Suffolk Ghost Tales

by Kirsty Hartsiotis, Cherry Wilkinson

Overview

Suffolk – a peaceful, rural county with big skies, rolling fi elds, unspoilt beaches, quaint towns and villages. But all is not as quiet as it seems. Could that be the eerie clanking of gibbet chains at the crossroads? Did you see a desolate face at an upper window or a spectral white form lurking in the hedgerow? Cats are not always lucky – and beware a north Suffolk Broad in the still, small hours of Midsummer Night . . . Kirsty Hartsiotis and Cherry Wilkinson retell, with spine-chilling freshness, thirty fabulous ghost tales from all corners of this beguiling county. So pull up a chair, stoke the fire and prepare to see its gentle landscape in a new light.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780750986670
Publisher:	The History Press
Publication date:	12/01/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

KIRSTY HARTSIOTIS is a popular Stroud-based storyteller. With Anthony Nanson, in their company Fire Springs, they have performed widely in Britain and beyond and co-authored Gloucestershire Folk Tales. Kirsty is the author of Wiltshire Folk Tales and Suffolk Folk Tales and co-author of Suffolk Ghost Tales, and combines storytelling and writing with work as a museum curator in Cheltenham.

CHERRY WILKINSON has known Suffolk all her life and lived in the south, centre and north of the county. She has been a member of the Suffolk folk scene for many years, with a history of singing and playing that goes back to the 1970s. After a varied career in retail and horticulture her working life culminated in ten years working for The National Trust.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

The Haunting of William Hurr

William Hurr was a master mariner, captain of his own ship these many years, trading back and forth across the North Sea. In 1793 he was fifty-six years old and starting to think about retiring. His Mary had been on at him to come home to Southwold ever since the Frenchies decided to up and overthrow their king. Hurr knew in his heart of hearts that she was right, especially after the news came that they'd killed old Louis, but he had goods ready and waiting to go. One more trip wouldn't hurt. Then he'd stay home for good.

Hurr was wrong. In the time it took him to reach Calais, France had declared war on Britain. As soon as they reached the port, there were soldiers all over the boat; his goods were confiscated and his ship impounded.

'That ship will be serving la République now!' he was told, then he and his men were marched away.

It was the last he would see of his crew for some time. The men were taken away to barracks with barely more than the clothes they stood up in. Hurr got a clip on the ear for begging they be given their wages. He was told to keep his money to himself – he'd be needing it.

He was lodged first in a house in Calais with other merchant officers, a mix of disgruntled Brits and Dutchmen. The only men who remained with him were his first mate, Sam May, and May's brother Jim, the second mate. Hurr spoke both French and Dutch, but it was hard, locked up and having to spend their money to pay for bed and board. He wrote to Mary, but was too proud to beg for money to pay for his release.

After a time the French moved them inland. Hurr was restless without the sound of the sea and the bustle of the port.

He muttered to the Mays, 'Do they think we're fool enough to stow away on a warship back home?'

The first couple of months they were moved again and again. If Mary replied, her letter was lost somewhere in Picardy. Eventually they ended up in Dieppe. The sailors, English and Dutch alike, relaxed when they heard the gulls and smelt the tang of the sea. But it was still captivity. The months went by and funds were wearing thin. The sailors set to carving and whittling, making model ships and pipes to pay for their vittles.

Having a place to rest your head and enough to eat only goes so far in satisfying a man's needs. They whiled away the time with cards and dice, but that wasn't all. At first the locals had steered clear of the foreigners, but after a while some of the women, realising the commercial opportunities, started to visit, selling food – and other things.

There was one woman who caught Hurr's eye. Her name was Genevieve. As her visits became more frequent, he realised she was as taken with him as he was with her. She was a fine woman: dark hair, dark eyes and a fiery tongue. She was no slip of lass, being a widow in her thirties, but to Hurr she was perfection.

The only problem was Mary back in Southwold.

'You have to tell her you're a married man, Will,' Sam May told him.

'It's not fair on Mary, and it's not fair on the lass,' said Jim. 'We've seen how she looks at you. She's thinking you're a keeper, and no mistake.'

But Hurr said nothing, even though Genevieve often spoke of a future for them together. He let her draw her own conclusions. If she thought him widowed, where was the harm in this foreign land?

