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MrRING

Android Futureman
Joined
Aug 7, 2002
Messages
6,053
I'm getting scared
BA-RUMP-PA-PA-PUM

I'm hearing ghostly taps
BA-RUMP-PA-PA-PUM


What is it with ghosts and drums? Reading through a book on ghosts & spirits, I found no less than three instances, and there are probably more.

Ghost Drummer of Edinburgh Castle:
http://perso.club-internet.fr/vmillat/scottishghosts/edinburgh/ghostly_drummer.htm

(people are still feeling his effects today: http://www.100megsfree4.com/farshores/ptunic.htm )

William Drury, Phantom Drummer:
http://www.genealogysource.com/druryghost.htm

And the probable hoax of the Ghostly Drummer of Tedworth:
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/tedworth.html

*********************

This does raise some questions: are there other haunted instruments, or just drums? Are drums the easiest things to haunt/replicate? Where is the ghostly four piece jazz group, or the Phantom Bagpiper?
 
Well they'd look pretty stupid playing a stylophone wouldnt they
 
I'm pretty sure that there's at least one piper who tootles away to indicate the upcoming deaqth of the clan chief....

can I find the reference? don't be daft! :)

Kath
 
A ghost boy is reputed to play the pipes in the secluded lanes around the village of Bramshott, near Liphook in Hampshire. He was first reported in the 19th century and has been seen (or heard) in modern times, apparently.
 
Mr. R.I.N.G. said:
And the probable hoax of the Ghostly Drummer of Tedworth:
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/tedworth.html
Since when has The Demon Drummer of Tedworth been designated a hoax? To many, it's one of the best accounts of a possible historical poltergeist attack (up there with the Cock Lane haunting).

I think the problem lies with the site author themself:
In March, 1661 John Mompesson of Tedworth (located in Wiltshire, England) brought a lawsuit against a local drummer whom he accused of collecting money under false pretences. The court found the drummer guilty, confiscated his drum, and gave it to Mompesson. Soon afterwards, Mompesson discovered that an angry, drumming spirit had invaded his house. The spirit drummed loud tunes on the bed of his children, moved objects around in the house, threw shoes, and wrestled with servants.
Sounds pretty polt-ish to me..
The case of the ghostly drummer of Tedworth soon became famous throughout England. Its notoriety prompted Joseph Glanvill, a clergyman and member of the Royal Society, to visit the Mompesson household and investigate the spirit. He collected eyewitness accounts of the spirit's activities, recorded hearing noises himself, and eventually became convinced that the spirit was real. He published this conclusion in 1668 in a work titled A Blow at Modern Sadducism ... To which is added, The Relation of the Fam'd Disturbance by the Drummer, in the House of Mr. John Mompesson....Other people, however, believed that there was no ghostly drummer, and that Mr. Mompesson had invented the entire story, either as a way to make some money or to gain some notoriety. These critics pointed out various problem's with Mr. Mompesson's claims. First of all, no one was ever allowed to inspect his cellar. Why not? Was someone hiding down there creating all the sounds and commotion? Second of all, the drumming almost always happened at night and seemed to come from outside the house, not inside of it. In other words, someone could easily have been hiding outside banging on the walls of the house with a hammer. Finally, the King himself sent some gentlemen to investigate the haunting, but when they arrived they found no evidence of spectral activity at all.
Whether Mr. Mompesson was really beset by an angry spirit, or whether the entire event was an elaborate hoax was never determined, and so the ghostly drummer of Tedworth passed into legend.(abstracted in the interests of space - Stu)
So far, so good, gives both sides, etc etc. The problem comes in the very next paragraphs:
However, the case has a second American chapter because decades later the spectral timpanist re-emerged on the other side of the Atlantic near Philadelphia.

