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The Hexham Heads

Thing is, I do believe that the heads created 'magic' causes and triggered off the strange events.
We have a family friend who grew up in Liverpool and who claims to be psychic (though I think he's a bit embarrassed to talk about it so rarely does). He said he once saw a white figure watching him from beneath a copse of trees - it wore white robes and had the head of a wolf. After the sighting he said he had strange experiences at home, a kind of psychic series of assaults. I must ask him for more detail one day - when I meet him, which is rare.
 
CuriousIdent said:
ttaarraass said:
He sent me a photocopy and I was about half way through digitizing it for him (as I wanted to 'Lulu' up a bound copy for myself in the process).
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Did you ever finish this? :)
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Yes, I did (click). However, all the information from the original, shorter book can be found in Quest for the Hexham Heads, available at your nearest friendly online retailer.

Incidentally, today marks my 10th FT forum anniversary. Thanks everyone for making it so interesting! And I still feel like I'm just getting into the whole forteana thing... 8)
 
I just finished the Paul Screeton book as well, and I've really enjoyed the discussion on it here, although the book itself left me a bit... how to say it? Not disappointed, really, since it did contain a lot of great information and there was clearly a huge amount of work that went into it, but somehow it just didn't satisfy. Hard to put my finger on why, really, but I'm glad to have read it nonetheless, and I do recommend anyone interested in the case get hold of a copy.

NeilE said:
One of the main objections to his account is the argument that the heads were too creepy to have been made as a child's toys, but it could be that Craigie simply wasn't very good at moulding heads, and what he intended to be comical came out rather scary. In a way, the Hexham Heads kind of remind me of Spike Milligan's drawings from around the same time - a similar loose, lumpy, manic feel; if a cement worker were to mould rough 3D versions of Milligan's drawings or similar cartoons during a lunch break they'd probably come out looking something like the Hexham Heads.
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I think if we accept Mr. Craigie's story at face value (and I know some people don't, although personally I'm pretty convinced he's telling the truth) then the above explanation makes perfect sense. *We* think the things look impossibly creepy because we've heard all the later stories about them; a little girl getting them as toys from her dad would certainly look at them in a far different light. And I'm sure most everyone here can think of at least one toy they played with quite happily in childhood, but which their now-adult (and Fortean-oriented) mind wouldn't even want in the house! (Clown dolls? Jack-in-the-boxes? Raggedy Ann?) There are also plenty of children who like some toys precisely because they are a bit scary: who remembers toys like Creepy Crawlers and Boglins? So I think the argument that they just look too spooky to give to a kid doesn't really hold much water for me.

I am a bit shocked to hear that a museum buried the originals though. Why on earth would they do that? I mean, from a purely sympathetic standpoint, I get it - if you honestly believe these things are sinister and are causing you trouble, then of course you'd want nothing more than to be rid of them as quickly and quietly as possible so you can get on with the rest of your totally normal and non-supernaturally-menaced life. I still can't help feeling like that's a bit... well, unprofessional for a museum, surely? I mean, it's one thing for a private person to do so, since they're unlikely to have the contacts or resources to do much else under the circumstances, but doesn't a museum have a bit more responsibility than that? Or is that far too naïve and optimistic of me? :p
 
I'm afraid that as soon as I hear that a museum official supposedly said they'd buried the items, I smell bullshit.
No official from a museum or other reputable body would "bury" or otherwise lose an item, regardless of it's dodgy provenance. It doesn't matter if they were creeped out by it, the item had a reputation for evil or decided they were too "pure" to house such an object - any object (background dubious) would still be catalogued and stored.
Could you imagine the incredibly bad press? The rightful claims of unscientific behaviour? It'd be like The British Museum saying they'd burned an Egyptian mummy 'cause they read somewhere there was a curse on it!

Sorry, Tony Lovell, I'm not calling you a liar; you may have spoken to a Hexham "official" but what he said is blatant nonsense.
 
What I find particularly curious about this case is not so much the Heads themselves, but the beast which is described as having appeared in connection with it.

Hexham already has another plausibly Fortean case attached to it. That of the Hexham Wolf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexham_wolf

Whilst at face value this may be more of zoology than cryptozoolgy, there is some debate over that case. Though a wolf was knocked down by a train, and considered to be the creature which had been attacking livestock in the area, in 1904-05, its fur conflicted with a number of other descriptions of the creature. The fallen wolf was grey in fur, but several reports described as beeing dark furred and larger.

Is it entirely implausible to consider that the Hexham Wolf could have been the creature described as having been encountered by Bernice Ross?
 
