Confession of Murder.
It has within the last two or three days been made known that John Baguley, aged 70, who died at Chilwell, four miles south of Nottingham, on the 16th inst., confessed on his deathbed that 23 years ago he murdered a hawker of shawls, blankets, &c., and disposed of the body. This announcement has caused the greatest possible excitement. From a preliminary investigation it seems that at the time stated an individual, whose name is not now known, but whose description accords with that given by Baguley, suddenly disappeared, and all that could be learnt respecting him was that when last seen he was proceeding in the direction of Baguley’s cottage. This and other incidents led to a suspicion that the Baguleys had made away with the missing man, which suspicion subsequent circumstances revived from time to time. At the period of his sudden disappearance the murdered man professed to be courting one of Baguley’s daughters, and as he was known to be in possession of a considerable sum of money he was looked upon as being a rather desirable suitor, especially as the Baguleys were known to be very poor. The hawker had not been missing more than 12 months, however, before their circumstances began to improve, and from the condition of a poverty-stricken labourer Baguley became suddenly advanced to that of a comfortable cottager, with a number of pigs in his stye. This sudden improvement was coupled by the neighbours with the hawker’s disappearance, and ever since the Baguleys have been looked upon with distrust.
Two sons still living at Chilwell and another residing at a distance are supposed to have been cognizant of the foul transaction, although at the time of its occurrence they were very young; and that Baguley’s first wife was, is certain, for whenever she quarrelled with her husband, as she frequently did, she was in the habit of putting a stop to the violence of his temper by saying, “Be quiet, John; you know I have your coat of arms upstairs,” – alluding to some bloody clothes that were supposed to be kept in a lodging room. This first Mrs Baguley died five or six years ago, and said, a short time previously, that she had something on her mind which she would like to reveal; but this coming to her husband’s knowledge he never afterwards would allow a stranger to go to her room.
The present Mrs Baguley, now the widow of the murderer, was married to him about three years ago, since which time she says his conduct has been very strange. In his sleep frequently he would jump up in a state of great excitement and exclaim that some one was about to seize him. The day before he died he said to her, “the pick that I did it with is in the dyke,” and other revelations followed, which have not yet been made public.
It is a singular fact that the cottage in which the murder is said to have been committed has never since been occupied for any length of time, and in it periodically strange nocturnal noises are said to be heard. “The Chilwell ghost,” and tales respecting “the haunted house at Chilwell,” have during the last 20 years dismayed many thousands of persons residing within a circle of 150 miles of the locality, and formed many an exciting theme in the local newspapers. The whole of the above circumstances have been made known to Mr T.B. Charlton, the local magistrate, and will, no doubt, be fully and officially investigated.
Evening Mail, 27th February 1850.
Confession of the Chilwell Murder.
About twenty-three years ago a report was current that a pedler or packman had been murdered at Chilwell, a village about five miles from Nottingham. The circumstances attending the case were these: In a lonely house near the wood there lived a garden labourer named Baguley, who was at that time thought to be in needy circumstances. His family consisted of himself, his wife, three sons, and a daughter. The daughter was approaching to years of maturity, but the sons were all considerably under age. A travelling packman smitten by the daughter’s charms frequently visited the house, for the purpose, it was believed, of paying his addresses to her. One night he was observed going into the house, but he was not seen to return, nor has he been heard of since, and what is most singular the debts owing to him were never inquired after or called for.
These circumstances, connected with the fact that soon after the packman’s disappearance Baguley removed to a more commodious house, and invested a little money in the purchase of live stock, gave rise to various rumours at the time, which were not much heeded.
We have heard a statement that appears to be the most probable version of the murder, and the reasons for it, but forbear repeating it at this stage of the affair. Baguley lived uncomfortably with his first wife, who frequently threatened him when quarrelling, that she knew where his coat of arms was, and that he had better mind how he behaved to her. This was in allusion to the coat he is supposed to have worn at the murder, and which it is said she kept secreted. She died about six years ago, and it is said he never allowed any one to approach her during her last illness. Subsequently he married another woman.
