Folklore of Northamptonshire

by Peter Hill

  In recent years, we have seen a great many floods, though in such a well-watered county these have never been unusual. In December 1720, Northampton witnessed ‘the greatest flood that has ever been known in this age’ when the Nene overflowed, swamped countless numbers of buildings and drowned forty sheep. One of the most dramatic floods was the Great Flood that hit Wellingborough in 1841, when the same river carried a great portion of the bridge away, entering the lower room of a house close by. The family were evacuated by the man of the house, who took his wife and some of the children to a more secure place on a sturdy section of the bridge and then returned to collect the others. On the way back, a gush of water and a large piece of ice upset the boat and drowned the man and his children. Fortunately, the woman and the children with her, all of whom were by now standing in water up to their waists, were rescued and taken to safety in a cart.

  A close-knit village community would often unite and help each other through the worst of the weather. A vivid description of a severe storm in Kingscliffe in 1884 appeared in the memoirs of Adela Lock in 1957. She spent much of her childhood in the village and gave some excellent glimpses of life in the area as it was in the last quarter of the nineteenth century:

  The miller waved his hands by the windmill about an approaching ‘whirlwind’. Uncle ran to shut the chickens up. Hay and straw stacks were being blown over. A chimney pot fell. Someone tried to close the windows. The thatch was stripped from the cottage roofs and casements were torn off. We could only wait until the storm stopped. More pots came down, and there was the crash of broken glass. About nine o’clock, it died down, and a few ventured out with lanterns to see if anyone needed help. Men went to farms to borrow stock-cloths to put over broken roofs, but supply was not equal to demand! The brook was so swollen, its banks overflown, and the water was rushing over the road, making it impassable, and entered homes ... The next morning, a survey of the damage was made, and everyone helped clear up and repair.

  Nature has also provided the county with some more interesting features, among them places for hearing one’s echo. At Thenford there was a tradition that if someone stood 380ft from the north front of Thenford House and spoke, not shouted, out a sentence of about fourteen syllables, the echo of the sentence could be clearly heard, repeated over and over again. By going nearer or further back, a similar effect could be achieved but the resonance was at its best from the original spot. Another renowned echo was at Rushton, close to the former Cockayne bridge over the River Ise. It was popular with children living in the locality but even an echo can be the cause of tragedy: in the eighteenth century, a little girl from nearby Barford wanted to talk to the local echo but fell in the water and drowned. It is still an atmospheric, tranquil and tree-shaded place; the crumbling stonework of the ancient disused bridge is now covered in greenery and is a favourite haunt of bats.

  The 1912 flood at Geddington.

  The ivy-covered Cockayne Bridge at Rushton, long disused and a favourite haunt of bats.

  six

  LEGENDS AND TALES

  In 1834, Thomas Haynes Bayley (1797-1839) wrote ‘The Mistletoe Bough’, a folk ballad which soon became a drawing-room favourite in Victorian times. It tells of some wedding festivities taking place on Christmas Eve, with the guests playing a game of hide and seek. The bride is the first to hide and finds an old oak chest in the attic. As she climbs in, the lid snaps shut and she is unable to get out, since the catch for opening it is on the outside only. For some reason, she is not found until several years later. The story certainly struck a chord around the nation and several counties adopted the tale, with the same sequence of events set in different country houses:

  In the highest – and the lowest – the loneliest spot,

  Young Lovell sought wildly – but found her not.

  And years flew by, and their grief at last

  Was told as a sorrowful tale long past...

  At length an oak chest, that had long lain hid,

  Was found in the castle – they raised the lid

  And a skeleton form lay mouldering there,

  In the bridal wreath of that lady fair!

  Oh! Sad was her fate – in sportive jest

  She hid from her lord in the old oak chest.

  It closed with a spring – and, dreadful doom,

  The bride lay clasp’d in her living tomb.

