Ghost Stories for Christmas- The Highwaywoman of Markyate Cell

It’s Christmas time and once again the legends and folklore of the British Isles provide lumps of coal aplenty for all your players. We are again (we’ve done it twice so it’s a tradition now) looking at British ghost stories and picking out bits to adapt for Victoriana adventures. As before, all our tales come from the fabulous “Gazetteer of British, Scottish, & Irish Ghosts” by Peter Underwood, a terrific guide full of horrific hauntings.  So bring a torch Jeannette Isabella, we’re telling Ghost Stories for Christmas!

After English Civil War broke out in 1642, Parliamentary forces seized estates and incomes belonging to Royalist supporters, leaving many old families destitute. The patriarch of the Fanshawe family, Sir Richard Fanshawe ensured his family’s fortune by arranging the marriage of his nephew, Thomas, to his stepdaughter, Katherine Ferrers the heir of her family’s considerable wealth and lands.

The marriage of Katherine and Thomas in 1648 was not a happy one. The Fanshaws liquidated most of Katherine’s assets to support the Royalist cause, and Thomas left his young bride to join the war. Living alone in the Ferrer’s ancestral manor house, Markyate Cell, in the village of Markyate in Hertfordshire, Katherine sought to recover her money and her freedom through highway robbery.

By day, Katherine was the innocent mistress of Markyate Cell, but at night, disguised as a man in a tricornered hat and breeches, she rode to the main roads and hid in trees to drop down on passing coaches. The village of Markyate served as one of the major rest stops for travelers between London and Birmingham, providing Katherine with rich targets loaded down with loot. With the help of her partner in crime, a farmer named Ralph Chaplin, Katherine murdered and stole until the night of her death in 1660. Katherine ambushed a wagon and shot the driver, but a hitchhiker riding in the back shot back, mortally wounding her.
After her burial, villagers spotted her ghost racing on horseback across the countryside at night, or lurking high in the tree legendarily overlooking her buried treasure. In 1840, her ghost appeared at Markyate Cell during a mysterious and destructive fire in the house. Afterwards, the current owner, Mr. Adey, directed his hired repairmen to bash through a door long bricked up. After the demolition, they found a staircase hidden in the kitchen chimney leading to a secret room Katherine may have used to hide disguises, weapons, and loot.

Adventure Ideas

I should point out Katherine Ferrers’ reputation as a highwaywoman is almost certainly false. No records exist of Katherine’s accomplice Paul Chaplin in the village, or of their crimes. Markyate Cell was sold three years before her death, so Katherine almost certainly didn’t die on its grounds. After being captured in the war, Katherine’s husband Thomas returned home just four months before her death, which suggest a tragic early pregnancy ended her life instead of a gunshot. This can all be ignored for the sake of having the ghost of a highway-woman terrorizing the countryside.

If you have a thieving ghost, then obviously she has to steal from the player characters. No player character would ever “Stand and Deliver” their valuables to a highwayman, so I suggest having Katherine’s ghost take something more intangible: Quintessence. After each encounter with the ghost, a player character must pass a Resolve test or temporarily lose a Quintessence Die until they can put Katherine’s ghost to rest.

By the 1850’s train travel made the old coach lines obsolete. Goods, payroll, and passengers all ride the rails. If Katherine’s ghost manifests now, she might adapt to modern conveniences and learn to rob trains.

London served as a base for Parliamentary forces. Any Royalists fleeing London by coach could have encountered Katherine along their journey. Her lost hoard could hold any number of long stolen artifacts or secrets of the English Civil War.

Before Markyate Cell’s construction, its grounds housed a hermit named Rodger. A young lady named Christine sought refuge in the hermitage from a forced marriage, so Rodger hid her in a wooden shed. For four years, Christine endured in the cramped space growing in wisdom and piety. Her righteousness impressed Rodger, so he chose Christine as his successor. Under her leadership, the hermitage grew into a Benedictine Priory.
Markyate Cell has two legendary ladies in its past looking for freedom. Christine found hers in piety, and Katherine found hers in crime. It might be fun if the murderous phantom and the saintly specter fight over a woman’s soul as the players intervene.