The months turned into a year, then two. Even as he carried on with Genevieve, Hurr was writing home to Mary, asking for money now, for his release. He wasn't proud of it, but a man couldn't be a captive all his life. Eventually the money came, with sad words from his son: Mary was ill; would he please hurry home?

When he told Genevieve he was going home, she was thrilled.

'We can start a new life back in your Southwold, Guillaume. You can fish, and I will keep house for you.'

Now he wished he'd taken the Mays' advice. He told her that he was still married, that he had been married to Mary for thirty years and more. He stoically withstood the shouting and screaming that followed, knowing he well deserved it. But Genevieve was made of sterner stuff than he'd thought.

When he explained his wife was ill, her lips thinned and she said, 'Guillaume, this is how it shall be. If your wife she is dead when you return, you will write to me and I will come. And if she is not – well, I am young, I will wait.'

Hurr had to smile. She was magnificent! Cravenly, he agreed.

When Hurr got home to Southwold, Mary was alive and, if not well, clearly getting better. Genevieve had to be put from his mind. He bought shares in his son's fishing boat and began to rebuild his life.

After a month or so of his being home, a strange thing happened. Mary began to complain that he was poking and pinching her in bed. After two long years of forced inactivity and now enduring the long, hard hours of a fisherman, Hurr had no energy to do anything in bed except sleep.

'Then who is poking me?' cried Mary.

Hurr shrugged, assuming whatever was troubling her would stop soon enough. But it didn't. Every time Mary woke him to tell him to stop, he'd been sound asleep. He protested his innocence every time, but she'd just shake her head and mutter that some things had been easier when he was away.

Then, one night, he saw it happen. In the moonlight slanting through the window, Mary's face suddenly snapped from side to side, as if someone was slapping her. She began to writhe about and, to his horror, he saw the skin go in on her face as if someone was poking her. Through this Mary slept, but then she was suddenly jerked upwards and her eyes flew open in terror. He reached for her, but before he could grab her she was pitched right out of bed.

Hurr couldn't understand it, but what soon became clear was that it only happened when he was there. Lying on a pallet by the fire in the kitchen he'd examine his conscience and, though he tried not to, remember Genevieve's soft embrace. Was his own dissatisfaction causing the strange thing that had been happening?

One night, his old bones were aching too much for him to get to sleep on his pallet, so up he got in his nightshirt and went outside, brooding out over South Green to the sea. It was full moon, and he stood there a while, thinking on the past.

Suddenly, a white cat appeared not twenty paces before him on the Green. Cats move fast, but it was as if it had been conjured from the moonlight. And no ordinary cat, this – it was as big as a dog! Hurr rubbed his eyes, thinking the moonlight had tricked him, but no, there it was, larger than life, staring at him with eyes that seemed to bore into his soul. As he stared back, Hurr realised that not only was the cat huge, but it was glowing, as if it were part moonlight itself.

'Whsst!' he cried.

The cat just stared.

Hurr grabbed his stick and ran at it, crying, 'Get out, cat!'

Any normal cat would have leapt away, but this one held its ground, hissing and arching its back. Then, it reared up, getting bigger and bigger till a huge white shadow loomed over him and he fell to his knees in terror. The cat was gone, but in its place was a glowing white mare with steam pooling from her nostrils.

For a long time, horse and man stared at each other, then, with a swish of her tail, she turned away towards the town. As soon as she was gone, Hurr felt a tugging in his chest. He found himself scrambling to his feet and, in his stockinged feet, following her as if in a dream. It was as if an invisible cord was pulling him after her but he never caught up. As they came on to Queen Street he realised her hooves made no sound on the cobbles. It was late, no lights anywhere save for the moon, but she illuminated the street with every step.

She led him to Market Place, then, with a lift of her head as if she sensed something, she vanished. The invisible cord snapped and Hurr stumbled to a halt. For a few moments, he was able to wonder what was going on.

Then, coming up East Street, as if from the sea, he saw a funeral procession. At the front a solemn-faced priest marched, the mourners in their broad-brimmed hats behind, carrying flickering candelabras, silent men carrying the funeral bier, all draped and plumed in black, and weeping people behind. In Hurr's heart there rose a terrible grief. As the procession passed him by and turned up Church Street, he felt that tug in his chest again, and his feet followed after them in the echoing silence.

St Edmund's rose up, white-roofed in the moonlight, windows dark and empty. The mourners stepped through the gates into the churchyard, but as Hurr followed, the procession vanished. He stood shivering in his dew-soaked stockings for a long time, trying to make sense of what had happened. The longer he stood there, the more unreal it all became.