His reappearance was announced in April, 1730 in a letter that was published in the Pennsylvania Gazette. The correspondent told the story of two local Reverends who had recently had an encounter with an angry, drum-beating ghost which was described as being "not a whit less obstrepreous, than the Tedsworth Tympanist."
Which isn't remotely saying that it was the "Tedsworth Tympanist"(sic), merely just as annoying.

There then follows a description of the Philadelphia drummer's activities, etc, before concluding with this passage:
So the ghostly drummer of Tedworth has made two appearances throughout history—once in 1661 and a second time in 1730. The first appearance was probably a hoax, while the second appearance almost certainly was.
Very bad argument, IMHO - how can they possibly dub the first a "probable hoax" on the basis that another, completely unrelated case, was almost certainly a hoax (at no point is any direct correlation between the cases established, apart from the nature of the manifestation). So no, Tedworth wasn't a probable hoax at all. We don't know what it was.
 
Re: Re: Ghostly Drummers

stu neville said:
Since when has The Demon Drummer of Tedworth been designated a hoax? To many, it's one of the best accounts of a possible historical poltergeist attack (up there with the Cock Lane haunting).

Thanks for tearing down the hoax bit - the only thing online that I was able to find indicated it was a "hoax", so I figured if I didn't point it out to begin with, the only response I'd get was going to be along the lines of "Hey, that Demon Drummer of Tedworth is a hoax, so why include it?"
 
Suprised, no one has mentioned Drakes Drum





except me
 
I posted some time back about a friend of mine who played his pipes in a railway cutting in south M/c. (being a true purist he didn't practice on the full set of pipes to start with, but only used a chanter). His mum couldn't stand the noise, so he went outside to give himself the full blast and found a report of a phantom piper in the M/c evening news the next day. An u.l. rather than the real thing! :D
 
Re: Re: Re: Ghostly Drummers

Mr. R.I.N.G. said:
Thanks for tearing down the hoax bit - the only thing online that I was able to find indicated it was a "hoax", so I figured if I didn't point it out to begin with, the only response I'd get was going to be along the lines of "Hey, that Demon Drummer of Tedworth is a hoax, so why include it?"
Actually, I mailed the site author to ask him why he deemed the two cases as the same "entity", and were hoaxes - his opinion was that Tedworth was probably fake because the home-owner wouldn't allow the King's Men into his cellar (though there could be lots of reasons for this, but the bloke deems it a hoax indication: his opinion, so fair enough) - however, as the second one is likely to be a hoax, he deems them both the same by some form of logic that eludes me - anyway, his tone was so convinced that I didn't pursue it (on that pitch it's his ball, after all ;)).

As far as I'm concerned though, just cos one, similar, case was prob a fake doesn't mean the first one, some time previously and on another continent, was also a hoax. Unless you run a Museum of Hoaxes, and presumably latch with Beckjordian zeal on virtually anything, seeing hoaxes everywhere like partial Bigfoot faces in any picture of a forest scene...
 
Simon Burchell said:
A ghost boy is reputed to play the pipes in the secluded lanes around the village of Bramshott, near Liphook in Hampshire. He was first reported in the 19th century and has been seen (or heard) in modern times, apparently.
Bramshott? Not heard of pipes there.. I have heard of a ghost boy playing either pipes or drums up and down Devils Lane on the Haslemere side of Liphook. (And Liphook/Bramshott is where I spent much of my life). Hm, looking at the map, I suppose Devils Lane isn't too far from Bramshott as the crow flies - perhaps he walks a bit.

I have also heard of both a ghost stag and a demon black dog in the area.

Finally, Boris Karloff used to live in Bramshott too - used to go past his house quite regularly with its high wall and garden full of really weird statues. He's buried in the churchyard at the other end of the road apparently. I've heard that the churchyard is one of the most haunted around, but I've never once heard of any actual ghosts reputed to be there so I don't know where the haunted bit's come from... Anyone?

Steve.
 
