome, pig-like face, and the protruding, sapphire eyes.

For some seconds—to me an eternity—we watched one another in breathless silence—the Elemental (for as such I at length recognised it) being the first to take the initiative. The unfathomable stare in its eyes gradually deepened into a horrible and very unmistakable expression of malignant joy in which all the most undesirable of human vices seemed blended: its monstrous hands rose like wings on either side of its head, the fingers twitching convulsively in greedy anticipation of clutching me; its legs slowly crouched as if about to spring—and then—just as the crucial moment arrived and the acme of my terrors was reached—the spell was broken—the leaden weights fell from off my feet—my limbs became endowed with a thousandfold their natural elasticity—and—turning round—I fled.

So ended my first and only experience with a Guilsborough ghost. I have taken very good care since then to give that burial-ground a very wide berth after nightfall. But now comes the most extraordinary part of it. I had heard off-and-on that a certain house in the village (since pulled down) was supposed to be haunted; that one bedroom in particular had struck those occupying it as containing an invisible “presence” both inimical and horrible.

I never, however, associated this mysterious something with the Elemental I had seen, till, in the course of a conversation with an old and highly respected inhabitant of the village a few days since (August 10, 1908), I learned that he had had a psychical adventure of a somewhat extraordinary nature in his boyhood.

Upon pressing him, he told me that he had lived in the haunted house as a child, and on running upstairs to his bedroom one morning had seen a long, thin human form with a tiny head and animal’s face crouching on the bed and staring at him. Terrified out of his wits by this unexpected and startling spectacle, he had remained glued to the spot for some seconds, until a slight movement on the part of the Elemental broke the spell, and he was able to “bolt” precipitately from the apartment: this was the only time he saw it.

Here then surely was the key to the nature of the haunting—an Elemental or Poltergeist, assuredly the same that had appeared to me some fifty years later at the gate of the old burial-ground.

My informant, by the way, had not heard of my experience; I had told it to no one: hence this visual occult manifestation of mine in Guilsborough stands corroborated.

But why this haunting? Why this form of apparition?

I dived into the history of Guilsborough, and discovered that quantities of fossils (trilobites, &c.), together with implements of flint—i.e., arrow-heads, javelins, celts (the latter popularly known as “thunderbolts”) have been and are still found in various parts of the village and in the gravel-pits of the adjoining hamlets of Nortorft and Hollowell; that tumuli yet remain in Guilsborough Park and in several of the neighbouring fields, and that numbers of very ancient bones have been from time to time dug out of the soil in all parts of the village.

All this is conclusive evidence that Guilsborough is far older than its average inhabitant of to-day imagines, that it has been alternately the site of Palaeolithic and Neolithic settlements, and that all sorts of barbaric rites and ceremonies have been conducted on the very ground where houses and cottages now stand.

Hence it is not very surprising to any one at all versed in the modus operandi of Phantasms and Psychic Phenomena to hear that one of the apparitions (at least) haunting Guilsborough appears in the form of a sub-human or sub-animal elemental.

Superphysical manifestations of this kind—let me explain for the benefit of the inexperienced—usually occur on the sites of or near ancient and unconsecrated or long-disused burial-places—the whys and the wherefores of which I hope to dwell upon in detail in a subsequent volume.