The next day Hurr rose early and went down to the beach where his boat was moored. Before he'd done a thing, Sam May, who'd been released shortly after him, came over with a very serious expression on his face and a letter in his hand.

'It's from France,' he said.

Afterwards, Hurr would say he knew before he broke the seal. It was from Genevieve's family – sent to May, they explained, lest Hurr's wife saw it. Genevieve hadn't waited to hear from Hurr, they said. She had told them her heart demanded that she see him again, and, wife or no wife, she was determined to have him. Almost as soon as Hurr had left she too had taken sail. But there was a storm, her ship was wrecked and all souls on it were lost.

As he stood with the letter in his hand and the tears tracking down his face, Hurr knew whose unhappy spirit had troubled his wife, and his heart bled for them all.

After the letter came, Mary was able to rest easy in her bed, almost as if Genevieve was content that he knew she was dead. But Hurr knew he had done both his wife and his lover wrong, and feared he would have to atone for his misdeeds.

In 1799 Mary died. She'd not been truly well since before Hurr came home, but he couldn't help wonder whether the haunting had hurried her end.

He took to walking the beach at night, poultering, searching for anything useful washed in by storm and tide. One night, when he was up by the Field Stile, he heard the shingle rattling and looked up to see someone walking towards him. From the line of his clothes in the moonlight, he could see it was no old fisherman like himself, but a gentleman in a tailcoat and britches. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Why would a gentleman be out here on a cold night like this, so far from the town?

Sure the man had seen him, Hurr stopped and leant on his stick. Poultering wasn't illegal, but you'd not want to be caught doing it by the gentry. The man stopped when he was within spitting distance. In the moonlight Hurr saw that his face was cruel and cold.

He said, 'Come along with me.'

All at once Hurr felt that strange tugging in his chest, and his eyes went wide. He had no desire to come along with this man! He looked down at the ground and, as he did, saw that the man's feet were not feet at all, but cloven hooves.

With a shock he realised that the Devil himself had come to collect him for payment for his wrongs. Well, he wasn't having it!

'No, I shall not go with you,' he cried. 'By the help of God I have got so far, and by the help of God I hope to get home.'

At the name of God, the figure gave a shrieking cry and a plume of fire and smoke arose around him, swallowing him whole. Hurr was enveloped in the stink of rotten eggs, as if the maw of hell had opened – and perhaps it had.

He walked back slowly to his house. It was empty, as it always was since Mary had gone. He sank into his chair and prodded the fire into life. He'd had a lucky escape there, he thought, but then he looked around the empty room and his shoulders slumped. Escape? Maybe he was being punished after all, with neither of the women he'd loved here to put warmth in his life.

CHAPTER 2

Toby, the Black Dragoon

The Reverend Ralph Blois stood in the nave of Blythburgh church and sighed. The church, like the village, was in a sorry state in that year of Our Lord 1750. Ralph's family, the landowners, did what they could, but they couldn't maintain the church as they wished. Ralph held the living of Walberswick as well, and there the people had built a new little church in the ruins of the old.

'The Lord will provide,' he said to himself.

The villagers, he knew, had more pragmatic ways of providing for themselves. The running of contraband had become quite an industry all along the Suffolk coast. Ralph chose to turn a blind eye, since it helped keep bellies full. His silence was rewarded every now and then with a keg of brandy tucked inside the vestry.

So, when a detachment of dragoons arrived in Blythburgh charged with suppressing the smuggling trade, Ralph was as unhappy as the villagers. He knew the dragoons' commander, Sir Robert Rich, a Beccles man, and didn't much care for him. He had a reputation for mistreating his men. He wasn't around a great deal, but this was a mixed blessing, for the soldiers were an unruly bunch.

Under the pretext of spying on the smugglers, they spent a lot of time in the inns and alehouses, bragging about their exploits in Holland and bemoaning the injustice of being sent to such a backwater. Ralph witnessed a fight or two and had to intervene when tankards and tempers overspilled. The villagers hated the dragoons, but he heard stories of battles, fear and loss from those soldiers who had sought him out.

'Perhaps they deserve a little respite,' he thought. 'If only they would behave!'

