Letters From Badgers Crossing #4
Inspiring Folklore, Part. 2
Welcome back Badger Fans!
Carrying on from Issue #3, I’ve got more of the local history, folklore and spooky tales that helped inspire Tales From Badger’s Crossing.
So let’s head back to my hometown of Corby in Northamptonshire and take a quick, ten-minute walk across the sports field at the top of my parents’ street, where we’ll quickly find ourselves leaving town and entering the grounds of Rockingham Castle where…
Charles Dickens Meets The Ghost of Lady Dedlock
Wait… How can that be possible? Lady Dedlock is a fictional character from Dickens’s masterpiece, Bleak House!
Well, I’ll tell you.
If you went to school in Corby, the chances are you were taken on a school trip to Rockingham Castle at some point and if you were, you will have also heard this story…
Rockingham Castle is a former royal hunting lodge (suddenly the story about Elizabeth I in the first part of Inspiring Folklore doesn’t seem all that implausible anymore, right?) at the top of a very steep hill overlooking five counties (Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, Rutland, Leicestershire and Cambridgeshire). It’s a mish-mash of plots and structures dating all the way back to Bronze Age and Roman times, incorporating Saxon, Norman, Tudor, Victorian and modern architectural styles along the way.
It had fallen into disrepair by the late fifteenth century when Henry VIII sold the lease to Sir Edward Watson, who proceeded to renovate the buildings and grounds in the Tudor style. Eventually, Watson’s grandson was able to acquire full ownership of the castle from the Crown and his descendants still own the building today.
In the nineteenth century, Richard Watson and his wife Lavinia were very good friends with Charles Dickens, who was a regular visitor to the castle. The room where he stayed overlooked a trail between two yew hedgerows called The Elephant Walk.
The Elephant Walk was the inspiration for chapter 7, The Ghost’s Walk, in his novel Bleak House. Mrs Rouncewell, the housekeeper of Chesney Wold (who it is believed was inspired by Rockingham’s own housekeeper, Mrs Champion) is begged by some guests to tell the story of how the terrace that runs alongside the house got its name. She says that the story is not normally told to outsiders and has been largely forgotten. However, when they leave, she confides in her grandson Watt and Lady Dedlock’s maid Rosa with the tale:
During the Civil War, the then Lady Dedlock, a secret Parliamentarian sympathiser learns that relatives of her husband Sir Morbury Dedlock have been involved in the death of her brother, one of Cromwell’s Roundheads. In revenge, she sabotages their efforts by deliberately laming several of the horses that he husband Morbury has promised to King Charles’s Cavaliers. The night before a major military operation he catches her as she prepares to maim his own favourite steed. They fight, causing the horse, in its fright, to kick out and injure her hip. She is left lame for the rest of her life.
She collapses while limping along the terrace one day and as she lies there dying, she vows to walk the terrace, even after death, until the Dedlock family is punished. She warns that any time her steps are heard on the terrace, tragedy will strike for the Dedlock family soon after.
Mrs Rouncewell tells the pair that whenever the steps have been heard, sickness and death have indeed followed soon after and that the current Lady Dedlock has ordered that if they ever are heard, they are not to be drowned out. She instructs Watt to wind the large clock in the room overlooking the terrace and as it starts playing its music, she asks him if he can hear footsteps over the clock’s beat and music. He confirms that he can.
“So my Lady says.”
In his book, Haunted Castles of Britain and Ireland, folklorist Richard Jones tells the story of how Dickens was able to encounter the spectre of his own creation.
Whenever Dickens created a character, the person became very real to him, taking on a life of his or her own. It wasn’t unknown for him to hold conversations with his fictitious inventions, and for their fates to affect him in sundry ways.
Thus it was that, while walking behind the 400-year-old yew during one stay at Rockingham, he is said to have come face-to-face with the ghost of the protagonists in Bleak House, Lady Deadlock. Since she was a fictional character, it is possible that the vision was more hallucinatory than spectral – or as the castle’s current owner James Saunders Watson told me; “Sadly I fear that the story was pure fiction, created by the genius of Charles Dickens.”
The Watsons commissioned the cleric and antiquary C.H. Hartshorne to write a book on the castle and its treasures and had it privately printed for friends and frequent guests. Dickens himself received a signed copy of Rockingham Castle; Its Antiquity and History, Drawn from the National Records from Richard and Lavinia following a visit in 1852 and he treasured it for the rest of his life. After his death, the book was acquired by rare book dealer Sotheran’s and sold to John Taylor, a Northampton printer and stationer. He was an avid collector of books and records on local history. These were kept in a private collection at Northampton Public Library (which he helped found) and many of them are still available to view today.
I wrote to the library to ask if the book was in their possession and at first, I got a rather disappointing reply, telling me that the county lists four copies of the book on their public library database; one at Corby, which is available for loan and three at Northampton in the reference section. No mention of Dickens.
