Phantom Coaches

[dem]

Jan 11, 2024 3:50:24 GMT humgoo said:

Jan 8, 2024 10:01:15 GMT dem said:

The Rev. Dr. Jessopp - The Phantom Coach II: (London Illustrated News, 25 November 1893)

Thanks a lot for Part II! Had been wondering why the text above ends abruptly.

Seems to be an ILN trait — at least, some Andrew Lang articles have had me wondering where the rest got to.

And what a pleasant surprise. Very charming. (I had read in Meddling With Ghosts the Reverend's "An Antiquary's Ghost Story", which is a plot-less three-pager, so I didn't have high hopes at first for his take on phantom coaches.)

Never even seen a copy of Meddling... but Jessica Amanda Salmonson reprints An Antiquarian Ghost Story in one of only two issues of her Fantasy Macabre came my way. Historical significance - in this case's of a pre-James 'Jamesian' ghost story - does not necessarily make for a rewarding reading experience. Phantom Coach II is far more like it.

[helrunar]

In the 1959 film, Darby O'Gill and the Little People, there is a very cool version of the Death Coach said in some tales to be sent to fetch the soul of the dying--as well as perhaps the scariest Banshee ever seen in film:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZMU0rcp-hk

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZA0pCndclo

This movie was based on the work of a writer named Herminie Templeton Kavanagh. 

Hel.

[peedeel]

Jan 12, 2024 4:52:01 GMT helrunar said:

In the 1959 film, Darby O'Gill and the Little People, there is a very cool version of the Death Coach said in some tales to be sent to fetch the soul of the dying--as well as perhaps the scariest Banshee ever seen in film:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZMU0rcp-hk

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZA0pCndclo

This movie was based on the work of a writer named Herminie Templeton Kavanagh. 

Hel.

At ten years of age when the film was on the local cinema, the arrival of that death coach scared the living bejesus outta me! But a fine film for all of that, with Sean Connery playing Michael McBride.

[dem]

GHOST VISITS TO A RECTORY
Tales of Headless Coachmen and a Lonely Nun
_____________________________
THE ELOPERS
Mysterious Happenings on Site of Old Monastery

FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

LONG MELFORD, Sunday. Ghostly figures of headless coachmen and a nun, an old-time coach, drawn by two bay horses, which appears and vanishes mysteriously, and dragging footsteps in empty rooms.
All these ingredients of a first-class ghost story are awaiting investigation by psychic experts near Long Melford, Suffolk.
The scene of the ghostly visitations is the Rectory at Borley, a few miles from Long Melford.
It is a building erected on the part of the site of a great monastery which, in the Middle Ages, was the scene of a gruesome tragedy.
The present rector, the Rev. G. E. Smith, and his wife, made the rectory their residence in the face of warnings by previous occupiers.
Since their arrival they have been puzzled and startled by a series of peculiar happenings which cannot be explained and which confirm the rumours they heard before moving in.
The first untoward happening was the sound of slow, dragging footsteps across the floor of an unoccupied room.
Then one night Mr. Smith, armed with a hockey stick, sat in the room and waited for the noise.
Once again it came — the sound of feet in some kind of slippers treading on the bare boards.
Mr. Smith lashed out with his stick at the spot where the footsteps seemed to be, but the stick whistled through the empty air, and the steps continued across the room.
Then a servant girl brought from London, suddenly gave notice after two days' work, declaring emphatically that she had seen a nun walking in the wood at the back of the house.
Finally comes the remarkable story of an old-fashioned coach, seen twice on the lawn by a servant, which remained in sight long enough for the girl to distinguish the brown colour of the horses.

HEADLESS COACHMEN
Legend of a Tragedy That Followed Attempt to Elope

This same servant also declares that she has seen a nun leaning over a gate near the house. The villagers dread the neighbourhood of the rectory after dark, and will not pass it. Peculiarly enough, all these" visitations" coincide with the details of a tragedy which, according to legend, occurred at the monastery, which once stood on this spot. A groom at the monastery fell in love with a nun at a nearby convent, runs the legend, and they used to hold clandestine meetings in the wood on to which the rectory now backs. Then one day they arranged to elope, and another groom had a coach waiting in the road outside the wood, so that they could escape. From this point the legend varies. Some say that the nun and her lover quarrelled, and that he strangled her in the wood, and was caught and beheaded, with the other groom, for his villainy. The other version is that all three were caught in the act by the monks, and that the two grooms were beheaded, and the nun buried alive in the walls of the monastery. The previous rector of Borley, now dead, often spoke of the remarkable experience he had one night, when, walking along the road outside the rectory, he heard the clatter of hoofs. Looking around, he saw to his horror an old-fashioned coach lumbering along the road, driven by two headless men.