Ghost Stories for Christmas- The “Ghost” Ghost of Hinxworth Place

It’s Christmas time and once again the legends and folklore of the British Isles provide lumps of coal aplenty for all your players. We are again (we’ve done it twice so it’s a tradition now) looking at British ghost stories and picking out bits to adapt for Victoriana adventures. As before, all our tales come from the fabulous “Gazetteer of British, Scottish, & Irish Ghosts” by Peter Underwood, a terrific guide full of horrific hauntings.  So bring a torch Jeannette Isabella, we’re telling Ghost Stories for Christmas!

 In the countryside north of London sits the small village of Hinxworth which contains Hinxworth Place, a manor house built in the late 1300s for the Sheriff of Bedfordshire. Hinxworth Place looks like a pleasant medieval home with its egg white clunch-stone walls, and its many windows lighting the interior, but the marks of a tragedy from the past still show during tempestuous weather.

When the night wind howls, a procession of disturbing sounds echo through the chambers of Hinxworth Place, first screams from the upper floor, then the sound of something thudding down the stairs, followed by the cries of a baby, and lastly the gurgle of a gushing flow from a water pump outside. Although no records give it credence, rumor insists these phantom noises come from the recent past when the house’s family hired a young nurse to watch over their new baby. After the parent’s left for a night out, their young mischievous son decided to scare the nurse by pulling a white sheet over his body and startling her from behind on the upper floor. His plan worked too well. The terrified nurse grabbed a fire poker and attacked the boy. In the flurry of her vicious blows, the boy fell down the stairs. The sound of the struggle and the body thumping down the stairs woke the baby, causing it to cry. Servants heard the ruckus and tried to revive the boy by holding his head under a stream of cold water from the house’s water pump, but the boy died from his injuries.

Adventure Ideas

The idea of a person pretending to be a ghost to scare someone, and then becoming a ghost because of their target’s fright is the main reason I wanted to write about this one. This haunting’s tragedy could easily become charming, comedic, or terrifying depending on how you want to use it in an adventure. 

A pitiful child’s ghost covered in a home-made ghost costume is the stuff of nightmares, but turn it into an adult ghost intent on scaring people and this could be a delightful “Canterville Ghost” style romp. It could be really fun to have a real ghost continue to fake a haunting by rattling chains, wearing a sheet, stomping up and down stairs, and moving objects with string. All its manifestations are explainable, including its appearance, but look under the sheet and the terror begins.

                                                                           

In its past, Hinxworth Place housed a group of Cistercian monks, whose ghosts still lurk around the manor. Strangely enough, monks of the Cistercian order wear white robes. It’s probably coincidental that two different sets of specters covered in white flowing garments haunt Hinxworth Place.

I couldn’t find any dates or names for this haunting’s story, so this can fit anywhere you want. If it’s recent enough, the nurse could still be out there haunted by her mistake or worse continuing to murder children. Maybe the ghost seeks justice, and is trying to point out what really happened. If you close the case, you could end up with a spectral street urchin sidekick.

If the boy’s ghost seeks vengeance, any nursemaid working in Hinxworth Place is in danger. He might just be incredibly protective of any children in their care, or he might try to kill the nursemaid before she has a chance to hurt the children.

Old burial practices are one reason we have the sheet-wearing ghost cliché. Coffins are expensive so most people buried their loved ones in burial shrouds, a massive sheet most often made of white wool wrapped around the deceased’s entire body. Burial shrouds were still popular with the lower classes in the 1800s. Pranksters wishing to scare children draped white fabric over their bodies to appear as bodies newly crawled out from their graves.  Numerous legal documents from the 1700s and 1800s cite fines and punishments for persons caught impersonating ghosts. We’ll get back to that in a future blog post.

