Natural or Supernatural.
The equanimity of the inhabitants of the village of Odell has been considerably disturbed during the present week, by the occurrence of some very singular phenomena, the scene of which is the Bell public-house, occupied by Mr. G. Swannell. It appears that since the middle of last week the inmates have occasionally heard strange and unaccountable noises in various parts of the house, but, until Tuesday in the present week, they were allowed to pass almost unnoticed.
On the morning of this day, however, they assumed such a character as to force attention and inquiry into the matter. Mrs. Swannell was disturbed quite early in the morning by a loud noise in her bed room (Mr. S. had rose early to brew), accompanied with a distinct motion of the bed; at intervals during the whole of the day did these noises continue, and at times to such a degree as to partake of the nature of the awful. They are described as being similar to the effect produced by the falling of a heavy body on the floor. The windows too made noises, as if a person were to shake it violently with the hand, or strike it a heavy blow.
The noises have been heard by scores of reputable individuals, but none can in any way account for their production; and various are the conjectures to which the phenomena has given rise, but at present all is involved in impenetrable mystery. It is due to Mr. and Mrs. Swannell to say, that they are incapable of conniving at the performance of any imposition on the credulity of the neighbourhood.
Bedfordshire Mercury, 26th March 1842.
Strange, if True!
A great deal of excitement has for some time past prevailed at Odell and the neighbourhood, in consequence of mysterious and unaccountable noises having been, and which continue to be, heard in the Bell public-house, in the occupation of Mr. Swannell. The sounds resemble a tremendous rapping against the walls and beneath the floors of the house, and sometimes against the settle in the kitchen on which the visitors sit. The seat of the settle and the boards of the floor having been seen to heave during its continuance.
The magistrates (although the character enjoyed by the landlord belies such a suspicion) thinking there might be some trickery in the matter, suspended the license for a fortnight, and appointed two policemen to watch the premises. These precautions, however, seem to have no effect on the ghostly invaders, as the noises continue as loud and incessant as ever; nor has the cause of them been discovered.
The premises have been visited by crowds of persons, some from long distances, who one and all agree – “There’s something in’t,” but none of whom have, as yet, been able to fathom the apparent mystery.
Cambridge Independent Press, 2nd April 1842.
The Odell Ghost.
For two or three weeks the neighbourhood of Odell has been put into an extraordinary degree of excitement by the description of a supernatural visitation, at the village alehouse. to such a pitch had this risen, that the magistrates have suspended the license of the innkeeper, and an examination of the premises has been made, but without affording satisfaction.
The ghost has rather a curious mode of kicking up a disturbance, and seems especially anxious not to be seen. Some days at hourly intervals a dreadful shock is given to the house like an immense weight falling upon the floor, which shakes every portion of the building to a fearful extent. It occurs daily, beginning about six o’clock in the morning, and continuing until the evening. Upon no occasion, we learn, has it been heard in the night.
On Good Friday it was heard every half hour, when the house, and indeed the village was thronged with people from Bedford, Harrold, Olney, and all the places in the neighbourhood.
As yet no fair solution to the mystery has been given. Some of the villagers are disposed to think it the troubled spirit of a previous occupant of the house; others think the earthquake has made a mistake, and come to Odell instead of London; whilst the more rational inhabitants produce strong proofs that it is the spirit of the old knight who formerly possessed Odell castle. This is, no doubt, the truth; for it will be recollected by a few of our aged readers, that some years back this old knight paid the Odell people a very long visit, and wrought much mischief. He was continually rocking the houses about, bewitching the cattle, staring the people hard in the face by day and night, and in short, working such vexatious freaks that the people petitioned to the clergy to help them.
Their prayers were listened to, and upon a certain day ten of their reverences met together to exorcise the malicious spirit. They strove very hard with him and he gave them a great deal of trouble; it is quite wonderful the mischief he did before the clergy could overpower him, all of which proceedings, however, are deeply impressed in the minds of the rational Odell people. Unfortunately, the rural police were not in vogue in those days, or their truncheons might have done him good. At length, however, the old gentleman found he was mastered, but he reserved a good deal of his strength, and made a powerful effort at last to push the church down thinking he should then escape, but their reverences were too strong for him, and instead of pushing the church down he only succeeded in turning it sideways, and the prints of his hands are pointed out by the Odell people upon the walls to this day.
His antagonists had now fairly conquered him, so they put him in a hole and rolled a great stone upon him, dooming him to remain there a certain number of years. That term is now expired, and there is little doubt that the same wicked spirit means to shake the old alehouse down. He is, however, too wise this time to allow himself to be seen by anyone of the hundred daily watchers for him. How he is, therefore, to be caught this time we cannot tell, but trust that the collective wisdom of Odell and Radwell will soon devise some plan of restoring the pretty village to its former peaceful state.
We would strongly reccommend that a few more persons should go to view the spot, there is yet standing room in the adjoining meadows if not in the street, and perhaps they may find out the super-natural; of naturals there is no lack there at all as is now daily seen there.
Hertford Mercury and Reformer, 2nd April 1842.
To the Editor of the Bedford Mercury.
The Odell Ghost.
Sir, – Various have been the statements respecting this (as yet) mysterious affair. Conjectures have been numerous, vague, and preposterous. Some of the most credulous believed it to be the earthquake, which had lost its way from London, and was giving up the ghost beneath the Bell Inn some three or four miles; others believed it to be quicksilver, and quicksilver it certainly would have been had not the magistrates prevented it from becoming so. Others say that it was the absence of quicksilver was the cause of its having been heard. In fact the astonished natives before the magistrates interfered, were on the subject, as Cowper represents it, “All learned and all drunk.”
It would be astonishing to many well educated people they knew what the populace actually held as a creed concerning this ghost. They believed that His Infernal Highness was in league with the teetotallers, and that he would visit every house, for the purpose of frightening the inhabitats, to which the teetotallers might recommend him however, “The best laid schemes of mice and men, Gang aft aglee,” and instead of making the people teetotallers, it had a contrary effect, and to keep something like order in the place, and to discover the ghost if possible, two police constables were ordered to stop in the house, and on the premises, till the unearthly noise should cease, or the cause of it be discovered.
Such being the case, the two policemen, accompanied by the Rev. J. Magenis, and the Rev. V. Alston, went to the house on Thursday, the 24th ult., and on searching the premises, and thoroughly scrutinizing every place, person, and thing, nothing could be discovered.
Mr G Swannell, landlord of the said Inn, on being examined by the magistrates, stated that it was never heard at night, and only when the house was warmed by the fires being lighted during the day; therefore the policemen kept the house without any fire (except a small one in the bar) for 50 hours, during which time it was not heard.
On the following Sunday, however, about ten o’clock at night, the thumping noise was again heard, and was doubtlessly caused by the heat. There is no doubt but that the only cause of the noise is an escape of foul gas from some subterranean cavity, and being rarified by heat, expands, and causes this awful noise, and shaking of lath and plaster, partitions, &c., which has for some weeks past astonished “The grave, the gay, the learned, and the wise,” for ten miles round Odell.
After all has been said, I must admit that the cause arises out of a combination of things earthly, or else from an infernal conspiracy, as I have before hinted. I must state, in conclusion, that the imagination of most of the visitors to the Bell Inn, at Odell, has assisted in the embellishing of the tale for the public.
I am, Sir, yours, &c., One Who Has Examined The Premises.
Bedfordshire Mercury, 9th April 1842.
To the Editor of the Bedford Mercury.
The Odell Ghost.
Sir, – I have to acquaint you that the ghost has this day emigrated from the Bell inn to Mrs Hine’s, (Mrs Swannell’s mother,) who keeps a shop of grocery and earthenware, and if it does not mend its manners, woe be to the crockery! A bull in a China shop would be but a trifle to it. Be it, however, what it may, Mrs Hine asserts she has it in her shop, and the only comfort left for the good folks of Odell is, that it is on its way out of the village, but I am sorry to add in a straight direction for London. We had a visit from a phrenologist the other day, who declares that the organ of wonder is grown decidedly larger in the heads of the young people of Odell and the villages adjacent.
Adults have wondered till they can wonder no more for want of an enlargement of the organ. But what I am sorry to have to state is, that some wicked people (who won’t believe in noffin) have offended the superstitionists by coming the conclusion that it was all an empty sound. I shall continue, Mr Editor, to report the audacious tricks of the ghost, and see if, through the medium of your valuable paper, I can make him ashamed of himself.
I am, Sir, yours, &c., One Who Has Examined The Premises.
Bedfordshire Mercury, 16th April 1842.
A Useful Ghost!
The village of Odell, in Bedfordshire, has for some time past been frightened by the pranks of a ghost; it has lately shifted its quarters to a grocer’s, where its nocturnal amusement is grinding coffee! At a farm-house, when the people of the house mixed a glass of grog it inhaled all the spirit, leaving them the warm water and sugar only for themselves. Even now-a-days all these absurdities find ready and credulous fools to believe them.
