Hurstmonceux.
The “Drummer’s Hall” at the Castle.
The gossiping correspondent of a contemporary thus writes of a legend of Hurstmonceux:
Apropos of the spiritualistic phenomena which are at present attracting so much attention in this part of the world, it may be worth while recalling the tradition which clings to the old ruined Castle at Hurstmonceux – a building which, even in its fallen state, is one of the finest in the South of England.
The room immediately over the porter’s lodge was known, we are told, as the Drummer’s Hall, from the peculiar nature of the spirit-rapping that was formerly carried on there. The story runs that a drummer with his nightly tattoo in this place, was wont to keep the whole county in a state of alarm. He is said to have been at least nine feet high, and some people alleged that they had seen him straddling along the battlements of the Castle at a furious rate. Addison’s comedy of “The Drummer or the Haunted House” was founded upon the story. He did not accept that part of it which relates to the great height of the noisy ghost; on the contrary, he assures us, on the authority of the butler addressing the coachman, that the ghost was never apparent except “in the shape and sound of a drum!”
Hastings and St Leonards Observer, 20th December 1873.