I've heard Liphook people say that Bramshott is the most haunted village in Hampshire. I've read about the ghosts in "The Haunted Places of Hampshire" by Ian Fox and "Hampshire Hauntings and Hearsay" by Patricia Ross (which draws heavily on the former). The former claims that Bramshott is the most haunted village in England (where have I heard that before...). The ghostly pipe-player is there associated with Burgh Hill and Bramshott Court, which is also said to be haunted by a ghostly quaker Other Bramshott ghosts include:
a Royalist soldier on horseback
a murdered highwayman, also on horseback
a ghostly black pig which haunts fields near the church
a phantom pot-boy (!)
a ghostly white calf that shrunk and disappeared
a ghostly family of mother and children
a crowd of 16th century types that appeared in Wolmer Lane
a ghost coach which is heard along Rectory Lane and past the church
a little girl who haunts the graveyard
a ghost in traditional shrowd also haunts the graveyard
the ghost of a tall young man who appears in Adams Cottage, a female ghost is also reported there
a Grey Lady is said to haunt Covers Farm
the ghost of a drowned woman haunts the meadows of Bramshott Vale
Bramshott Manor House has the ghost of a rector and of a white-clad female
Boris Karloff is said to haunt the cottage where he once lived
19+ ghosts isn't bad for such a small village. Only one of them shows any musical inclinations however...
 
carole said:
There's also the legend of the ghostly drummer boy of Richmond Castle.

That's Richmond, Yorkshire, not Surrey.

Carole

Thats one that most Richmondites (Richmondonians?) can quote, too. Not sure of the provenance, but parts of 'modern' Richmond are apparently built over the streets of old Richmond (or so my mum says).

There are quite a few haunted pubs in Richmond and one in particular that frightened the bejeebers out of my sister who checked out of the B&B the very next day swearing never to go back. Something about taps turning themselves on, cupboards opening and slamming shut and other such scarey stuff!
 
To give another example of a ghost that plays a musical instrument other than drums - there is a well known ghost in Berwick-upon-Tweed (in north Northumberland) that supposedly haunts the white wall of Berwick castle.
The White Wall stretches down from the few remains of the medieval castle to the banks of the river Tweed, and according to local folklore the ghost of a Scottish piper appears on it.
Interestingly enough, the navvies who built the great viaduct that spans the Tweed at this point found, when they built the foundations for the bridge, a large mass grave, in the shadows of the White wall that was filled with bodies - presumably those of attackers or defenders of the castle.
I have the feeling though that this story is more in the realms of Urban Legend than of fact.

This link shows the castle and the wall that reaches down the hill (the castlemented zigzag), it's this battlement that is supposed to be haunted. It is extremely steep and when I was a kid it was a dare to climb up it (or down it) at dead of night. It is this wall that the piper is supposed to walk up and down as he plays.
This link Shows the view uphill to the castle and the path that the piper is supposed to tread.

Regards all,

Cal.

Edited to add - spelling mistakes make me look even more stupid than I actually am!!
 
There is a story about a ghostly drummer in Staffordshire, whch I came across recently in a book about Staffordshire.

drummer.jpg
 
Duntroon castel, Argylle.
In the seventeenth century a piper was sent to spy out the castle, but was captured, apparently managing to warn the invaders by playing ' The Pipers Warning to his Master ' , which caused him to have his hands cut off.
A skeleten was found there during restoration work, with no hand bones, allegedly, and people see the Piper and hear him in the tower.
 
Drummers were used extensively for signalling orders during battles, this tends to put the drummers in a dangerous position, if you take them out, officers loose the ability to signal to troops/NCOs, they were also usually quite young so maybe it's just that there were so many of them were too young to understand the realities of war and that they are dead.
 
And of course not forgetting the headless drummer boy of Dover Castle:

High on these battlements, the ghost of a headless drummer boy is meant to walk. It is said that during the time of the Napoleonic Wars, the boy was carrying money for the garrison within the Castle's underground passages when he was set upon by thieves. He would not give up the money and was decapitated for his resistance. It is said that when the moon is full, the drummer boy still walks the Castle walls.