The cottage he had quitted has been for nearly 20 years notorious as “The Haunted House,” the villagers asserting that they frequently hear strange noises in it, especially during the night; and many ghostly tales are narrated respecting horrible apparitions. In consequence of these absurd rumours the house is forsaken, no one being bold enough to brave its terrors. A fortnight since the old man, Baguley, lay upon the bed of death, and before his spirit left its earthly tenement he confessed to his wife that he “23 years ago murdered a hawker of shawls, blankets and other wares, with a pick, and buried the pick at the bottom of the dyke near the house.”
A great number of idle reports are afloat, and the consequence is that Chilwell is daily crowded with visitors. On Sunday they were some hundreds of people round “the haunted house,” and they wanted to dig in the dyke for the pick, but the circumstances not having then been made known to the authorities, they were prevented.
Baguley’s widow, who was married to him for about three years, says she has lived most uncomfortably with him, for when asleep he was always visited by annoying and painful dreams, and he would frequently fight with his hands as if struggling with someone, and jumping up would exclaim in great terror that some one was about to seize him.
The affair is creating much gossip and sensation, and during the present week hundreds of silly curious people have visited what they call the “Ghost House,” and minutely inspected the premises. It is a singular fact that the cottage in which the murder is said to have been committed has never since found a tenant who dared to stay for any length of time, and for many years there has been considerable excitement in the neighbourhood, and great alarm amongst the superstitious, by the singular and hitherto unaccountable noises that have been often heard on the premises, designated as “The Chilwell Ghost” and “The Haunted House at Chilwell”. We have received a variety of communications on the subject, with the names of parties who have heard and seen strange things connected with his Ghostship, but we leave it for the curious and marvel-seekers to ferret out the mystery.
Nottinghamshire Guardian, 28th February 1850.
Supposed discovery of a murder.
A startling event, which has occurred within the last few days, has formed the subject of much conversation within this distriict. For a considerable period anterior to the years 1827, a pedlar, named McQuince, was in the habit of visiting this neighbourhood. He was a Scotchman, and he dealt in drapery goods. It was his invariable custom, when at Chilwell, to make his last call at the Ash Flat House, the residence of one of Messrs. Pearson’s men, named John Baggueley, and he was shrewdly suspected of matrimonial intentions towards the eldest girl. Bagguley’s family, it may not be improper to state, consisted at that time of three sons and two daughters; and considering the relative position of the parties, the match was thought a capital one on the lady’s side.
One night towards the close of the year just named, he had been doing business with another of Messrs. Pearson’s labourers, named Thomas Ballard, to whom he had succeeded in selling articles on credit to the amount of 18s.; and it being now very late, he asked leave to go by a short cut across an orchard to Bagguelye’s, where he said he should sleep. The permission was immediately granted. He left Ballard’s and has never been seen since.
Ballard (who is still living) has never been called on for payment, nor have McQuince’s other debtors, of whom there were, in Beeston and Chilwell, a rather large number. In about a year after his disappearance, a change for the better was noticed in the condition of the Bagguleys. He bought several pigs, and his cottage began to be more comfortably furnished. This raised various surmisings, and the neighbours began to compare notes. It was also remarked that the two girls wore new dresses of the same material, and a Mrs Boyd said they also gave her a piece to make a frock for her daughter. A man, named Lees, stated that early on the morning after the pedlar had been seen last he felt an unaccountable and irresistable inclination to go to the Ash Flat House, and when he got thither (though it was before four o’clock) he found Bagguley in his shirt sleeves at work in his garden.
In 1837 Messrs Pearson, knowing Bagguley to be of indifferent character, discharged him from th ehouse, and put in another labourer in his place. The new comers had not been there long before t hey were alarmed one night by a tremendous bang at the shutters. On going out to ascertain what was the matter nothing could be seen. This was repeated, till the fame therof spread throughout all the neighbouring district for many miles round. It is described as being like the blow of something heavy, and of a certain degree of hardness – much, indeed, the same as would be cuased by a large Swede turnip thrown with considerable froce against the shutters.