  Apart from Minster Lovell in Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire has the best claim, however tenuous, to being the site of the tragedy. Some later writers in the county, notably the Kettering poet and artist George Harrison, transferred the scene of the wedding celebrations to Titchmarsh. Despite a little poetic licence, one can see why. The facts are that in 1242, Sir John Lovell of Minster Lovell married Maud de Sidenham, whose family home was Titchmarsh Castle. Shortly after their marriage, the couple came to live at Titchmarsh, which replaced the Oxfordshire home as the main family residence. Their son and heir was born there in 1255 and the family line continued for several years. By 1363, however, the castle had long been deserted and was described as being in ruins. Rubble from the castle ruins was then used for building houses in the village and only the earthworks can be seen today. The Lovell family had lost its lands at Titchmarsh because of their association with Richard III, which was shown in a saying:

  The earthworks of Titchmarsh Castle, one of the settings for the tragic tale of the mistletoe bride.

  The cat, the rat, and Lovell our dog

  Rule all England under the hog.

  The important thing here is not so much the historical accuracy – the wedding reception was in Oxfordshire and the bride definitely did not die that evening! – or the suspect aftermath: why no one thought of looking there at the time, if there was a thorough search, or why such a long period elapsed before she was finally found. Although only a tongue-in-cheek invention, there is an element in the story of a distorted version of the struggle between winter and spring. Whatever the case, it is a fine tale that still stirs the imagination today.

  The Dun Cow’s Rib in the church of St Peter, Stanion.

  In the church of St Peter at Stanion can be found a gigantic whalebone, but when and how it got there is unknown. Traditionally it has been known as the Dun Cow’s Rib and has an amusing legend attached to it. At one time, there was a giant cow which was so large it could provide milk for the whole community. One day, a witch in the village got annoyed with everyone constantly avoiding her and cast a spell on the cow, or some say she milked it with a sieve, with the result that it could no longer give any milk and subsequently fell over and died. The rib is supposed to have come from the cow and is a memorial to her and the service she gave!

  As with the previous story, a similar tale exists around the country, with variations. There may, however, be a grain of truth in the Dun Cow legend. It is believed that before the Saxons came and hunted it almost to extinction, a longhorned native breed of cow almost 6ft in height, with a white hide and red ears, grazed throughout the land. The Saxons brought over the breeds we see today. Seeing any survivors of such a distinctive breed would have made an impact on our impressionable ancestors and inevitably give rise to legends.

  It is said that all round Britain, there exists a strange phenomenon: layers of treacle-bearing rock from compressed ancient forests of trees similar to sugar cane lying deep beneath the earth, like seams of coal. It is supposedly a powerful substance: in some stories, it is highly explosive; in others it is a delicacy. One legend states that the ancient Britons made use of it against the invading Roman armies, pouring it onto the surface of tracks to delay their march across the land. It is not certain how these strange tales began but it is likely they originated in the Victorian music hall. Whatever their origin, these stories seem to have been used as a ploy by certain villages to draw attention to themselves, either as a sign of exclusiveness or to mystify outsiders. Whatever the situation, the joke is at the expense of those who believe it – usually a neighbouring village!

  At C
rick, the treacle mines are now defunct. Overlooking the village, there is a treacle mine ‘spoil heap’ at Cracks Hill, from the time the Crick canal was constructed. It is said that if you happen to accidentally wander in the vicinity, you are ‘in the treacle’. Legend also has it that the M1 was deliberately diverted away from Crick because of the danger of subsidence from the mines. The deposits are no longer worked and the mines are permanently sealed up. However, all is not lost: if you are so inclined, it is possible to see the original mining equipment and a special spoon in the village hall about every four years, when one of the miners, resembling one of the Seven Dwarves, might just be present!

  Cracks Hill, Crick, beneath which the highly dangerous treacle mines are said to exist.