The village was in uproar after a bevy of dragoons spent hours knocking on doors, searching houses, calling out blasphemies, and all the while that black lad, Toby, rat-a-tat-tatting on his drum.

The villagers didn't dare speak out, but Ralph heard their mutterings.

'Our women aren't safe on the streets!' they'd bluster.

But some whispered, 'A drunken dragoon can't interfere with our business, if you see what I mean.'

Ralph's thoughts were drawn back to the drummer. The young man's skin was black as night. Not a common sight in rural Suffolk! Black drummers were not unusual in the army, but here he stuck out like a sore thumb. 'Is he the Devil?' some of the villages asked in their ignorance.

Toby certainly had a devilish streak. Sober, he was all smiles and charm. The village men muttered about the things the women liked to say about him! But once in the tavern, with a tankard or two of ale inside him, he'd swear and brawl like the rest of them.

Soon, the rowdiest of the dragoons, Toby included, were barred from the local hostelries. But there were plenty of folks ready to sell them liquor. The dragoons would often meet at a lonely barn on the heathland sheep walks between Blythburgh and Walberswick.

Ralph sighed again and sank wearily to his knees to pray.

Moments later, the church door crashed open and two village men burst in.

'Mr Blois, you in here? Come you quick, sir! Summat bad has happened!'

Outside in the street a crowd was gathering. In their midst was a group of men dragging the stumbling figure of Toby. Other men were carrying a makeshift stretcher on which lay a shrouded form. Ralph called for quiet – and an explanation. After some jostling, shepherd Dick Bullen was pushed forward.

'We found them on the walks, sir, early this morning. Thought they were asleep till the lassie couldn't be roused. Dead, sir, and this one here' – he jabbed his finger at Toby – 'dead drunk. Swore he didn't know what'd happened. A likely story, if you ask me!'

Ralph went to the stretcher and lifted the cloth. The young woman's face was waxen in death. For a second he didn't know her, but then he realised. 'Annie Blakemore from Walberswick. I must go to her family.'

Toby was secured in Blythburgh Gaol to await the coroner's inquest. The villagers' feelings were at fever pitch, even before the coroner arrived.

'We knew something like this would happen!' they cried. 'Hang him! Hang the lot of them!'

As soon as he could, Ralph visited Toby in the gaol, and found him in great distress, protesting his innocence.

'I swear I never laid a hand on her, sir. She just appeared out of nowhere and fell at my feet.'

'You were drunk, Toby,' said Ralph. 'How can you know what you did?'

'I just know,' said Toby, his head in his hands. 'But I really was very drunk ...'

Ralph pondered Toby's words. He knew a little more than many about Anne. Her family were as sure as the rest that Toby had murdered her, but Ralph recalled that on occasion they'd thought the girl possessed. Would that not explain the fits she suffered, her restlessness, her constant wandering on the heath? They'd begged him to exorcise her demons, but Ralph was sure that it was some ailment that troubled her, not possession.

Could Toby's protestations be the truth? Or had he succumbed to violence?

Ralph hoped the coroner's inquest would prove things one way or the other. He decided he would speak of Anne's condition only if there was no evidence she'd been attacked. He'd known Coroner Ward for years and trusted him to conduct a fair hearing.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Suffolk Ghost Tales"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Kirsty Hartsiotis and Cherry Wilkinson.
Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements,
Map of the Stories,
Illustrations,
Introduction,
1 The Haunting of William Hurr,
2 Toby, the Black Dragoon,
3 The Treasure Seeker,
4 These Lovers Fled Away,
5 The Rougham Mirage,
6 The Lowestoft Witches,
7 The Constant Maid,
8 The Secret Burial,
9 A Gift from the Sea,
10 The Mistletoe Bride,
11 If You Go into the Woods,
12 Mrs Henrietta Nelson is at Home,
13 The Suffolk Rising,
14 The Chiming Hours,
15 The Ghosts of Landguard Fort,
16 Lady in Grey,
17 Monks of the Buttermarket,
18 The Murderess's Daughter,
19 Newmarket Legends,
20 The Mill Cat,
21 Kate's Parlour,
22 The Mayfly,
23 The Educating of Ellen de Freston,
24 The Haunting of Old Hall,
25 The Unlayable Ghost,
26 The Vagabond Nun,
27 The Luck of Hintlesham,
28 Witch and Rabbit,
29 The Honington Ghost,
30 The Afterlife of St Edmund,
Bibliography,
About the Authors,