CuriousIdent said:
Is it entirely implausible to consider that the Hexham Wolf could have been the creature described as having been encountered by Bernice Ross?
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Didn't it disappear before her eyes, though? I might be recalling it wrong, but you could be on to something if "wolf" reports were playing on her mind, though why that would set off a hallucination I don't know. Doesn't explain the weresheep, either.
 
gncxx said:
CuriousIdent said:
Is it entirely implausible to consider that the Hexham Wolf could have been the creature described as having been encountered by Bernice Ross?
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Didn't it disappear before her eyes, though? I might be recalling it wrong, but you could be on to something if "wolf" reports were playing on her mind, though why that would set off a hallucination I don't know. Doesn't explain the weresheep, either.
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I just wonder if the beast which some reported as seeing in connection with the Hexham Wolf (which was described as a dark furred creature, larger than merely a standard canine size) and thie creature which Bernice Ross believes that she saw could plausibly be one and the same.

Some kind of spirit or entity which, for some reason or another, is somehow native to the Hexham area.
 
You start to be able to write the sort of story where the flesh-and-blood wolf turns up because of the numinous wolfness of the place...
 
I just wonder about what these beastmen or werewolf fgures may have actually been. It's easy to say 'a hallucination'. And plentifully logical, to boot. But indulge the unusual for a moment...

Whether or not the Heads were carved in the 50s or centuries earlier, the sighting by more than one person of creatures which appeared to be part animal (be that sheep or wolf) and part man is curious, at least. Whether intentional or no, it might certainly be plausible if we buy into the concept of the slightky more fantastical that even if these Heads were man-made *something* associated with this whole case might have stirred something up from a bygone era. Hexham is (wonderfully for these kind of tales) an age old Anglo Saxon town. Much like large parts of Northumberland it has *history* behind it. The Anglo Saxons of this region would have been pagans, believing in old gods, and old ways in exactly the fashion which could make for a folktale or two.

Is it possible these appearing/disappearing creatures were visitations of some kind of ancient pagan beast spirit or deity? Something old. Something very primal. Nobody was harmed. Somebody's hair was touched in night. But no malice, it seems. The creatures didn't attack anybody. They just came, an fled. I wonder if the case of the Heads somehow stirred them from their slumber. They stuck around awhile, stretching theur legs, casting an eye over how the world had changed since last they cast an eye on it, and then went back to rest once more :roll: ;)
 
Ironically, shortly after my last comments on this thread my Wife and her Mother actually stayed in a farmhouse fairly close to Hexham. I did not mention the Heads or the Hexham Wolf to her. Didn't want to freak her out.

Sadly, nothing of note occurred. But she did describe it as quite a bleak part of the World. She's not big on rural areas and even quiet small towns bother her (she grew up on Merseyside) but she did think it was a 'strange oldy worldy' place.
 
I've been interested in the Hexham Heads for a while which has prompted me to do two things. One is to join this forum, and the other is to compile an index to Paul Screeton's book.

Like many others I find the Screeton book very interesting, but the lack of an index and a quick who's who of everyone involved in the story made it quite a tough read. So I've tried to rectify this by compiling my own index as an Excel spreadsheet. It features virtually everyone in the Screeton book (over 200 people), plus a summary of who they are, page numbers, and how they are relevant to the story.

The spreadsheet is available to download and amend as you wish. I've also added some other information, such as the possible chain of ownership of the heads. Hopefully it's of use to anyone interested in the Hexham Heads. Cheers.
http://hexhamheads.wordpress.com/
 
They buried the animal, but later after discussing it with the Stationmaster at Cumwhinton, dug it up again and bought it back to the station where a member of the Hexham Wolf Committee identified it as a full-grown grey male wolf.[5] Captain Bain declared the wolf too old to be his and it was proclaimed on 7 January 1905 that the wolf found was not the Hexham wolf, who was still at large.[2]
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Cumwinton is about 5 miles south of Carlisle, and quite a long way from Hexham really. I like the way that Captain Bain can tell the age of an exhumed wolf so easily.

Note as well that this seems to be a good case of an alien big canid in the wild, proving that such things do occur occasionally.
 
I've made a quick update to my blog which may be of interest. After a long search I have finally got hold of a copy of Paul Screeton’s original booklet on the Hexham Heads which he produced in 1981, and I've uploaded a copy to my blog.

I have tried to contact Paul Screeton to seek his permission but so far have had no reply. As this booklet is virtually unobtainable, long out of print, and most of the work is superseded by his later book, I would hope he won't have any problem with it.
 
This is great, Schloup, thank you. It's rather nostalgic to see a typed booklet like that, when everything can be so slick nowadays.

Incidentally, there's an entirely irrelevant non-pc limerick in the middle of it all, quite odd indeed to come across, and I suppose reflects how long ago the booklet was written.

Anyway, back to those frissons of werewolf-related fear.
 
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Eponastill said:
Incidentally, there's an entirely irrelevant non-pc limerick in the middle of it all, quite odd indeed to come across, and I suppose reflects how long ago the booklet was written.
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Amazingly the limerick also makes it into Screeton's 2012 Hexham Heads book. He does comment that "such an innocent verse would be largely frowned upon today by the PC brigade" but I was still surprised it featured in a book published only a few years ago.
 
