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Helena · Joined: 28 Dec 2006 Posts: 75 Location: yorkshire, UK

The Drummer Boy
Market Lavington, Wiltshire

We think of Salisbury Plain and the Army as two sides of the same coin, although it only began to be taken over as a military training area in the late 19th century.

By 1902, 42,000 acres had been purchased by the War Office for £550,000.

Tidworth has become a familiar name to thousands of service men and women who have been trained and stationed there, and before the war it was famed for the Tidworth Tattoo, an imperial spectacle of pomp and pageantry.

But it was a different tattoo, the rat-a-tat beat of a single drum, that in March 1661 disturbed the peace of the neighbouring village of Ludgershall.

The drummer was a William Drury, vagrant and old soldier, demobilised from Cromwell's Model Army, and now, during the more peaceful years of Charles II's restoration, using his old skills to demand money with menaces.

His technique was effectively simple: Cause enough nuisance with his drumming and someone would pay him to take the noise elsewhere. The trouble was that Ludgershall was not large enough to "get lost in" for long.

The maddening pulse of the persistent drumming disturbed not only the villagers but also John Mompesson, a visiting magistrate from South Tidworth (then called Tedworth). He was an officious, self-important man and he was far from amused. He summoned the Ludgershall bailiff and had Drury brought before him.

Drury protested that he was not a vagrant, and had a pass, signed by a Colonel Ayliff and a Sir William Cawly, to prove it. Mompesson was unimpressed and pronounced the pass a forgery, which it may well have been.

The drum was confiscated and Drury held in custody pending further investigations. Mompesson returned to Tidworth, probably dismissing Drury from his mind.

Meanwhile, Drury persuaded the bailiff to let him go - but the drum remained under lock and key. The following month, April, it was inexplicably sent to Mompesson's impressive house in Tidworth. The magistrate was about to leave for London on business.

When Mompesson returned, he found his wife terrified by what she thought had been thieves trying to break into the house, "so much so that the house was like to have been broken up".

Three nights later there was a tumultuous knocking at the door. Taking up a brace of pistols, Mompesson got up and opened it. But the knocking resumed at another door, and yet another again. As he went round the house, it became louder and there was even knocking on the roof.

But there was nothing to be seen and the mystified magistrate returned to bed, much perplexed. The bangings continued for the next five nights, just as he and his wife were going to sleep. There was a brief respite before it all began again.

This was the beginning of psychic manifestations which were to last for two years. They became such a cause for local and national comment and dismay that Charles II actually sent a Royal Commission to investigate.

However, its members, who were seemingly not psychic, drew a blank and they returned to London unconvinced.

Much more impressed was Joseph Glanvil, a member of the Royal Society and a friend of Robert Boyle, the famous physicist.

Glanvil may be claimed as the first of the scientific 'ghost hunters'. He wrote a lengthy account of his investigations at Mompesson's house, which he called Sadiucismus Triumphatus, which he published in 1661. Most of the 'happenings' described are taken from that source.

After the banging, Glanvil described what happened next:

"After months of disturbance, it came into the room where the drum lay, four or five nights out of seven within half an hour after they were in bed, continuing almost two hours.

"The sign of it just before it came was, they still heard an hurling in the air over the house, and at its going off, the beating of a drum like that at the breaking up of a guard. It continued in this room for the space of two months, during which time Mr Mompesson himself lay there to observe it.

"Mrs Mompesson being brought to bed, there was but little noise the night she was in travail nor for any three weeks afterwards till she had recovered strength, but after this civil cessation it returned in ruder manner than before and following and vexing the other young children, beating their bedsteads with that violence.

"For an hour together it would beat Roundheads, Cuckolds, the Tattoo, and several other parts of war as well as any drummer."

It was considerate of the evil spirits, for this is how they were now considered, to call a truce while Mrs Mompesson was in labour but, once the child was safely delivered, they quickly and maliciously resumed.

They concentrated now on the Mompesson older children, despite their father putting them up in a loft to sleep out of the way. To the modern reader it seems inconceivably cruel that Mompesson would let them stay in the house, and indeed there were times when things seemed so bad that they were taken in by neighbours.

What is impressive is the fortitude of the family and the servants in the face of these terrifying visitations. Would any contemporary nanny or au pair have stayed for more than a few nights? And who would blame them for going?

On November 5, Glanvil continues:

"It kept a might noise, and a servant entering the frightened children's room saw two floorboards moving. He at once commanded the spirit to bring one to him which he did within a yard of where he stood.

"Whereupon he said: 'Nay, let me have it in my hand', whereupon it was shoved right home to him so up and down and to and fro for some twenty times till Mr Mompesson forbade his servant so much familiarity. This was in the daytime and seen by a whole roomful of people. That morning it left a sulphorous smell behind it which was very offensive."

Then began a succession of ghostly happenings of the kind associated with poltergeist activity (poltergeists are mischievous, destructive, Earthbound entities).

It, or they, soon began to make a thorough nuisance of themselves, as porringers, plates, bedclothes, books and shoes were all hurled about the room at chance moments of the day and night.

Mr Mompesson, not unnaturally, called in the local minister, the Rev Craig, to conduct an exorcism. He knelt down by the bed where the children lay and proceeded to pray with great earnestness.

He was rewarded by chairs, shoes, clothes and furniture being hurled about and the minister was actually struck on the leg by a bedstaff (which seems to have been some kind of cudgel kept at the side of the bed in case of burglars), "but so favourably that a lock of wool could not have fallen more softly".

admin sinfulldude · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 11:26 am Post subject: Wiltshire Ghosts

(was written and posted by madmart former forum's ADMIN )

Wiltshire Ghosts

Stourton, Wiltshire

It seems as if New Year's Eve could be the anniversary of a tragic event for the ghost haunting the Sloane Track, which leads from Penselwood to the lower end of Stourton.