— Daily Mirror, 10 June 1929
_____________________________

[dem]

HAVE YOU SEEN A PHANTOM COACH YOUR WAY LATELY?
DRIVER IS SOMETIMES HEADLESS

THE phantom coach, according to the beliefs of countryfolk in many districts, is still driving through English lanes, and the Folklore Society is trying to make a map of its appearances.

Three months ago Mr. H. Coote Lake, honorary secretary of the society, issued notices to its members requesting them to investigate the phenomenon in their districts, with the result that a mass of reports about it has reached the London headquarters.

"The interesting thing about the phantom coach," Mr. Coote Lake told a News Chronicle reporter last night, "is the widespread nature of its appearances.

A FOUR-IN-HAND

"It occurs throughout the country, though not so commonly in North Lancashire. I know of its occurrence in Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex." The coach is usually a four-in-hand, he explained. It drives from, town to town, or along the avenues leading to large houses until it reaches the door, when it stops and disappears.

Sometimes the wheels make crunching noise and again they are completely silent. Headlessness is nearly always a feature. Sometimes the coachman has no head, sometimes it is the horses or passengers.

A WICKED SQUIRE

"The phantom is usually associated with a wicked squire or owner, who died as a result of his evil ways. Sometimes the appearance foretells death," said Mr. Coote Lake.

He would be glad to hear from News Chronicle readers who have evidence which would help to complete the "phantom, coaching map"

"These folk beliefs are a kind of psychological test of population," said Mr. Coote Lake, "supplementing the tests by measurement of skulls and noting of colour of hair and eyes.

"The phantom coach differs from other ghosts in being distributed in all parts of the country. Other apparitions are confined to certain regions, North and West having quite different types from those of South and East."

—Daily News (London), 22 October 1938

[dem]

Chrissie Demant

... Enfield, for instance, has a phantom stage coach. It was seen in 1961, by a young man named Robert Bird, and on many occasions previously, one instance in 1899 being recorded in some detail. Three young girls, Mary Read, Daisy Taylor, and Florence Beatty, who worked at a factory at Ponder's End, all saw the vehicle. At that time the area behind Nag's Head Road had no houses and the factory workers used a footpath through fields.

The stage coach simply rose out of the ground, moved in the direction of Brimsdown, and then disappeared. The girls saw the figure of a driver and of a man leaning out of the window.

Later accounts, published in the Enfield Gazette and Observer gave more precise information on the coach. It heralded its approach with shafts of light; it was black and drawn by two horses. The passengers were two women wearing large hats, and one was wearing an emerald-green dress. The sound of the horses' hooves and of the wheels was distinctly heard, even though the animals and the vehicle appeared to be moving a couple of feet off the ground.

Obstacles meant nothing to the coachman. One report told of the vehicle passing through the walls of a house on the edge of the playing fields of Carterheath school and moving through the room where a woman was sleeping.

The time when the Enfield coach appears is well before midnight, and in the weeks prior to Christmas. The conditions which seem to favour appearance are clear, cold and moonless nights.

Robert Bird's 1961 account of the Enfield coach is quite vivid. He was cycling along Bell Lane to attend a Boys' Brigade meeting when he saw two bright lights rushing towards him on his side of the road. He slowed down, but before he could dismount in the belief that a vehicle out of control was approaching, the apparition was almost on top of him. He saw two figures sitting between the lights and a third person behind them. The vague features ahead of the lights suggested four horses. The vehicle came towards him about six feet from the ground. Only as the apparition passed right through him did he get the impression of a jet black vehicle with four wheels.

No local record provides any solution of the Enfield coach mystery. The road on which it has been seen is of ancient origin and formerly ended alongside the River Lea. The local belief is that some private carriage came to grief by being driven into the marshes or the river on a winter's night in the eighteenth century.