Source
 
MrRING said:
William Drury, Phantom Drummer:
http://www.genealogysource.com/druryghost.htm

And the probable hoax of the Ghostly Drummer of Tedworth:
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/tedworth.html

Terrifying Haunting or Clever Hoax?

Was Mompesson's ghost a genuine spirit?
C.H.L. George (aeogae)

Published on 2006-05-18 11:24 (KST)


In 1662 English landowner John Mompesson began telling the world that his household was haunted by an evil and mischievous spirit.

In a letter to William Creed, Regius professor of Divinity at Oxford and a relation by marriage, he said that he had initially thought that the disturbances were the work of burglars, before being forced to conclude that they could only be supernatural.

He blamed the visitations on the witchcraft of William Drury, a drummer he had caused to be arrested in March for claiming money under false pretences.

The alleged events began in April, shortly after Drury's confiscated drum had been sent to Mompesson's house. However this is not the only reason why he held the drummer responsible. The haunting included unpleasant smells, increases in temperature, strange lights, moving objects and mysterious noises; but its defining feature was the loud beating of a drum.

In the same letter to Creed, Mompesson described the haunting in frightening terms. He said that the spirit shook his children's bed and drummed the tune to a popular song, then made scratching noises on the floor and further upset the youngsters.

"It returned with mighty violence and applied it self wholly to my youngest children, whose bedsteeds it would beat, when there have been many strangers as well as ourselves present in the roome, that we did at every blow expect, they would have fallen in pieces, and we hold our hands upon those bedsteeds all the while and could feel no blowes but feele them shake extremely, and for an houre together play the tune called Roundheads and Cuckolds goe digge, goe digge, and never misse one stroke, as sweetly as skillfully as any Drummer in the World can beat . . . Then it will run under the bed-teeke [under the bed], and scratch as if it had iron talons, and heave up the children in the bed, and follow them from roome to roome, and come to none else but them."

Mompesson suggested that the spirit was particularly attracted to the children because the devil was drawn to innocence.

The events at Mompesson's house were widely publicised and even discussed at the royal court. The Earl of Chesterfield and the Earl of Falmouth were sent by King Charles II to investigate, but they did not see or hear anything. Chesterfield later claimed that when Mompesson met the King he confessed that the haunting was a hoax.

In another letter to Creed, Mompesson vehemently proclaimed his honesty. He told the Oxford professor about a group of disbelieving gentlemen who had mocked the spirit and searched the room for hidden trickery.

"They rose and ran up into the roome, so they heard the knocking it usually made; they began to search and very curiously to look where or no they could discover any secret Angles or holes where any body might be put to make noises to deceive them, but found none: then they calld out Satan, Doe this and that, and Whistle if thou canst . . . I protest I was afraid at their cariage, and begd of them to be more sober and to withdraw."

Mompesson expressed outrage that anyone could think that he had fabricated the haunting.

"If any be so uncharitable as to believe that a whole family can be monstrously impious as to fast and pray, and to desire the help of Ministers and other good people to remove that which themselves have contrived to deceive the world, I wish them better Christians And to no other end can it be, but to bring down the vengeance of God upon them, to expose themselves to the censure of the world, and so bring an irreparable damage upon their Estates."

It is possible that Mompesson was himself the innocent victim of a hoax orchestrated by his servants or other parties. In which case it is easy to understand why he was so upset by doubters. On the other hand, one can not help thinking of Shakespeare's famous line about the lady who "doth protest too much."

Many people did think that the haunting was genuine. Belief in the existence of witches was common and the infamous Salem witch trials were still thirty years away in the future.

In December 1662 Mompesson's cousin Thomas advised him that the witch could be attacked with swords, but he added, "doe not discourse of it in your house nor in any other place neer, nor yet make any shew of what you intend; for the Witch is often present there as well when there is no noise as when there is noise."

