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Post by dem bones on Mar 7, 2021 10:09:16 GMT
More ghosts from Midsomer country. Betty Puttick - Oxfordshire Stories of the Supernatural (Countryside, 2003) Introduction
The House in Magpie Lane On the Road The Crime of Mary Blandy Priests, Monks and Naughty Nuns A Royal Romance University Spirits Did She Fall or ...? Ghost in a Birdcage Shades of the Prison House A Devil at Woodstock Wartime Memories Magic and Mysteries Purposeful Ghosts Lord Lovell and the Mistletoe Bride A Grey Lady at Rycote Chapel Haunted Pubs Galore The Ghost with Red Hair The Man Who Lost His Head Where Have All the Old Ghosts Gone? The Return of Miss Skene Stand and Deliver Never say 'Baaaa!'
Bibliography IndexBlurb: Most people are intrigued by ghosts and stories about hauntings even if they do not believe in them. Betty Puttick's accounts of the supernatural in Oxfordshire are likely to unsettle even hardened sceptics.
Oxfordshire has a wealth of sightings: from the puritan Prudence Burcote of Magpie Lane, Oxford, who has a penchant for hiding sherry glasses, to the apparition of a Second World War airman in flying kit and wearing an oxygen mask who haunts the old chapel and the officers mess at Grove airfield near Wantage.
The book reveals other strange hauntings and mysteries. Why does the ghost of debonair highwayman Claud Duval to this day haunt the Holt Hotel near Steeple Aston? How does Mary Blandy, the notorious Henley on Thames poisoner haunt the Westgate shopping centre, Oxford, her old home in Hart Street, Henley, and rehearsals when plays about her life have been performed? What really happened when Amy Robsart, wife of Lord Robert Dudley a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I, fell to her death down the stairs at Cumnor Place? And did the Rev Jeffry Shaw, vicar of Enstone, actually receive news of his impending demise from an old friend who had been dead for two years?
Betty Puttick describes these and other ghostly encounters in a chilling and gripping way. The supernatural has been her lifelong interest and she has written magazine articles and many popular books on the subject including Ghosts of Hertfordshire, Ghosts of Buckinghamshire and Supernatural England.The House in Magpie Lane: Oxford. Suitably sad-faced ghost of Prudence Burcote, a Puritan who died for love of a Royalist. Fascinated by light switches and disapproving of sherry parties, but otherwise unobtrusive. Premises since converted into hotel so may have moved on. A Royal Romance: Rosamund de Clifford, the cherished mistress of Henry II, done to death by his jealous Queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, c. 1175. The haunts of the 'Fair Rosamund' include the ruins of Godstow Nunnery and, as recently as May 2000, the neighbouring Trout Inn public house. The Crime of Mary Blandy: As also featured in Ghosts of Buckinghamshire. Cold, calculated mass poisoner or innocent dupe of a conniving bigamist husband? On the Road: A dripping phantom hitch-hiker haunts the roadside near Asthall Manor, possibly the ghost of a gipsy girl drowned in the River Windrush. Also, the phantom coach and horses of Wychwood Forest, the vanishing Morris Traveller of the Bicester to Banbury Road, and a dangerously distracting ghost on a bicycle.
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Post by dem bones on Mar 8, 2021 11:36:07 GMT
Priests, Monks and Naughty Nuns: It's Mad Maude's show, but strong support provided by the ghost of Whately Hall Hotel, Banbury, a Catholic Father who suffered a heart attack in the priest hole when some oaf rang the alarm bell for a laugh, Also a duelling priest who forsook his vows for love of a distressed damsel and has since haunted The Crown on Christmas Common, Pishill, for his pains.
The Man Who Lost His Head: The gory ghost of Farringdon Churchyard is believed to be that of Sir Robert Pye, jnr., whose head was 'accidentally' blown off by cannonball, possibly on the instruction of an alleged wicked stepmother.
Never Say 'Baaaa!': William Eddon, hammered to death by a sheep rustling trio who failed to appreciate his GSOH. We first met him not five days ago in Ghosts of Buckinghamshire, and now we can't get rid of the creep.
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Post by dem bones on Mar 9, 2021 12:28:17 GMT
Did She Fall .... : Royal murder intrigue scandal. Did Lord Robert Dudley, the self-styled "Virgin Queen"'s alleged fancy man, arrange for wife Amy Robsart to take a fatal fall downstairs at Cumnor Place, or was it Elizabeth I got her regal hands dirty? We don't even want to contemplate that Amy's death may have been accidental - she was playing backgammon at the time. What is certain, we're told, is that the Robsart ghost haunted the fatal staircase long after husband and monarch had met their makers.
A Devil at Woodstock: How a poltergeist with Royalist sympathies ousted Roundhead vandals from Woodstock Castle in 1649, Cromwell's men reputedly driven back under a volley of stones, bones and glass. "Stinking ditch water" also brought into play. Or could it be that a double agent, familiar with Woodstock's secret passages and concealed rooms, was responsible for the phenomena? The castle is long gone and, at this late stage, we're unlikely to discover the truth.
Where Have All the Old Ghosts Gone?: Stately home spooks. Pick of the bunch, Lady Alice of Stanton Harcourt, hacked to pieces by a mad chaplain, her body parts thrown from the same tower where, centuries later, Pope would translate Homer's Iliad. Lesser fry, in terms of gothic melodrama, at least, Mrs. Hall, a spurned bride who took her own life, haunts The Harcourt Arms and its neighbouring farm.
Wartime Memories: A phantom airman in flying kit and oxygen mask haunts the Metal Box complex near Wantage, built on the site of the former Grove Airfield. Who was he? Author suggests two potential candidates, both of whom died horribly on the landing strip.
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Post by dem bones on Mar 10, 2021 19:46:08 GMT
Relax, we're almost done.
The Return of Miss Skene: Did learner cyclist Ernest Henham glimpse the ghost of the prison reformer a month after her death? Even the author admits that as pedestrian hauntings go, this one is woefully short on incident.
Shades of the Prison House: An outbreak of poltergeist activity at Castle Mound, Oxford, after inmates held a seance during the 'seventies. It's since been decommissioned. A sports centre, built on the site of the former Abington Prison is/ was reputedly haunted by the ghost of a seven-year-old boy, executed 1808, for the torching of two cottages. That'll learn him!
A Grey Lady at Rycote Chapel: Oft-sighted mystery ghost nicknamed 'Lady Arabella' flits from beneath the eight hundred year old oak and past the chapel before fading out on the lawn. As witnessed by Mr. Clifford Morris, custodian in 1968.
Haunted Pubs Galore: Mostly routine stuff. The Bear inn, Woodstock: a murdered woman spinning a dustbin lid and the cries of an illegitimate baby shoved up a chimney. The George Inn, Wallingford. The weeping girl of 'the Teardrop room.' Not to be confused with the spectre in residence at The George Hotel, Dorchester, a miserable-looking girl staring longingly at the four-poster in 'The Vicar's room' before vanishing. The Barley Mow, Clifton Hampden is atypically ghost free but lovers beware a phantom dogger in the car park. Finally, in Victoria's day, The Angel inn, Market Square, Witney, was allegedly infamous for its phantom stool.
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