— John Harries, The Ghost Hunter's Road Book, 1974

[Swampirella]

Apr 18, 2024 17:14:34 GMT dem said:

Chrissie Demant

... Enfield, for instance, has a phantom stage coach. It was seen in 1961, by a young man named Robert Bird, and on many occasions previously, one instance in 1899 being recorded in some detail. Three young girls, Mary Read, Daisy Taylor, and Florence Beatty, who worked at a factory at Ponder's End, all saw the vehicle. At that time the area behind Nag's Head Road had no houses and the factory workers used a footpath through fields.

The stage coach simply rose out of the ground, moved in the direction of Brimsdown, and then disappeared. The girls saw the figure of a driver and of a man leaning out of the window.

Later accounts, published in the Enfield Gazette and Observer gave more precise information on the coach. It heralded its approach with shafts of light; it was black and drawn by two horses. The passengers were two women wearing large hats, and one was wearing an emerald-green dress. The sound of the horses' hooves and of the wheels was distinctly heard, even though the animals and the vehicle appeared to be moving a couple of feet off the ground.

Obstacles meant nothing to the coachman. One report told of the vehicle passing through the walls of a house on the edge of the playing fields of Carterheath school and moving through the room where a woman was sleeping.

The time when the Enfield coach appears is well before midnight, and in the weeks prior to Christmas. The conditions which seem to favour appearance are clear, cold and moonless nights.

Robert Bird's 1961 account of the Enfield coach is quite vivid. He was cycling along Bell Lane to attend a Boys' Brigade meeting when he saw two bright lights rushing towards him on his side of the road. He slowed down, but before he could dismount in the belief that a vehicle out of control was approaching, the apparition was almost on top of him. He saw two figures sitting between the lights and a third person behind them. The vague features ahead of the lights suggested four horses. The vehicle came towards him about six feet from the ground. Only as the apparition passed right through him did he get the impression of a jet black vehicle with four wheels.

No local record provides any solution of the Enfield coach mystery. The road on which it has been seen is of ancient origin and formerly ended alongside the River Lea. The local belief is that some private carriage came to grief by being driven into the marshes or the river on a winter's night in the eighteenth century.

— John Harries, The Ghost Hunter's Road Book, 1974

What a beautiful drawing! I knew I'd read about the Enfield phantom coach in some detail & wanted to post about it here, but couldn't remember which book it was in.

[dem]

Apr 18, 2024 17:40:15 GMT Swampirella said:

Apr 18, 2024 17:14:34 GMT dem said:

What a beautiful drawing! I knew I'd read about the Enfield phantom coach in some detail & wanted to post about it here, but couldn't remember which book it was in.

The picture accompanied the late David Farrant's version of events in a true ghost booklet, Dark Journey, I think. Actually, the road ghost I'm particularly interested in just now is the phantom jaywalker with, presumably spectral Dobermann as driven through by a Mr. Peter Leslie on the A41 near Stanmore on 13th October 1985. There's a fleeting reference in Antony Milne's Haunted Cars and Highways, a few mentions online, but they don't really amount to much. Sadly the BNA have yet to archive copies of the Hampstead Local Advertiser where the story first (?) appeared.

[pulphack]

Enfield ghost coach is it... The area around Nags Head Road was developed around the start of the 1920s with terraced housing and allotments. I know this as my dad's oldest sister got married then and lived the rest of her life in King Edwards Road which is just off Nags Head Road. My cousins, one of whom is still alive and was in the Boys Brigade at the same time as one of the witnesses mentioned, grew up there. This story was never mentioned and was not a common urban myth around there. It sounds like someone heard an old story and decided to repeat it for attention.

[dem]

H. Mills West - The Phantom Coach: (Ghosts of East Anglia, 1984). A long dead squire nightly drives his headless horse-drawn carriage from Reydon Hall along Quay Lane, Southwold, as penance for a life of cruelty. Those who catch sight of him are not long for this world. When Arthur Stokes reports an encounter with the phantom coach, his friend Jack Reeve mocks him as a superstitious old woman. If Stokes is frightened to drive his fish cart along Quay Lane, good old Jack will ride with him to scare away the "ghost." So, that night they set out together ...

[helrunar]

Wonderful drawing by Chrissie. There's an unusual description of a Faery coach in this story by Sheridan Le Fanu, "The Child who went with the Fairies," which seems to play upon old folklore evoking Coaches of the spectral realm, the Otherworld:

www.online-literature.com/lefanu/1772/

The same coach makes an unexplained reappearance at a key moment in Le Fanu's much better known novella, Carmilla.

Hel.