But then the next day I received a further email telling me that after looking through the safes at Northamptonshire Central Library, they can confirm that there is a volume bearing the bookplate:
From the Library of Charles Dickens, Gadshill Place, June, 1870
and signed:
Charles Dickens. With kindest regards. Rockingham. March 1852
And if you’re thinking of heading down to Northampton for a browse, they also told me that to prioritise the book’s preservation, it can only be viewed by pre-arranged appointment.
You can read much more about the influence Rockingham Castle had on Charles Dickens and his novels at the castle’s website.
The Mysteries of Barford Bridge
Barford was a village near Rushton (about three miles South-West of Corby). It was abandoned sometime during the Early-Modern era (1450-1750). It’s not known exactly why it was deserted, but the majority of Northamptonshire villages lost in this period were due to evictions so the land could be repurposed for arable use. There is now a small row of twelve houses called Storefield Cottages, just to the east of where the village used to be. Although geographically closer to Corby or Rushton, they are designated as a part of Kettering. They sit beside the southbound carriage of Uppingham Road (A6003), a road that has huge significance for Badgers Crossing. See the first instalment of Letters From Badgers Crossing to find out why.
Just south of Storefield Cottages, a railway bridge carries the Kettering to Oakham branch of the East Midlands line across the A6003. This is the alleged epicentre of several supernatural encounters - the infamous Barford Bridge.
In 1964, the raised area around Barford Bridge, locally known as Drummer’s Mound, was heavily excavated while Uppingham Road was upgraded to a dual-carriageway. An ancient round barrow (or tumulus) known as The Mount was flattened during these works. Inside the burial chamber, archaeologists discovered the beheaded remains of 24 men, women and children, believed to be of either Saxon or Roman origin. Evidence suggests that the barrow had been on the site since at least the Bronze Age and that prior remains had been removed to make way for the new inhumations.
In his 1988 publication Northamptonshire Notes & Queries, Vol 2, our old friend John Taylor mentions Drummer’s Mound. A local story says that a drummer was buried beneath it and that every night, at midnight, he could be heard playing his drum. The ghostly drummer is mentioned in both Folklore of Northamptonshire (2009) by Peter Hill and Northamptonshire Folk Tales (2013) by Kevin Manwaring. Although Drummer’s Mound still stands today, since the destruction of The Mount, there have been no further sightings of the spectral drummer.
However, sightings of another spectral resident increased after the A6003 was widened. After you come down Drummer’s Mound and under Barford Bridge, you hit a roundabout. The second exit takes you onto a single-track road that follows the River Ise all the way to Geddington. It’s here that you might just have an encounter with The Phantom Monk!
There’s been a lot of interest in the monk over the past few years, with the story being covered by the local newspaper Northamptonshire Telegraph as well as some national tabloids such as The Mirror, The Sun and The Daily Star. Newton Road often features in lists of The UK’s Most Haunted Streets.
The monk is most often seen by drivers as they motor along the road. Sometimes the monk steps out in front of them, sometimes he stands at the side of the road and watches, but the most unnerving recurring account, first recorded in 1984 by a police officer, is that the monk appears in the rear-view mirror - inside the car! Yikes!
I took a diversion along Newton Road as I was driving to visit my parents a few years ago, hoping to catch a glimpse of the creepy cleric. Sadly, I didn’t see him, but when I told my parents why I arrived later than expected, my mum said “Are people still telling that old story?”
Barford and Newton were once served by Cistercian Monks, based out of nearby Pipewell Abbey (where Richard I laid out arrangements for the management of the country while he was away fighting in the Third Crusade). Many of the smaller villages in the area had no dedicated clergy so the monks would walk to the various churches to perform parochial duties. One of the old paths they would have followed to get to Newton village crosses over what is now Newton Road - the very spot of the alleged sightings!
In 2009 the Northamptonshire Paranormal Investigation Team held a vigil to contact the monk. Although no sightings were made, they did record a dramatic drop in temperature, as well as loud banging noises coming from the nearby woods. In May 2021, the online local paper Northants Live asked people to share their stories of meeting the monk. You can read them here.
The story of the monk is recounted by fellow Northamptonshire resident Alan Moore in his 1996 novel Voice of the Fire.
The last little story from the area doesn’t feature any supernatural phenomenon but is no less weird. Cockayne Bridge, which traverses the River Ise near Rushton is known for its unusual echo. Entire sentences, spoken not shouted, are returned to the speaker several seconds after they were uttered. Having a conversation with “The Echo” was a favourite game of local children in the 1700s. That is until a little girl from Barford leaned too far over the parapet to hear it, toppled into the river and drowned. The bridge is now disused and unsafe to cross but is now a popular haunt of bats.
An Update
In Issue #3, I mentioned that in 1979 a charity single was recorded to raise money for the fight against the closure of Corby Steelwork and that I was going to try to acquire a copy.
Well, here in all its glory is the full, four-track EP Save Corby by Mike Carver.
That’s All For Now
Thank you to everyone who has subscribed or read my Letters From Badgers Crossing so far, and I’d like to give an extra-special welcome to any newcomers who have signed on in time for this latest edition.
Until next time, keep badgering on!
Paul