Ghost Stories for Christmas- The Ghostly Steward of Eastbury Park

It’s Christmas time and once again the legends and folklore of the British Isles provide lumps of coal aplenty for all your players. We are again (we’ve done it twice so it’s a tradition now) looking at British ghost stories and picking out bits to adapt for Victoriana adventures. As before, all our tales come from the fabulous “Gazetteer of British, Scottish, & Irish Ghosts” by Peter Underwood, a terrific guide full of horrific hauntings.  So bring a torch Jennette Isabella, we’re telling Ghost Stories for Christmas!

North of the town of Blandford in Dorset, a spectral suicide haunts the remains of the Eastbury Park country estate. The estate once held a huge mansion in the Baroque style, commissioned by politician George Dodington. Dodington died in 1720, two years after construction began, but his heir, George Bubb Dodington, continued the construction of his late uncle’s grandiose mansion until it’s completion in 1738. Both Dodingtons spared no expense. The construction cost over £140,000 not including its costly furnishings or the extensive grounds keeping.

After George Bubb Dodington’s death in 1762, his cousin, Richard Grenville-Temple (the Earl Temple of Stowe) inherited Eastbury Park. Already wealthy and not needing another expensive country house, especially one so gaudily out of style, Grenville-Temple had the majority of the mansion blown up 44 years after its construction, leaving only the kitchen wing standing. He had the remains refurbished as a stately house and hired a steward named William Doggett to care for the estate and oversee it’s tenant-farmers until he could sell his burdensome inheritance.

Doggett proved either a hateful steward or a foolish one. In some stories, Doggett stole thousands of pounds from his employer, sold the mansion’s furnishings, and abused the tenants under his authority. According to another source, he loaned his brother a massive amount of his master’s money. When his brother couldn’t pay him back, Doggett sold the estates furniture to hide the financial loss. In either case, Doggett shot himself in the head before he could be caught.

After his suicide, a strange ritualistic apparition appeared on the property. On certain nights of the year, a phantom coach, driven by a headless coachman and pulled by headless horses, picks up a lone passenger and takes him to the house. The passenger exits the coach, goes to the room where Doggett killed himself, and soon after a gunshot sounds.  Those who saw Doggett in life claim the passenger wears the same yellow ribbons tying his knee-breeches Doggett used to wear.

In 1855, Eastbury Park belongs to James John Farquharson that famous sportsman and Master of Hounds (the leader and organizer of a foxhunt). Even at his ripe old age of 71, Farquharson regularly performs his duties. He uses the property’s grounds as a kennel for his massive pack of over 150 hounds and houses his 50 horses in the stableyard. In the constant animalistic cacophony, it’s surprising anyone hears a ghostly gunshot!

Adventure Ideas

Perhaps some of the items’ Doggett sold to cover his losses were more valuable than he realized. Did several magical artifacts bind his specter to the house until their recovery?

William Doggett’s body was buried in St. Mary’s church yard. In 1845, workmen exhumed his body during the church’s demolition. His body looked fresh, his cheeks had a healthy rosy glow, and his characteristic yellow ribbons looked brand new. Before his reburial, a stake was driven through his heart. Whether Doggett is a ghostly vampire or a vampiric ghost, if that stake gets removed Farquharson may end up with a new servant who knows the house well, and wears old-fashioned ribbons.

Pioneer of the English Gardening style, Charles Bridgeman, planned the extensive and extravagant gardens of Eastbury Park. As is common in this school of landscaping, Eastbury had a replica Grecian temple as a decoration on its grounds. While this temple served purely aesthetic purposes, any estate landscaped in the English Gardening style could have a temple just sitting there ready for more magical usage. A petty conjuror could gain power by dedicating an unused temple as a site of worship to a particular pantheon. Perhaps the temple isn’t a replica. No Archon would want its temple used as a simple decoration, and could subtly manifest its outrage.