For this is the date that a headless horseman haunts the road followed closely by his faithful black dog. Legend has it that the man made a bet at Wincanton Market that he could get home to Stourton in just seven minutes.

Taking a short cut cross-country the horse stumbled and threw him as he galloped down the Sloane Track, breaking his neck

Headless Horseman

Ghost saves a child
Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire

There are many stories about ghosts who scare the life out of people, but not so many about those that save the life of people.

But in 1986 on Salisbury Plain that is exactly what happened. Tragically the background to the story involves a young mother and her son being mown down by a drunken driver.

Some time later the widowed husband, a serving soldier, was driving between two service vehicles at the same spot where his wife and child had been killed.

All of a sudden his wife appeared to him and glided to the front of his lorry.

He slammed on the brakes and just moments later a three year old boy ran straight out in front of the lorry.

If the lorry hadn't been stationary when it was the boy would certainly have been killed. The soldier believed his wife had made that one and only reappearance to protect the little boy and her husband.

Ghostly Village
Purton, Wiltshire

From the phantom horseman that haunts the road that leads out of the village to spectral dogs and figures seen by a number of people at different times in a residential house in the village, the village of Purton has a mind-boggling variety of ghosts.

Out and about in the village groups of ghostly children and youths have appeared to people and then suddenly vanish without explanation.

But perhaps the most enduring ghoulish figure is that of a nun said to haunt Purton church, where a skeleton, thought to be her, was found bricked up in a wall cavity.

There have been many theories as to why the woman's body was buried there. Some believe that she was the victim of foul play, others that she was a female recluse living in a small cell.
Whatever the story behind this particular ghost she has certainly been seen by quite a few people in her time.

Falling From The Sky
Larkhill, Wiltshire

It is not often that you get accident black spots for aircraft, but just three miles from Amesbury near the army camp there is a small copse with a stone cairn commemorating the first Royal Flying Corps members died in an aeroplane while on service in 1912.

Not far from this spot is the place where Colonel FS Cody, an aviation pioneer, plunged to his death in his experimental aircraft.

During the Second World War there were several incidents where servicemen based at the army camp near this area saw a plane dive straight into the copse.

On rushing to the scene to help the crash victims they would find that the plane had disappeared without a trace.

Several also saw the figure of a man in old-fashioned flying gear in the area who would disappear inexplicably, he is thought to be the ghost of the early aviator Colonel FS Cody.

On Safari
Longleat House, Wiltshire

A former safari park worker recalls some strange goings on both in the house itself as well as in the animals enclosures.

It is claimed that in the old elephant house in the park one of the elephant's would always fling dung into one particular corner.

Research found that wounded US soldiers were housed at Longleat during World War Two, and that what became the elephant house was previously used as a mortuary.

Meanwhile in the House a green lady is said to haunt the top corridor and has been seen by numerous housekeepers there

Duke of Buckingham
Debenhams, Salisbury

One of Wiltshire's most celebrated ghosts is said to stalk . . . a Salisbury department store.

The ghost of the beheaded Duke of Buckingham still roams around the Salisbury branch of Debenhams
Not any old ghost, but the apparition of the Duke of Buckingham - a character familiar to generations of schoolchildren who have studied Shakespeare's Richard III.

"Crookback Dick" ordered the execution of His Grace, inevitably known today as the Duke of Debenham's, in 1483.

Buckingham was one of many who met his death in Richard's bloody struggle for the throne. He was duly beheaded in the Market Place.

Over the centuries his mournful spirit has manifested itself many times on the site, now occupied by Debenham's, in Blue Boar Row.

Once, a BT engineer was working in the attic room where Buckingham was imprisoned when he felt a cold touch on his shoulder.

He ran out of the room in a state of cold terror and no-one could persuade him to go back. Someone had to go in and get his tools.

According to legend Buckingham's head was taken still bleeding to the king, who was staying in the Cathedral Close, and the stains are said to magically reappear, even today

Spectral scooter
Warminster, Wiltshire

You think you've heard it all and then someone comes up with a story about a phantom moped.

Or at least that's the only explanation a group of paranormal researchers could give to a spook light they saw very early one morning near Upton Scudamore in 1976.

The light was about eight inches across and four to five feet off the ground, it appeared to be approaching the car containing the group who thought it was an angry farmer on his moped.

The light disappeared when it was blocked by trees, and when the group inspected the area during daylight there were no moped tracks.

Warminster, of course, is also famed for its associations with UFOs

A spooky village fair
When looking at the ancient Avebury site from the nearby earth mound in 1916, a lady had her view obscured by a village fair that was going on at the ancient site.

There were shows and booths, a crowd of fair-goers and all the other associated things. The woman looked for a while but drove away when it started to rain.

She later found out that the village fair had not been held since 1850. for these party goers their revels were never ended

Mrs Hedges Takes Shelter
Swindon, Wiltshire

Not all ghostly encounters are scary, and the experience that Mrs Edna Hedges had in the 1930s was all very civilised really!

A storm was raging as Mrs Hedges cycled down the road to her friend's house. She needed shelter and pulled up to a nice looking thatched cottage down a little lane.

She was invited in by an old man and there was a bright fire burning in the hearth.

The next thing she knew she was back on the road on her journey.

On arriving at her friends' house everyone was surprised at how dry she was, she described what had happened and found that the cottage she had been in had in fact been derelict for over 50 years.

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