Haunted Bourne

The existence of ghosts has been the subject of debate for centuries and one that has occupied man's thoughts since he first trod on this earth. Today, in these more enlightened and even sceptical times, tales of spectral occurrences are treated with great caution although there are many who still believe implicitly in the supernatural while organisations and study groups devoted to the subject abound.

Few places in England are without a legend or two of a ghost, witch, poltergeist or other mysterious being, and they occur frequently in country areas such as Lincolnshire. Most of the more spectacular of the recorded sightings are confined to the north of the county but there are sufficient hereabouts to satisfy the curious.

The tradition of the ghostly happening has been less apparent in recent years because of a fashionable scepticism towards the subject and so many will not admit their beliefs to strangers while others are ashamed of being thought superstitious. We all enjoy a good ghost story but there are few of us who would be willing to spend the night in an allegedly haunted house alone or to walk through a forest reputedly inhabited by demons without the occasional glance over our shoulders. Perhaps we fear, or are wary of, the supernatural because it is an unknown quantity, something we have not experienced, and no matter how much we doubt the existence of spirits and spooks, the best approach is to keep an open mind.

The most famous ghost in Britain appears to be the white or the grey lady who inhabits so many old mansions and Bourne has its very own at the Red Hall. In this case, it is a grey lady that flits through the rooms of this 17th century house. The existence of such a ghost has undoubtedly grown up because of the combination of light and shade that we get on moonlit nights in lonely places and those who tell them over the years invariably elaborate. The late Mr Christopher Reeve, who lived in a house close to the hall, once confided in one of the staff that he had experienced "a distinct presence" when on the premises while Mrs Janet Burton, who worked there for 18 years, said that although there had been the occasional unexplained noise, she had never seen a sign of the grey lady.

If there is an apparition walking the corridors of the Red Hall, then it must be one of the two ladies associated with it. The first is Catherine Fisher, wife of Gilbert Fisher, the London grocer who built the Red Hall in 1605. They had a son, also named Gilbert, born in December 1610, but he died the following year. Mrs Fisher never recovered from the tragedy of losing her baby and died soon afterwards, being buried in August 1612. She might well be the grey lady of the Red Hall, appearing night after night and mourning the loss of her young son.

The second possibility is another Catherine, Mrs Catherine Digby, daughter of a former Vicar of Bourne, the Rev Humphrey Hyde, who in 1796, married Mr James Digby who owned the Red Hall and inherited the property when he died in 1811. Mrs Digby spent the rest of her life there, playing a major part in the life of the town while insisting on being known as Lady Catherine, having gathered around her the title and prestige of Lady of the Manor. She died childless in 1836 and was the last private resident to own and live in the Red Hall which she left to a nephew. Lady Catherine was buried in the chancel of the Abbey Church and left £100 in her will to pay for a marble monument that is still on display. Her pretensions to grandeur and the fact that she may have died dissatisfied with her lot, make her an excellent candidate as the supposed grey lady of the Red Hall. You may take your pick.

Other famous ghosts reputed to be seen in Bourne are the marching monks of Church Walk. This is the narrow alleyway between Abbey Road and the Abbey Church, once the main highway between London and Lincoln until the road was diverted to avoid damaging the stonework of the church. In recent times, a patrolling policeman claims to have seen three monks striding down the pathway and although such a presence might have been familiar during the 12th century when there was an Augustinian monastery in the vicinity, it did appear rather strange to him which is why he reported the incident to his superiors. Local historian Don Fisher, who recorded this sighting in October 1992, added: "The policeman, now deceased, was badly shaken by the experience and retired shortly afterwards."

There is also evidence of a haunting at the former Bourne Institute in West Street, now the Pyramid Club. The building dates back to the 18th century when it was used as a maltings, becoming the Bourne Institute in 1896. The first caretaker was Joseph Pool, appointed in 1888 and who lived on the premises with his family. His two sons, John and Joe, used to sleep in what was called the long room and one night they thought they heard a ghost. They were woken by the sound of footsteps and they followed them out of the long room, into the snooker room and down the servants' back stairs to the cellar, but at that point they decided to go back to bed and never did get an explanation. However, when I visited the building in December 2004, I met the treasurer Mrs Jan Bowers, a member of the Pyramid Club who had lived in the flat below for the past ten years and she related a similar story of footsteps down the corridor on the first floor during the night and then continuing through the wall at the end. These were two independent accounts and there is no way that Mrs Bowers could have known of the experience of John Pool which had been related to me by his son Trevor Pool, of Halifax, West Yorkshire, in July 2003.

As with the grey ladies, there are also many black dogs supposed to haunt lonely spots throughout England and legend has it that Stowe is such a place. This is little more than a few houses and an isolated signpost on King Street, the old Roman way, where it crosses the country road between Langtoft on the A15 and Greatford four miles south of Bourne. But it does have one notable building, an attractive mediaeval stone manor house, beautifully kept, and still in use as Stowe Farm.

