A Ghost Story in Oxfordshire.
Considerable excitement has prevailed for several days at Beckley, in this county, and the adjoining villages, occasioned by a report which has been pretty extensively circulated, that a “ghost” had taken up its quarters at a farm house known as Beckley Lower Farm, in the occupation of Mr. Chapman. Such was the rapidity with which the rumour flew, and such was the eagerness manifested to obtain a sight of the “haunted house” (a lone farm house lying in a hollow, about a mile to the east of Beckley, and about six miles from Oxford), that on Friday and Saturday several hundred – and on Sunday it is computed that no less than a thousand – persons of all classes of society made a journey to the farm in order to gratify their curiosity. Of course the reports in circulation have been many and varied, each visitor giving a version differing somewhat from the others, but the following facts may be relied on as coming from an “authentic source”:
About the middle of last week Mr. Chapman had occasion to go from home, leaving at the house his wife, a female visitor, a servant girl, and four young children. Soon after he had gone, scenes of an extraordinary character commenced. Pieces of the ceilings in every room in the house fell down, making a noise like thunder; brick after brick came rattling down the chimney; tiles fell off the roof, and all this without an apparent human agency. Above half the windows in the house are broken; stones, pieces of tile and plaster were thrown through them from without with such force as to break in the leaden frames. And all this went on in the open day, one peculiar characteristic of his ghostship, distinguishing him from the generality of his fraternity, being his invariable quietness during the “witching hours of night,” when, according to popular belief, ghosts delight in indulging in their wanton sports.
During the whole of these terrible scenes the females displayed a courage and presence of mind truly praisewotrthy, which may serve as an example to all who may have the misfortune to be placed in similar cirucmstances. At each succeeding smash of the windows a most rigid search was instituted by them throughout the grounds adjoining the house, to discover the perpetrator of the mischief, but always without success. One extraordinary circumstance was, we are told, that whenever the bricks or plaster fell on the property of the occupier, the articles of furniture sustained no damage; nor did any of the inmates of the house receive any injury, with the exception of the servant, who had a trifling bruise on the forehead, occasioned by the falling of a piece of the ceiling in one of the rooms.
Matters continued in this state until Monday last, during the whole of which time not even a momentary glimpse of the “ghost” could be obtained. On the morning of that day, however, the servant, who had been engaged in her domestic duties in the upper part of the house, came rushing down stairs pale with terror, and fell fainting with fright. As soon as she had sufficiently recovered to give an explanation, she said she had encountered a “tall dark man” on the landing of the stairs, and although closely questioned, and told that she must have been deceived, she adhered to her statement. All the rooms in the house were immediately examined by the men employed on the farm, but the supernatural intruder was nowhere to be found, it having, we have no doubt, used the prvelege enjoyed by “ghosts” of vanishing into “thin air”. The effect of the sight of the “tall dark man” on the servant girl was such that she could not be induced to remain any longer in the house, and she accordingly left the same day.
Whether his ghostship found that his lodgings were getting too warm to be comfortable, we cannot say, but it is certain that he has not since been heard of, and the destruction of property, of which, of course, he was the author, has ceased from that day. These are simply the facts of the case as we heard them from an inmate of the farm, who kindly volunteered the statement for our information and we lay them before our readers, leaving them to form their own opinion as to the amount of faith to be placed in them.
The Lower Farm, which is a very old one, has, for nearly a century, been associated with many tales of a supernatural character, one of which, credulously believed by many of the labouring classes at the present day, is to the effect that a former tenant of the farm made an agreement with his Satanic Majesty, Nicholas the elder, by which he sold himself for a certain sum of money. A .little wood, to the east of the farm, is pointed out to the inquiring visitor as the place in which the agreement was drawn up, and to which the tenant was wont to repair to receive payment of his wages. It is added, however, that the “laying” of “the evil spirit” was effectually performed, and that the old man, by always carrying a Bible in his pocket, eluded fulfilling his share of the bargain. Certainly this speaks volumes for the enlightenment of the nineteenth century! – Oxford Chronicle
Northern Daily Times, Saturday 16th May 1857.
Recent instances of superstition.
A short time since an extraordinary instance of superstitious credulity occurred near Rugeley, in Staffordshire, and some of the London papers, in commenting on it, seemed at once to come to the conclusion that the whole county in which this case had occurred, must occupy a very low grade in the scale of education and enlightenment.
Having, by some peculiar kind of logic, come to this conclusion, they proceeded to enquire – What can the clergy of Staffordshire be doing? Is it not a crying disgrace to them to suffer such ignorance and superstition to exist? Is it possible to bring forward a stronger proof of the necessity of enforcing some system of national education? Now, while allowing the desirableness of sound national education, I cannot admit it on such arguments as these. First, is the large and populous county of Stafford to be considered as generally ignorant and superstitious, because the inmates of an obscure farm house are found to have been believers in witchcraft and ghosts? If so, what must be our conclusion, after reading the account of the Beckley ghost in the Buck’s Herald last week?
Here is an instance of almost equal superstition within six miles of Oxford. Are we then to set down the county and University of Oxford as in a state of remarkable ignorance and superstition? But in the next place, let us look at the case of the Staffordshire victim of superstition. He was not an ignorant labourer or mechanic, but a yeoman farmer – a man who farmed his own property, and could both read and write fluently – and even wrote letters for the imposter who duped him.
[….]
Bucks Herald, 16th May 1857.
The Beckley Park Farm Ghost Story, referred to in last week’s Herald, has exploded. That it was a trick we were satisfied from the first. Such is now admitted by the servant girl.
Bicester Herald, 9th May 1857.