  Stories of ghostly fiddlers and drummers can be found all round Britain and Northamptonshire is no exception. These stories use a local setting and often take place in the distant past. The legends probably became more widely popular in 1837, after the appearance of a phantom drummer in a magazine story by Richard Harris Barham, as a parody of contemporary and superstitious practices. The story later appeared with other tales in The Ingoldsby Legends, a nineteenth-century best-seller. For his story ‘The Dead Drummer’, Barham took elements from a real-life crime that had taken place in 1780 on Salisbury Plain, when a sailor killed a drummer boy who was accompanying him across the lonely stretches. In the story, the ghost of the victim later reappears to haunt him and he confesses the crime to a local clergyman.

  At Rushton, a ghostly fiddler was said to be heard on certain nights playing an ancient tune. When the Cockayne family purchased the Hall in 1619, a secret passage was discovered under the Warryner’s Lodge. Unlike other rumoured subterranean tunnels around the county, this one did exist, although it has now been blocked up. The passage was a source of intrigue to the new owners, who offered a reward to anyone daring to enter it and follow its track to the end. The challenge was taken up by a fiddler from Desborough, who stipulated that if he did not reappear, the money was to be given to his wife. He disappeared and his wife got the money but it later transpired that the couple had craftily hatched a scheme, the fiddler having secretly ventured into the passage earlier and found a cavity in which he could conceal himself for a long period until he was deemed to be lost and the search called off. They wisely left the district shortly after, wealthier than before.

  Rushton Hall, from where an underground passage was said to lead to the Triangular Lodge and in which a vast treasure was said to be concealed.

  Two different ghostly drummers are said to have been seen in the county, one at Drummer’s Mound, near Barford Bridge between Kettering and Corby, and the other at Cat’s Head Wood, near Brigstock. The latter is connected with a mutiny of the Black Watch, who marched from Scotland to London in 1732 for inspection by George II, only to be spurned by him on arrival. Many of them left in disgust to make their way back home, some taking a route through Northamptonshire. Captain Bell from Dingley was summoned to apprehend them in the vicinity of Fermyn Woods, where they either surrendered or were captured. It is said that, the night before, a drummer boy accompanying them had been murdered in nearby Cat’s Head Wood by some of the pursuing militia and was hastily buried under a mound. For many years afterwards, a small boy could be seen dancing on the mound, playing his drum.

  There are interesting legends of buried treasure round the county, some having been unearthed and other hoards still awaiting discovery. Silverstone racetrack was built on a Second World War airfield, which itself had been constructed on the site of the former Luffield Abbey, traces of which were still visible until then. A farmer by the name of Saywell once farmed the site and in 1740 he was plagued by deer from Whittlewood, one of which was strange in appearance, having the ‘face of a man’. The deer kept disappearing at the same spot; Saywell dug there and found ‘treasure’ hidden by the monks ‘in time of trouble’.

  In 1576, Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned in Derbyshire because of her implication in Catholic plots and schemes against her cousin, Elizabeth I. While she was staying there, she was robbed of a sum of money and a cask of jewellery by two men who fled southwards with the stolen goods. They were pursued, caught and taken to London where they were put on trial. There they confessed to having buried the Queen’s jewellery at Geddington Chase in Rockingham Forest. A prominent landowner, Edward Brudenell of Deene, was given the task of leading a group of men in a search for the possessions. The result of the search was not recorded, so it is not known whether the jewels were ever recovered. They may still be there today!

  There were always those who claimed they could detect buried treasure, as a means of making a profit from gullible people seeking to improve their existence. According to an extract from the Lincoln episcopal visitations, such a person was apprehended at Kettering in 1527 for charging a fee to show someone where a precious hoard could be found by digging into a mound. His confession has a supernatural element and reflects the popular superstition current at the time. He stated that:

  ther was iii thousand poundes of gold and sylver in a bank besides the crosse nygh hand to Kettering, and that it is in ii pottes within the ground ... A man sprite and woman sprite did kepe the said ii pottes.