Thomas told his cousin of a case in France where a group of men had succeeded in making a witch visible by wounding her.

"All presently fell to cutting and slashing in all parts and places of the roome both underfoot and overhead and in every corner; this sport continued for almost half an houre, and they never could hit her (by reason of the faculty Witches have of passing in the Aire) yet laying about them so fast, it happened at length that a blow lighted on her, which drawing bloud of her she presently fell down, and could no longer keep herself from being visible."

In 1668 the haunting was made even more famous by supporter and clergyman Joseph Glanvill, who included it in his book A Blow at Modern Sadducism. In Some Philosophical Considerations about Witchcraft.

British historian Michael Hunter suspects that Glanvill may be the author of an anonymous eye witness account found in the State Papers.

If the account is an accurate report of events it is difficult to imagine how hoaxers could have produced the following effect. Of course one explanation is that the author was highly suggestible.

"I put my hand on the place where it seemed to bee & it bore up so strongly against it as if somebody had thrust against mee. The children use to feel it so under them sometimes like an Eale [Eel] and other times like a bowle which seemes to make a hole & passe through the Bed."

Was Mompesson's family haunted by a genuine poltergeist or was it an exceptionally clever trick? If you are still undecided you might like to read Michael Hunter's paper "New light on the 'Drummer of Tedworth:' conflicting narratives of witchcraft in Restoration England." It is freely available online and contains the full versions of the texts quoted in this article.

--------
©2006 OhmyNews

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview ... 5&rel_no=1

Hunter, Michael (2005) New light on the ‘Drummer of Tedworth’: conflicting narratives of witchcraft in Restoration England. Historical Research, 78 (201). pp. 311-353. ISSN 0950-3471

http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/archive/00000250/
 
intaglioreally said:
Suprised, no one has mentioned Drakes Drum





except me

Is there any recent news of that? isn't supposed to beat when we're at war, or only when England is under attack? Either way, I should have thought it would have done a little something, given recent events.

All the acounts of the Demon Drummer of Tedworth I've read say it can't be explained. Pus its a really cool story!
 
dummer boy

Woah really interesting versions of the drummer boy story.
If i may i will tell you mine.
The drummer boy ghost is actualy the ghost of a young lad who was painted with phosphorus paint and made to march around a graveyard, lighting up the dark and frighteming people. This was perfect cover for smugglers who made a fortune.
The lead content of the paint killed the boy, wich is why he still drums about this place.
 
Re: dummer boy

BIg_Slim said:
Woah really interesting versions of the drummer boy story.
If i may i will tell you mine.
The drummer boy ghost is actualy the ghost of a young lad who was painted with phosphorus paint and made to march around a graveyard, lighting up the dark and frighteming people. This was perfect cover for smugglers who made a fortune.
The lead content of the paint killed the boy, wich is why he still drums about this place.

Ha ha. A hoax and a genuine ghost all in one bundle.

As a nipper I was reading one of those books about RAF ghosts and found one about a phantom bagpipe player at Manby in Lincolnshire. This delighted me as it was really near home so I told my mum and she was amazed as she said she used to hear someone practising the bagpipes as she drove past that very spot when she used to volunteer taking pensioners to the local hospital but had assumed it was a corporeal human practising not a long dead one (and of course it could all have been some spooky coicedence or a misfiring memory...)
 
there is supposed to be a drummer boy under the bridge at potter heigham in Norfolk. When I was at first school there I remember there being a new village sign put up outside our school that displayed this boy. We were told a story about him in assembley, when the sign had been first put up. The drummer boy was apparently attatched to some army group, returning after service during a war. (I dont remember now which one but Napoleonic sounds plausibly familiar.) He was making his way home and was by the riverbank, close to the under pass of the little bridge. We were told he had drowned after falling through thin ice. The beating of drums, according to the story we were told, was his attempt to attract the attention of his fellow soldiers, also on the return march to there respective homes, so that he might be saved from an icy death.