Mr John Pearson went to the house twice, but as the knocking was heard neither time, he was inclined to think it a clumsy trick. On a third occasion, however, he was more successful, and he was afterwards at some considerable pains to find out the supposed deception. His first suspicion was that the player off of the trick had thrown something against the shutter and drawn it away again; but on carefully inspecting the snow not the slightest trace could be discovered, and this could hardly have been done. Mr Pearson also caused a trench to be dug all round the house, so as to discover any concealed wires. This failing, he had a frame made a little larger than the window frame, and covered with blacked paper. This he fastened over the window at the distance of two or three inches from it. No sooner had it been put up and he had gone into th ehouse than the noise was heard. He rushed out, but the paper was not in the slightest degree injured.
He then went upstairs into the room above, leaving some trustworthy persons to watch the inside of the shutter. While looking out of the window directly over the shutter (the night being light enough to see two or three fields off), bang! came the knock, fairly shaking the house, but still without damaging the screen. all the family at this time were at the other side of the room, so that they were not concerned in any hoax that it may be thought was practised.
To proceed, Mr Pearson was now convinced that the mystery was inexplicable, and after promising, without any result, a handsome reward to the discoverer of the secret, he took no further steps. Another family was put into the house, but they, meeting with the same annoyances, also left, and the building has since been used as an apple store.
The above is the legend of the much talked-of “Chilwell Ghost,” which, during the winter of 1837-8, made in the midland counties full as great a sensation as that of Cock-lane did in London.
Bagguley continued to live at Chilwell but his wife died five or six years ago. She had been heard several times to say to her husband, when quarrelling with him, “You know I could hang you any day – I’ve got your coat of arms up stairs.” Her neighbours sometimes asked her what she meant, and her answer was, always, “He knows.” As her end drew nigh, she stated that she had something on her mind, which she should like to reveal; but her husband never afterwards admitted a stranger into the room, and so her evidence was lost.
After three years since he married again, and his wife states that his conduct has been very strange. In his sleep he would frequently start up and exclaim that some one was about to seize him. His health had lately failed; and on the 15th instant he said, while in one of those fits, “The pick is in the book.” His wife asked, “What pick?” “That pick! that pick!” was the reply. After this he gradually grew worse, and on the next day he suddenly sprung up, his eyes rolled fearfully, and he made motions as if he saw some spectacle of horror. His attendant and his wife, who had become quite convinced of his guilt, fled in affright, and when they mustered courage to return, which they did in a few minutes after, they found that he had ceased to breathe. Conscience had done her work. No one can recount the terrors of that solitary chamber, for there was no witness but Heaven to the awful struggle in which the soul of the murderer tore itself from the crime-stained body, and stood before its judge! Search has been made for the pick, but we believe it has not been successful. Baggueley was 70 years of age; his daughters are dead, but his sons still survive. – Nottingham Journal.
Morning Post, 2nd March 1850.
The Chilwell Ghost Again.
This tale of mystery has been again revived during the past week in Chilwell and the neighbouring villages in all its original force; the favoured few have again related the sights they saw, the sounds they heard, and many have listened till their hair has stood on end, and on returning home have had to “whistle to keep their courage up.”
The cause of this is the occurrence of a singular circumstance, which transpired on Saturday, the 25th ult., and appears to form another link in the chain of evidence as to the mysterious disappearance and supposed murder of the travelling draper. It will be remembered by some of our readers, that about nine days before the death of Bagley, alias “Calico Jack,” (so called from the circumstance of his having in his possession a large quantity of calico and drapery after the disappearance of a Scotch hawker, who called at a home in Chilwell, on the road to the ash flats, where he sold a pair of blankets, payment for which – a case never heard of before by a Scotchman – he never after applied for,) he, while in a state of semi-sensibility, started up exclaiming “the axe, the axe in the dyke.”