George Bubb Dodington had a reputation for intrigue among his friends, and may have been a spy against the Jacobites for the crown. So many parts of Eastbury park’s history suggest a cover-up. Did the lavishness of the mansion’s design hide secret constructions below ground? A few pounds for carpentry and excavations get easily lost in such a massive undertaking.  Was Doggett murdered to keep a Star Chamber site safe? Was the house’s demolition a cover story for its destruction from a more violent source, like a demon or giant mechanical monster? 

Ghost Stories for Christmas- The Black Hand of Inver

It’s Christmas time and once again the legends and folklore of the British Isles provide lumps of coal aplenty for all your players. We are again (we’ve done it twice so it’s a tradition now) looking at British ghost stories and picking out bits to adapt for Victoriana adventures. As before, all our tales come from the fabulous “Gazetteer of British, Scottish, & Irish Ghosts” by Peter Underwood, a terrific guide full of horrific hauntings.  So bring a torch Jennette Isabella, we’re telling Ghost Stories for Christmas!

In Aberdeenshire, Scotland two miles west south-west of Balmoral, the waters of Fearder Burn flow into the River Dee. A small patch of land called “the Inver” sits before these waters meet, with the burn to the north and the river in the south. Inver holds little of interest, only an inn for travelers, a post office, some granite quarries in the west, and a centuries-old meal mill grinding the grain of the surrounding farms. Despite the tranquil simplicity of Inver, mill workers live in fear of “The Black Hand”. For centuries, locals whisper of a ghostly hairy hand cut off at the wrist floating inside the mill. Some claim the hand belonged to a captured solder whose hands were cut off with his own sword before he was thrown into the River Dee and drowned.

In 1767, a mill worker named John Davidson put the Black Hand to rest. One winter night, John glanced up from his work in the mill and spotted the spectral hand. Instead of running, Davidson stood his ground and grappled with the Black Hand. Although he never told anyone what happened next, the next morning John Davidson dug a deep hole near the mill, uncovering a basket-hilt broadsword. Davidson hung the sword over the meal mill’s fireplace and no one saw the Black Hand again.

Adventure Ideas

Obviously, you should just cut and paste this whole ghostly visitation into whatever adventure you’re in right now. If the players need an ancient artifact, there are few better delivery systems than being attacked by a monstrous disembodied hand.

My favorite part of the story is the big blank between Davidson wrestling the hand and him digging up the sword the next morning.  Some versions suggest the Black Hand “told” Davidson where to find the sword that cut it from its body. Just imagine the role-playing opportunities of interrogating a severed hand through gestures and yes or no questions!

If the sword Davidson dug up is the same that cleaved the Black Hand from its body, the hand may lurk semi-corporally until it beats someone wielding that sword in a duel. Anyone armed with the sword faces a fierce five-fingered opponent. Attacks targeting the Black Hand suffer 6 Black Dice. The Black Hand has 5 health points (one for each finger, if it loses all its fingers, it vanishes for now).

Alternatively, some stories describe the Black Hand as gigantic. A hairy, floating, severed hand the size of a child would make for a very creepy fight. If the ghostly hand belonged to a giant, its sword must be enormous and incredibly valuable.

If the hand did belong to a giant, this tale might be connected with the story of Druon Antigoon, the Flemish giant. He extorted tolls from travelers over the river Sheldt. If they couldn’t pay, he cut off one of their hands as punishment. His terror continued until a Roman soldier named Brabo killed him, cut off the giant’s hand, and tossed it into the river.

With Balmoral Castle just two miles away it seems a waste to leave it out of the story.  Prince Albert arranged to buy the Balmoral estate in 1848 as a peaceful country home, but the royal family quickly decided the current house was too small for their needs. By 1855, their new house, Balmoral Castle, nears the completions of its construction. If the Black Hand’s sword (or whatever the player’s need to dig up) is buried on the house’s excavations, they’ll have to act fast or it may be gone forever.