We were told that on dark winter nights you can hear him drumming.

All publications and stories I have looked up about potter heigham ghostly goings on, dont seem to know this story, but all the locals do.
It was an odd place to live. It didnt strike me as strange that my friends and myself where always allowed to stay out late, on our own, to go ghost hunting. We were 7 yr olds at that time, so really not a normal thing to have been happening. Nor somthing that the majority of parents would consider safe.
After moving from there to a town, I was only allowed out on Girl Guides night up until the age of 14 and never at any other time. So quite a change. But I think it demonstrates the oddity of the village.
 
potter heigham

Skater of Hickling Broad

Location: Potter Heigham (Norfolk) - River Thurne
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: In love with a rich man's daughter, a drummer boy would skate across the frozen river to secretly rendezvous with his forbidden girlfriend. However, one winter night the ice cracked and the boy drowned - leaving his ghost to continue the drumming. A phantom female rower has also been seen on the river.

[url=http://www.paranormaldatabase...w.paranormaldatabase.com/repor ... aradata=55




[url=http://www.norfolkcoast.co.uk...w.norfolkcoast.co.uk/myths/ml_ ... eigham.htm

[url=http://www.norfolkcoast.co.uk...w.norfolkcoast.co.uk/myths/ml_ ... oldier.htm

[url=http://www.edp24.co.uk/Conten...w.edp24.co.uk/Content/Features ... lendar.asp

Potter Heigham, Norfolk

Sir Godfrey Haslitt married the beautiful Lady Evelyn Carew on 31st May, 1742. At midnight, during the course of the wedding celebrations, the bride was seized from the Hall and carried out screaming to a waiting coach. The coach tore down the drive and headed along the road towards Potter Heigham. Arriving at the bridge, the coach, which was travelling too fast, smashed into the wall and was flung, with it’s occupants, into the River Thurne below.

At midnight, on the anniversary of the fatal wedding night, the journey is repeated by the phantom coach. It was certainly seen as late as 1930.

[/url] http://noir-folk.tripod.com/tales.html#Potterbridge
[url=http://www.norfolkcoast.co.uk/signs/index.htm]http://www.norfolkcoast.co.uk/signs/index.htm
 
I'm a bit late to this thread. :oops: But the subject of phantom drumming or tapping happened to come up in rl conversation the other day, and I remembered this discussion. Since it's a percussion instrument, perhaps a drum is much more likely to be misidentified than another sort of instrument with a more distinctive or unmistakable sound? Any sort of vague rhythmic banging could be interpreted as a drum from a distance, so maybe some of these phantom drummers are just natural sounds being misinterpreted, with the legend to match being created or drafted in from elsewhere later?

I know water dripping through limestone can sound remarkably like a drum in the distance, if the acoustics are right- there's a natural cavern near me that's a popular tourist spot, and the tour guides specifically point out the sound. I'm sure other natural phenomena could fit the bill.

Not that this applies to cases like Tedworth, of course, but maybe some of those really short-on-details urban legend type stories about a phantom drummer could be explained this way.
 
The beating of drums have been heard by many in the countryside at Gorebridge, Edinburgh. The history of that place is rich with fairies, elfs and the like too.
 
I do like a nice spring or holy well, and a few years ago I was visiting one near Bath (St Alphages, Lansdown). I was a bit freaked out initially because I could hear a banging noise... found the well and realised it was the water glugging inside. I suppose because of air being trapped. It reminded me at the time of stories of ghostly drummers. There are drummers associated with other wells - this one for instance at Harpham in Yorkshire (the drumming being prophetic of local Doom)
http://www.halikeld.f9.co.uk/holywells/east/drum1.htm
There's one at Oundle in Northamptonshire too
http://www.antipope.org/feorag/wells/hope/northamptonshire.html
- you can even live on Drumming Well Lane there.
 
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