A man named Joseph Shrewsbury, of Chilwell, was lately employed to cut a hedge and clean out a dyke round the plantation against the “ghost house,” and on Saturday, the 25th ult., he found therein, near the corner where it joins the brook, a large axe embedded in the rubbish which has for many years been accumulating. It is a large hedge cutter’s or labourer’s axe, measuring ten inches in length, and five and a quarter in breadth at the point, made of excellent close grained material, which has resisted in a great measure the influences at work to corrode it.
The elve is almost decomposed, and bears evidence of having lain for years in its present state, breaking easily on trifling pressure. Having carefully examined it – and with a pin removed the rust from the name – we find it to have been made by “W. Eaton,” who was a blacksmith at Stapleford, about a mile and a half from the “ghost house.”
Shrewsbury has destroyed the elve, cleaned it up, and got a new one in, contrary to the wishes of his friends and neighbours, stating that “he does not want to have any bother about it,” and it was with difficulty we could get from him his impression about the circumstance; but on enquiring of men who have been working in the neighbourhood, we find the dyke has not been cleaned out since the plantation was made – above twenty years ago; and after listening patiently to the statements of Shrewsbury, and going quietly to the spot, we could not resist the impression that the axe found is the axe on the mind of the dying Bagley. – Correspondent.
Nottinghamshire Guardian, 9th March 1854.
Thursday, Feb. 16th. – On this day in 1850, John Baguley died at Chilwell, near Nottingham, making confession in his last moments of having murdered a hawker, whose body he disposed of, and whose property he stole and sold. Baguley was seventy years old at his demise, and the murder was committed about a quarter of a century before. The most extraordinary feature of the case arose out of the circumstance that the cottage in which the deed was performed was said to be so persistently haunted by a ghost as to be virtually untenantable.
People when they took it declared that they could not stay, and the “Chilwell ghost” was the cause of anxiety and dread to thousands all round the district. Adventurous sceptics entered into possession of the premises without number, and visitors inspected the tenement from many places in an area extending to more than a hundred miles around. They all declared that noises were to be heard, that cups and saucers rattled, and whether empty, or full, the cottage was never free from groans, taps, and other mysterious ounds.
The occupant of it disappeared very suddenly, but, as he was a hawker, no suspicion arose respecting the cause. At one time he had been a sweetheart of Baguley’s daughter, and her father denounced him as a recreant lover, in which his neighbours agreed.
On the death of his first wife Baguley married again, and disturbed his spouse by his strange conduct. He would jump up in bed and make exclamations of an extraordinary kind, and on the day before he died he cried out while asleep, “The pick I did it with is in the dyke.” Next morning, being told he had only a very short time to live, he confessed to the murder and robbery. Subsequently, a bundle of clothes, stained with blood, was found in an attic, and a pick was fished up out of an adjacent dyke.
The popular tradition is that the noises ceased when Baguley died, and the haunted cottage at Chilwell found a permanent tenant. This was only thirty-eight years ago. Since then the schoolmaster has been abroad.
Norfolk Chronicle, 18th February 1888.
The Chilwell Ghost.
I have read what Mr J. Edward Cooper has to say about the Chilwell Ghost. When I was a lad, about the year 1844, I resided at Chilwell, and there was then a great talk about a Mrs C- having seen the ghost. She and a neighbour had been to Stapleford that day, and they had to pass the ghost-house. They arranged to come home before dark (not that Mrs C- was afraid of any ghost, for she was known to disbelieve the many tales even about that at Chilwell), and, as the two came along talking just about dusk, and approached the place where the haunted house stood, Mrs C- thought she heard some one coming behind and about to pass them.
She turned to see, and give way for the other to pass, when she saw a person without a head. Tightening her hold on her neighbour’s arm, she was about to exclaim, “See!” when the apparition suddenly burst through the hedge and went straight to the well, and it sounded as if it rattled down and splashed into the water. The two women hurried home, and all in the village heard the story.
About that time, I went along the lane leading to the ghost-house, and passed the brickyard, to the house of a man named W-. While I was there, many neighbours came in, and the talk began about the ghost. W- only laughed, and said there was no ghost. It was only So-and-So’s dodge to get the W- family out of the house from living rent free. One said, “Why don’t you go and live there now? Gardener P- promised to let you go back.”