  Geddington Chase, where treasure belonging to Mary Queen of Scots was buried by thieves and supposedly never retrieved.

  Northamptonshire may have had its own Dick Whittington. In the church of St Mary Magdalene at Yarwell, there is an ornate marble tomb chest with a wild man wielding a club depicted on the top slab. The tomb is that of Humphrey Bellamy, a wealthy London merchant who died in 1715. As a boy he came to the village, destitute and ill, while on the way to London. He was fed and cared for by the villagers until he was well enough to travel on to the city, where he became prosperous and was made an alderman. In his last years, he came back to the village that had helped him in his youth.

  Inside the church of St Michael and All Angels on an isolated hilltop above the village of Wadenhoe, there is a memorial tablet to Thomas and Caroline Welch Hunt, ‘who were both cruelly shot by banditti near Poestum in Italy’. Caroline was twenty-three and Thomas was twenty-eight. The hidden story is that, less than a year after their wedding, the couple went on a European honeymoon. In Italy, on Friday 3 December 1824, they took a detour from Rome and headed south to Salerno, to see the ruined temples at Poestum. While preparing to stay overnight at a small inn at Eboli, the innkeeper saw the affluence displayed by the couple, such as their jewellery and Thomas’s ivory-backed clothes brushes. He contacted some of the local bandits and told them about his guests and their departure time. Early the next morning, the men came out of hiding from behind nearby bushes and held up the carriage with pistols, demanding some of their valuables. They were given money but, knowing what the innkeeper had told them, demanded something more extravagant. On being refused anything else, they became agitated and threatening. Thomas told them they would not dare to shoot and tried to carry on with their journey, whereupon shots rang out, apparently wounding both husband and wife. Thomas died instantly but Caroline lingered on and was able to relate the pattern of events before she too expired. Both were buried in Naples and the four bandits were caught, tried and guillotined. However, the instigator of the crime – the innkeeper – managed to avoid being connected in any way and continued to run the inn for several years after the event.

  The top slab of the Bellamy tomb inside the church of St Mary Magdalen at Yarwell.

  Other young lovers have, however, been more fortunate. In the summer of 1786, a seventeen-year old orphan and heiress, Miss Talbot, of Weston-on-the-Wolds was returning home from a visit to Ashley, accompanied by her male guardian. When the carriage stopped on the turnpike road near Desborough for a rest break, it was approached by two young men. The Kettering Leader reported what happened next:

  One of them distracted the guardian’s attention, while the other, a ‘Mr Burdett’ of Middleton helped her out of the carriage, and both ran across the field
to the hedge where a post-chaise and four awaited them. The guardian shouted to them, but to no avail. They then went on ‘to the Land of Matrimony’.

  The wall memorial at Wadenhoe telling of the tragic Welch Hunt honeymoon in Italy.

  Riots, rebels and outlaws

  Of all the characters that existed and incidents that took place, none can be more fascinating than young William, son of Sir Henry of Drayton, and his daring exploits in the Brigstock bailiwick, mainly in the 1250s. Something of a real-life Robin Hood in some of his actions, he seems to have been clever, elusive, fearless and imaginative. He must have been popular with local people, as it seems they knew him but did not reveal his identity when questioned – even at the expense of their own imprisonment. A local person was witnessed talking to William and his men during one incident and leading them to a place called Denrode. The first time William appears in the records is in 1246, when he is charged with complicity in a poaching offence after a bloody arrow was found in a neighbouring house in Brigstock. He probably continued committing offences during the next few years but the next time his name appears is in May 1251, when he was seen riding a black horse with a group of armed men and pages and a pack of greyhounds in the Sudborough and Lowick area. A shepherd and four herdsmen were eating their dinner under a hedge in a field when they saw the group pass by, with William wearing ‘a tunic of green hue’ and riding a horse, over which was slung the body of a deer covered in leaves and boughs. Later that year: