Haunted Leicestershire.
The ghost they couldn’t lay.
“Gunpowder Digby” of Tilton.
Weird Pranks.
Tilton, to-day.
Tilton is still holding my affection and my presence (writes our Special Commissioner), for it possesses a ghost, which, or rather who, takes the palm among those I have so far unearthed for personality and self-assertiveness. That is only to be expected when we consider who he is. He is no less a person than the shade of Everard Digby, Esquire, of Gunpowder Plot fame.
Everard, be it known, haunts the old Manor House. He is a very good Catholic ghost, and he flatly refuses to allow himself to be “laid” by the incantations of Protestant Pastors, which, after all, is only natural. He has, in fact, defied repeated efforts to lay him in the course of the past century or so, and it is said by villagers that he still makes his presnce felt and heard.
The late lamented Everard Digby, Esquire, gives you full warning of his arrival, but some of his tricks are, to say the least, undignified for one of such daring repute, such noble blood. For the concomitance of his presence are these: – 1. He lifts door latches; 2. He tramps unseen, but heavily along the corridors; 3. He tries his hand at spirit rapping; 4. He moves crockery nocturnally; 5. He wastefully ignites fires laid overnight, which are found in ashes by the disgusted servants next morning. Only the last of these pranks really fits in with the character of a gunpowder plotter and in addition, it carries a hint of that sulphur and brimstone associated with disembodied gentlemen of this character.
About a century ago, the Rev. Chas. Wildbore, vicar of Tilton, whose mural tablet may be seen in the Church, had the bells rung and gathered together “a number of godly men,” who tried to lay the spirit of old Digby with hymns and prayers. Bearing in mind the tone of hymns at that period, I do not wonder that Everard refused to be laid; threats of that everlasting bonfire are enough to discourage even the most hardy of ghosts!
Mr Ernest E Ellis, the Tilton antiquary, tells me that in one of the bedrooms there is a trap-door, which leads mysteriously down to a cupboard in the drawing room, and which may have communicated with some secret passage now lost, leading to a dove-cote in the grounds, which tradition associates with the nefarious meetings of the gunpowder plotters. In the Church there is a colossal effigy of a mediaeval Digby, ancestor of the present apparition, who lived in a hall long since demolished, for the Manor House was built in early Stuart days.
Leicester Evening Mail, 13th October 1928.