W- replied, “I agreed to go and stop in the house, but folks said the publican that lived at the bottom of the lane had engaged them to collect all the rotten eggs and dead cats they could find on purpose to have some fun and frighten me out again, so I would not go to serve their purpose.”
Another of the company said that this publican had made a lot of money by people coming from Nottingham to his house and starting in crowds up the lane “a-ghost seeing.” There were lots of fun on those nights for all the young chaps who were fond of a lark, and lots of money for the publican; so the game went on for several winters.
I do not say that the publican made up the tales, but he used all he could hear anyone tell, and would get them printed and send men with them to Nottingham to get strangers to his hous; and it seemed to me that this idea as to the reason for the Chilwell ghost’s lengthy existence was uppermost in the minds of the company then at W-‘s house. So the talk turned to something else.
I have heard that the publican’s house is pulled down, but I cannot say for certain. Perhaps someone living in the neighbourhood now might say. The public-house stood near Squire Charlton’s west entrance gate, and I believe iwas a nuisance to them at the Hall on these nights, for it was thought that many came to poach in the squire’s grounds for game. – Bingley Bonsall, Heaton Norris, Stockport.
Long Eaton Advertiser, 28th January 1893.
“The Chilwell Ghost.”
When but a child I recollect reading the printed story of what is known as “The Chilwell Ghost,” and oftentimes have I passed the “ghost-house” with feelings of pity for the superstitious people who regarded the deserted cottage with awe. The little book is gone, like the home wherein I perused it, but I have not forgotten the main incidents of the tragic history narrated.
Chilwell is a small village lying between Beeston and Long Eaton. The haunted house is situate some distance from the village proper, in the direction of Stapleford. The story states that, some years ago, a pedlar, on his periodical visits to the neighbourhood, used to lodge with an old couple who occupied this particular cottage. The visitor’s supposed wealth excited the avarice of his host and hostess, and they planned and executed a deed of blood. The murdered man’s body was buried in the adjoining garden ,but afterwards the cottage was rendered untenantable by the mysterious noises that were frequently heard in its rooms. When I last saw it, it appeared to be utilised for storing the tools and fruit of a florist and nurseryman.
One night a party of Stapleford Methodists determined to visit the place, and by united prayer to see if they could not lay the ghost. It was winter, and snow had settled upon the window-sills an din the corners of the window-panes. the bold invaders of the haunted precincts commenced their prayers, when , in the chamber above, was heard the tread of feet, and, at the same moment, the stair foot door flew open. Then, as if a terrific gust of wind had blown, the entire structure was violently shaken, but not a particle of snow appeared to have been dislodged.
I do not know whether the uncanny occupant of the premises survived this ordeal, but I have not heard of any recent manifestations of its presence. The story of the prayer-meeting and its consequences was told me by my uncle – the son of one of the compnay – and I believe there is at least one person living who can vouch for its accuracy from personal observation at the time.
Without any expression of opinion, I state briefly what I know concerning “The Chilwell Ghost” for the benefit of anybody who is interested in such things. – J. Edward Cooper, Derby.
Nottinghamshire Guardian, 13th May 1893.
Chilwell “Ghost House”
Famous cottage struck by lightning. Miraculous escapes.
Miraculous escapes from serious injury and possibly instant deaeth have been experienced by the occupants of the famous “Ghost House” at Chilwell. During the height of last Sunday’s great storm, the cottage was struck by lightning, and extensively damaged. What is described as a “twisting red ball of fire” was seen to approach the living room of the cottage, and the next instant a terrific shock shook the entire building, splintered glass from the windows flying in all directions.
A large stewing-pot standing on the living-room window sill was hurled across the room, scattering its contents over the floor and walls. Considerable havoc was also caused in the bedrooms, where showers of plaster and mortar fell from the ceilings accompanied by clouds of soot from the chimney.