Globe – 23rd April 1842. (this reprinted in many papers across the country)
The Odell Ghost!
This wicked spirit has left the village inn, we are informed, and has taken up a temporary abode at a house higher up the village, a grocer’s shop; where, among other extraordinary things, after making a great noise in the night, it sets to work and grinds all the coffee. This is decidedly the most useful trick that the ghost has performed, and one of a more profitable nature than that which it perpetrated at the other house; for there, no sooner did the good people make themselves a glass of grog, than the ghost inhaled all the spirit, leaving them the warm water and sugar for themselves.
Hertford Mercury and Reformer, 23rd April 1842.
The stories of “Silverton Abbey” [Goldington Grange] have recalled reminiscnces of other supernatural phenomena, which have been explained on quite a material basis. For example, there is a tradition which may be versified as follows:-
… We have received a more circumstantial account of the Odell affair from Mr. W.B. Graham who says: At the Bell Inn, at Odell in 1842, unaccountable noises began to be heard in the house, which increased so much that it caused a great sensation in the village and neighbourhood, and even from a distance people flocked to the haunted inn to witness, as they hoped, the mysterious manifestations.
The matter became such a nuisance that the magistrates closed the house until the noises ceased, and placed it in charge of the police. Two intelligent constables were in charge and they informed me that at times loud sounds proceeded from the cellar as if a person had struck each barrel quickly with some instrument; then other sounds were heard in different rooms.
A door handle was seen to turn rapidly backward and forward without any person being near it. While partaking of some food one constable received a shock from his seat which appeared to have been struck by an invisible hand with some force. At another time, while quietly sitting below, the constables suddenly heard a great sound above them as if a quantity of wheat was being shot out of a sack on to the floor. They immediately ran upstairs but saw nothing to account for the noise. They then had some boards of the floor taken up but nothing unusual was observed.
The last manifestation was in Mrs Hine’s shop, a little way from the publichouse, where it is said “the ghost” resumed and finished its series of noises.
Every effort was made at the time to discover the natural cause of these sounds, for no one deemed it to be supernatural, but without any satisfactory result. the only general conclusion that was come to was that the noises were caused by a miller who lodged at the Inn. When he left, the noises ceased, and to this day he, or his memory, bears the blame. It was supposed he used some chemical substance to produce the sounds.
Bedfordshire Times and Independent, 16th May 1896.
One response to my request to readers to send me old stories of their villages has come from Odell, which is one of the most charming of Bedfordshire villages. It is the legend, in racy verse, of the Odell Ghost and it was written down some years ago at the dictation of an old lady who lived in the cottage opposite the “Mad Dog” inn, Little Odell. She must have had a good memory, for I have before me fourteen verses of the poem, describing the antics this ghost played in the upper part of Odell “Bell.”
Let me hasten to say that whether this ghost which was a very noisy one (probably a member of the poltergeist family), tired of its senseless pranks, or was well and truly exorcized, or simply faded out, the fact remains that not for generations have its thumpings been heard at this very pleasant, cosy, and sociable inn. I will further digress with a note of personal reminiscence.
Over three decades ago, when there were plenty of fish in the Ouse and I thought nothing of cycling ten miles for bream fishing in the early summer morning with the mists rolling off the water, or pike fishing on a clear, frosty day in the reedy reaches behind Odell Mill – in those happy far-off days, I say, I spent more than one night beneath the hospitable roof of the “Bell” and sweet were my slumbers. No spirits there, except good ones.
From contemporary records, the ghost must have been firmly established at Odell a hundred years ago, and, in fact, it had added considerably to the trade of the “Bell” by attracting curious visitors there. I can only find space to reproduce one of the verses, which runs:
“This ghost, it came with gentle raps,
Its clever tricks to play.
It knocked and thumped just as it liked,
But louder every day.
The ghost, the ghost, the Odell Ghost,
We hope has bid its last farewell,
For it was the most mysterious thing,
That happened at Odell Bell.”
It does not appear to have been a malevolent manifestation. It just bubbled over with sheer schoolboy mischief, good sirs. We are told that brave men tried to smoke it out of its supposed hiding place in the chimney, and that clergy, police, and magistrates went to “lay” it – all to no avail. But as to the manner of its flitting when it grew tired of its sport there seems to be no evidence.
Next legend, please! Touchstone.
Bedfordshire Times and Independent, 25th July 1942.