Donkey calms ghosts at Bateman’s Green Farm.
By Roger Clarke.
If you want to subdue a ghost get a donkey. The ghosts are still around on Bateman’s Green Farm, Hollywood, Birmingham, but not as often since the donkey was bought from a horse breeder of Romany stock. Mr Kenneth Beddoes, aged 46, who lives at the farm, said yesterday that the gipsy had told him when he bought the donkey, that the ghosts would go. “The Donkey is God’s own creature,” he had said. But the farm is still haunted, albeit less frequently. Mrs Jean Haddock, aged 47, who had lived at the farm for 12 years has seen shadowy figures, heard footsteps upstairs where rooms do not exist, and had apples and oranges thrown at her in her kitchen.
Mr Beddoes, said the present house was built 46 years ago, but was built on the site of a house dating back about 400 years. Neighbours have seen the shadowy figures around the farm, and heard the hoof beats of horses in Bateman’s Lane. But no one has yet seen the horse. Stranger things have happened: Mr Beddoes said driving licences and pedigrees for the animals on the farm had vanished. They were brought back to the house by a woman from Sheldon, who said she had found them there, and thought they must have been left behind. Mr Beddoes and Mrs Haddock have no connection with Sheldon.
Then there are the insurance stamps which went missing from the house. Twelve weeks later, Mr Beddoes wanted to look in a reference book. He looked in the index, found the page and turned to it – and there were the missing stamps.
Even the animals are not immune. A few years ago a St Bernard was regularly frightened by some “presence” in the room, and one morning Mr Beddoes went to look at 80 pigs in the bottom barn. He said: “When you go in with pigs they always start to squeal for food. But that morning I went in and it was deathly quiet. All the pigs were looking at something. I went to see the cows and they were the same. I went back to the pigs and decided to leave, and instinctively stepped round something, there was nothing there but I am sure there was someone standing next to me.”
One night Mr Beddoes and Mrs Haddock were in the kitchen when the electric organ started to play. They went in and the music stopped. They looked and it was not plugged in. Mr Beddoes, who runs a haulage business at the farm was later told by a neighbour that the organ was standing on the site of the front room, which used to be a chapel.
One night Mrs Haddock was alone, watching television, when the flex of an electric fire suddenly shot up into the air, and then folded itself into a perfect circle on the floor. She said: “I am not really worried by the ghosts except when I am alone. I have been sitting in the kitchen with some of the lorry drivers and we have seen people passing the window and gone to open the door for them and there is no one there. But I don’t think they can harm you apart from your mind.”
Mr Beddoes said: “We had a white witch who wanted to exorcise the house about 18 months ago but we have not heard from him since. It does not really worry me, and I don’t care if it is exorcised or not. I want to find out what the building before this was, and who lived here, and what happened to them. But I must admit since we got the donkey, and did some conversion work in the house that we have not seen as much of the ghosts.”
Mrs Stella Ashley, aged 64, lives in Packhorse Lane, across the road from the farm. She said: “I was born in the lane, and remember the original farmhouse on the site. It was two-storeyed and half-timbered as far as I can remember.” Mrs Ashley could not remember anyone talking of terrible deeds or strange deaths at the farm, but she said: “There was supposed to be a secret passage leading to Wythall Church.”
Mr Beddoes said he had found passages under the house when he had been doing conversion work. One ran towards the church, others out into the fields.
(Photo: Mrs Jean Haddock, left, Mr Kenneth Beddoes and his daughter Dawn, aged 16, who have all experienced the unaccountable hauntings at their home, Batemans Green Farm, Batemans Lane, Hollywood, Birmingham.)
Birmingham Daily Post, 28th December 1974.
Fascinating, my allotment plot is near the farm and I hear and see strange things on the plots, mainly as it is getting dark, that is when I get scared. It would be interesting if any other plot holders hear or see spooky things or am I just sensitive. I know Dark lane and Druids Lane are spooky also Crabmill Lane, I could never get my horse down there he would just rear and bolt back home with me.
That’s so interesting, Susan, thank you very much for your comment! (I didn’t even realise people could leave comments so this is a great revelation 🙂 and makes me think I should work harder on putting in maps and pictures and so on.
I do wonder whether some outdoor places are inherently prone to weirdness for some reason. It’s interesting that the roads around your allotment have spooky names… perhaps for good reason?! You shouldn’t dismiss your sensitivity – after all, we have evolved for a long time and it’s only very recently we’ve dulled our senses by living safely indoors and distracting ourselves with technology. Perhaps animals have more sense.