As the result of their terrifying ordeal the three occupants of the room were rendered temporarily speechless by the shock, while Mrs Butler, who with her husband and child rents the cottage, fainted.
After striking the cottage, the lightning continued its course across the garden where it ripped the bark from a large tree some thirty yards distant. “Ghost House” is a famous landmark in the Chilwell district, occupying a secluded position in a large belt of trees just off Keeper’s-lane. Mr and Mrs H Butler, the present tenants, have been in occupation of the cottage for nearly a year.
At the time of the occurrence, however, they had staying with them a Miss M Gell, of Radford, a close friend, who, perhaps, experienced the most remarkable escape of all. Discussing her ordeal with our reporter, Mrs Butler gave a graphic account of the lightning’s terrible havoc. “It came,” she said, “just after one o’clock, as I was preparing to put the dinner on the table. Miss Gell was sitting on the couch by the window reading, and my three-year-old son (Sidney) was playing on the hearth-rug in front of the fire. I had just taken the meat out of the oven, when suddenly Miss Gell cried out: “My God, we are done for.” The next thing I knew was a terrific crash that shook the cottage from top to bottom, breaking the windows and shattering the glass in all directions. How I managed to retain myhold of the meat tin, I shall never know, but had I not had the presence of mind to save it from falling on to our boy, he would undoubtedly have been scalded by the boiling fat.”
“My husband,” continued Mrs Butler, “was out near the wood at the time attending to his cart, and I remember hearing him call out, ‘Are you all right.’ We had been given such a severe shock, however, that we were speechless and unable to reply. Miss Gell, I had time to notice, was lying on the couch as if dead, and then I fainted away, remembering no more.” Mrs Butler added that when Miss Gell recovered sufficiently to speak, she described having seen a “twisting red ball of fire” approaching the window.
Speaking of a remarkable premonition of the incident which she had had the previous day, Mrs Butler said to our reporter: “On Saturday evening we were talking about the end of the world, and afterwards I had a strange feeling that something was going to happen. It was also curious that I placed the stewing-pot on the window sill, a thing I have never done before. Immediately below the window sill Miss Gell was sitting, and the fact that the pot was hurled across the room proves that it was the first object struck by the lightning. Had it not been there I am firmly of the belief that she would have been fatally injured.”
Mrs Butler went on to say that the front bedroom window was also smashed, while quantities of mortar and soot fell into both upstair rooms. “The scene was heartbreaking,” she said, “and as a result of the shock to my system I spent a sleepless night dreading the return of the storm.”
“Ghost House” as its name implies, is the reputed scene of mysterious happenings, the legend existing round the cottage being that some sixty years ago a man murdered his wife and then buried her body beneath the fire-hearth in the living room. The cottage, which was formerly the property of Mr J. Woodhouse, now belongs to Mrs Barton, wife of Mr Tom Barton, of Barton’s Transport Co. Ltd.
Mr and Mrs Butler have occupied the cottage for nearly a year, and Mrs Butler confesses that she is still nervous of the “ghost.” She added that since her occupation of “Ghost house” nearly a hundred people have visited the cottage to inspect the scene of the reputed murder.
South Notts Echo, 1st June 1929.
Among Mr White’s other reminiscenses is the story of how his grandmother, as a girl, used to earn coppers by directing people to the “Chilwell ghost house,” where many heard weird tappings.
Nottingham Evening Post, 12th November 1952.
Replies to Readers.
What was the Chilwell ghost? W.E.
In 1843, strange noises were heard outside the Ashflat house, a cottage on the way to Stapleford owned by a Mr Pearson and occupied by one of his workmen. The noises were very loud bangs, so loud that sometimes the glass fell from the leaded windows. Although Mr Pearson and his brother lay in wait to see what the cause was, nothing was seen. They even set up a frame covered with greased paper to get a mark of the nuisance but, though the blows came, no mark was made. The Chilwell ghost became so famous that special train journeys were laid on. The house was finally closed down, though an old cobbler did try to live there for a year. Although nothing was proved, the ghost was thought to be that of a pedlar owed money by the workman who lodged at Ashflat house who was murdered by the workman.