Schloup said:
I've made a quick update to my blog which may be of interest. After a long search I have finally got hold of a copy of Paul Screeton’s original booklet on the Hexham Heads which he produced in 1981, and I've uploaded a copy to my blog.
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I very much appreciate your efforts to do so, thank you. It's the preservation of what would seem to be a fairly significant piece of Fortean ephemera. I'm very glad to have had the opportunity to read it. Page 13 follows page 15, which is easily dealt with by the reader, but page 14, alas, appears to have gone missing completely, unless I am missing something myself. Is there any chance you could provide p.14 too? (I know, sorry, there's no pleasing some folk.)
 
Krepostnoi said:
page 14, alas, appears to have gone missing completely
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I skimmed through the pamphlet the other week and failed to notice the pagination error! I wonder if there was anything printed on Page 14, though. The subject matter of the whereabouts of the heads and Don Robins' knowledge of them seems to flow reasonably from Page 13 to Page 15. :confused:
 
Krepostnoi said:
I very much appreciate your efforts to do so, thank you. It's the preservation of what would seem to be a fairly significant piece of Fortean ephemera. I'm very glad to have had the opportunity to read it. Page 13 follows page 15, which is easily dealt with by the reader, but page 14, alas, appears to have gone missing completely, unless I am missing something myself. Is there any chance you could provide p.14 too? (I know, sorry, there's no pleasing some folk.)
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I hadn't spotted that so thanks for pointing it out. I've stored away the booklet in the loft but will get it down at the weekend and re-scan. I'm sure the error is mine and that a page 14 does exist so I'll upload a complete copy next week, including the correct pagination.
 
Schloup said:
Amazingly the limerick also makes it into Screeton's 2012 Hexham Heads book. He does comment that "such an innocent verse would be largely frowned upon today by the PC brigade" but I was still surprised it featured in a book published only a few years ago.
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Yeah I'd say ignorant rather than innocent! I guess Screeton's pretty old school if he thinks language like that is okay in 2012. It's got nothing to do with the story so a strange decision. What can you do with these people eh, I suppose they wouldn't even understand if you tried to explain.

Anyway. Just to say, I also enjoyed looking at your blog, lots of careful cataloguing and extra research, really good, lots of work there.

What is it about the story that captured your imagination so much? (assuming you dont have blogs about all sorts of other fortean topics :)
 
"A man named Desmond Craigie reported that he was the creator of the heads, making them in 1956 for his daughter while he was living in the house later occupied by the Robson family, along with a third head which became damaged and had to be thrown away. Craigie, who worked for a company that dealt in concrete at the time he allegedly created the heads, made some replicas to demonstrate his claim. The original heads were analysed by Professor Dearman of the University of Newcastle, who concluded that the items had been moulded artificially rather than carved."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexham_Heads

Thoughts?
 
Eponastill said:
What is it about the story that captured your imagination so much? (assuming you dont have blogs about all sorts of other fortean topics :)
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I’ve had an interest in the Hexham Heads story since I first came across it in a book called Incredible Phenomena when I was about ten. I’m not sure why it fascinated me but something just struck a chord and the photos of the heads (or what turned out to be the replicas) stayed with me throughout my childhood. Over the years my memory muddled up the story and I’d convinced myself that this was a case where the heads had dropped from the sky rather than been found buried in a garden. Once I read about the case again a few years ago and refreshed my memory I became interested in it again. A couple of summers ago I was on holiday in Northumberland and made a detour to Hexham to find the garden on Rede Avenue where the heads were discovered. What I like about the case is how mundane the setting is. No gothic mansions or ancient castles – just an overgrown garden on a run down council estate. In fact on the day of my visit at the exact spot where the heads were found was a solitary saggy bra hanging on the washing line, so we can safely assume they aren't expecting many tourists :)


Once I’d visited I got hold of a copy of Paul Screeton’s book and then researched it further. I put the blog together to try and answer some of the questions which weren’t very obvious when I was doing my research; the main one being who all of the characters were in the story. As I said on the blog, I find Paul Screeton’s book both fascinating and frustrating in equal measures, but my main criticism is the lack of an index. There’s no doubt that the work he has put into the case is exhaustive but the inability to flip to the back of the book and look someone up is a major drawback, which is why I decided to compile my own index to the book. I’ve also tried to give some idea of where the Heads may be now using Screeton’s book as a guide.


Hopefully the blog adds a bit more to the story. I’m determined to only add stuff to it which is genuinely useful and can’t be found elsewhere so updates will be pretty sporadic.
 
I have to say another big thank you to you, @Schloup: I was dimly aware of the Hexham Heads before you posted, but reading the pamphlet you scanned and subsequently other things on your site has made me realise just what an intriguing episode it is.

I'm particularly intrigued by Frank Hyde - as I don't have access to Screeton's book (and Amazon postage is expensive to my location), would it be too much of an imposition to ask for a few more details about him and his involvement? How did he come to be the last known possessor of the original heads?
 
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