The story is that this place is haunted by the black dog of Stowe. The animal is supposed to have been seen by travellers passing by on the main road to Greatford and many have claimed that a huge black dog has suddenly appeared beside them and then the next minute it was gone although recent sightings have been few.

But perhaps the most persistent ghost story that we have from the Bourne area is centred on Elsea Wood, a small clump of woodland alongside the A15, the road between London and Lincoln, south of the town. Bluebells grow here in the spring, a sure sign of an ancient woodland, while thousands of birds nest in the trees and its hidden places are full of small mammals. Fallow deer can also be seen hereabouts, often making their way across the countryside from Auster Wood and Pillow Wood to the north east along tracks they have trod for centuries past. 

It is an idyllic place but is reputed to be haunted by the ghost of Nanny Rut, a mysterious female hermit whose fate was determined by the social mores of 19th century England. Her real name was Nancy Rutter who was employed as a servant girl and who lived and worked at a farmhouse in Northorpe village nearby but as was so often the case with girls in her position, the farmer who employed her had his way with her and she became pregnant. Such an occurrence was a familiar one in Victorian England where the public attitude of the middle classes towards sex was prudish yet beneath the surface a wholly different culture existed. To have a baby out of wedlock was considered disgraceful and could lead to many different penalties imposed by the Poor Law authorities and the saddest figures of all were servant girls who endured long working hours and had little opportunity for social life. They also had to cope with sexual pressures from male employers and to refuse an advance could result in dismissal while to accept them might end with an unwanted pregnancy and again the loss of their job. 

For such girls, pregnancy inevitably led to social disgrace and ostracism and so it was with Nancy. When her condition became known, she was shunned by villagers and took refuge in Elsea Wood where she lived until the baby was born. The child died young but Nanny, as Nancy became known, was still avoided by family and friends and remained in the wood, living there as a hermit for the rest of her life. 

She became the subject of myth and legend during her lifetime and was forced to live on what she could find around her, the roots, seeds and fruits of her woodland landscape, and she quickly came to know the ways of the countryside, producing various remedies from herbs and plants which she traded for food with the villagers. Her knowledge and treatment of illness spread throughout the locality and soon inquisitive people were travelling from far distances for advice about their ailments and to buy her potions. Men in the village, gossiping and speculating about her in the local inn, shortened her name to Rut which referred to the mating season of the fallow deer that frequented the wood and so the name Nanny Rut became part of the folklore of this area and her wild and unkempt appearance earned her a reputation as a witch. 

She died alone, spurned and unloved by villagers and even those she had helped with her medications. Her reputation as a strange and wayward outcast of society persists to this day because many people remember being scolded by parents for being naughty and were told to stop misbehaving with the warning: "If you are not good, Nanny Rut will get you". 

True or false, this is a cautionary tale and one that demonstrates changing social attitudes. Today, instead of being an object of scorn and superstition, Nancy Rutter and her baby would have been cared for by the local authorities, given cash benefits and a council flat, and would have found many soul mates in our permissive society that would have enabled her live a perfectly ordinary life. She could happily have shopped at Woolworth's and Sainsburys with her baby without an eyebrow being raised. 

Elsea Wood where she lived is now under threat. It stands on the very edge of a new housing development that is likely to destroy its character. This and the adjoining Math Wood are both Sites of Special Scientific Interest and were once part of the large forest which covered this landscape and although its isolation and restricted access has left the woodland largely unfrequented in recent years except by nature lovers, this protection will disappear once 2,000 new homes are built on its very fringes. 

Perhaps the ghost of Nanny Rut will come back to haunt those developers who proposed this desecration and the councillors who approved it. 

The most recent haunting in Bourne is alleged to appear in the courtyard behind the Angel Hotel and is related by Dennis Staff who was evacuated to Bourne during the Second World War of 1939-45. He now lives in Ottawa, Canada, but sent this reminiscence of those early days when he was a ten-year-old boy sent here to escape the bombing in Hull and living with a local family:

The Airborne Regiment was billeted at the hotel at that time and in the converted stables behind and we kids would often arrive at the same time that the Commanding Officer was addressing his troops and the Sergeant Major would scowl at us as we scurried past. On dark nights, we were always challenged by the sentries: "Halt! Who goes there, friend or foe?" and when we replied "Friend" they would say "Advance friend and be recognized" at which time our identity cards were produced and inspected. I often wondered what would have happened if we had ever dared reply "Foe" but no one ever did. It was said at that time that the stables were haunted because a young soldier hung himself after hearing of the tragic death of his parents in the blitz back home, in a town or city unknown. I have often wondered if there have been any sightings of his ghost since those days."

REVISED DECEMBER 2003

See also  An Evacuee from Hull

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