Nottingham Evening Post, 19th June 1991.
The facts behind haunting legend.
Deathbed confession to pedlar’s axe murder.
No one was ever charged with murder. No body was found and there’s no proof the crime took place. But these facts wouldn’t have cut much ice with the people of Victorian Chilwell. They were, it seems, convinced something did happen, which itself gave rise to what has become a local legend. The story of the Chilwell Ghost and Ghost House Lane lingers on even though the Ghost House itself, the centre of the mystery, was demolished in 1952.
Alan Dance, 52, was brought up in Chilwell and now lives in Park Road. His book The Chilwell Ghost, is set to be published in mid-November. Legend has it that a pedlar disappeared soon after telling a customer he was going to spend the night at a remote farmhouse. The family he had set out to visit then seemed to enjoy a brief spell of apparent and inexplicable prosperity. Later, there was a deathbed confession to murder, and later still, according to accounts of the time, the widespread belief that the house where it happened had become haunted. Day-trippers would come from Nottingham to see the site, roughly at the corner of where Pearson Avenue and Valley Road are today.
Mr Dance is the first to put the events in order and put names to the figures involved. “It was a matter of curiosity,” he said. “I knew the basics but no one seemed to know exactly what happened, or when.” His research involved hours looking at parish registers, census records, newspapers of the time and court documennts, before he eventually began to piece together the story.
Chilwell was a farming community with many residents living on land rented to them by the Pearson family. At the time of the disappearance – 1827 – there were 823 people living in Chilwell. The population is now around 12,000. Through his investigations, Mr Dance found out the tenants of the cottage, then known as Ash Flat House, were the Baguleys. John Baguley was a farm labourer with a number of children, among them a daughter Diana. She had three illegitimate children and had served a jail sentence in Nottingham’s women’s prison for theft. The disappearance of the pedlar – called McQuince – didn’t spark haunting stories straight away. They came after the Baguleys had been evicted by the Pearson family, and when subsequent sets of tenants moved in. John Baguley is said to have confessed, on his deathbed, to killing the pedlar. But the motive for the killing remains in doubt. Mr Dance speculates that Baguley could have caught McQuince in a compromising position with his daughter.
According to local legend, the murder weapon was an axe. An axehead was found some years later in the brook, now culverted, which surfaces on the south side of Inham Nook Recreation ground. If that had been the case, and Baguley had killed McQuince, then the likelihood is that he would have buried him nearby. In any event, there was no proper investigation at the time and, if McQuince was buried somewhere near the house, his body is still there.
The ghost stories were enough to unnerve two families who lived there after the Baguleys. Later, the Pearsons, too, had enough of the stories, shut the house, and converted the building into an apple store. The Pearsons sold off land holdings in Chilwell in 1892. The area was bought by the Hollingworth family and in 1938 the building was leased again, after being renamed Sunnyside Cottage.
Mr Dance found one of the last occupants, Anne Robbins, who is now 83, still living in the Chilwell area. She moved into the house as a newly-wed, living with her in-laws after it had been extended. She described how much she loved living in the old Ghost House, despite the fact that it was such a lonely spot and a considerable distance from the nearest shops. She told Mr Dance of one strange experience at the house.
Mrs Robbins was alone there, kneeling to clean the hearth, when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned, thinking one of the farm lads from nearby Sunnyside Farm was playing a trick – but there was no one there. Mr Dance said: “When she later told her mother-in-law what had happened she, too, admitted having had the same experience while cleaning the grate.”
The house was demolished 46 years ago, as building progressed on the Inham Nook Estate. Ghost House Lane remains, though, as a footpath off Field Lane.
“This has been a labour of love,” said Mr Dance. “The original idea was to write an article for the local history society. It grew from there. Weighing up the evidence, I think McQuince probably was murdered by Baguley and buried somewhere near the Ash Flat House.”
Nottingham Evening Post, 27th October 1998.