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Does anyone know what happened to the Hexham Heads, or where they are now?

I was fascinated with this story as a child, and seem to remember reading somewhere that someone owned up to making them in the end. However, I also seem to remember that in the original story there were a range of supernatural phenomena that accompanied the Heads wherever they were taken (including a werewolf type creature that appeared and disappeared).

Can't find much about them on the net, other than the odd picture (attached).



Any further info gratefully received.
 
i think the thing about teh wwerewolf was that the researchers took them home and experienced manifestations of evil, including a spectral man-wolf that they believed to be some celtic god. :) I'll look them up in a book for you.
 
They were, apparently, made by lorry driver who had lived in the house previously. He made them for his daughter to play with.

Yeah, right. Stick to Barbie next time, Rubber Duck*.

However; the kids who found the heads also made very similar looking ones before they dug up the supernaturally empowered originals. So was something compelling people to carve Celtic style heads in order to summon a Wolf God? Or was it just Nationwide, short of a story?







*Someone please find this funny or I'll feel old.
 
Here's a couple of links to the story:

http://www.fortunecity.co.uk/roswell/fate/544/hexham.htm

http://www.jb004a9668.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/features/f_1_canine.htm

From the second link:

There was talk of an ancient curse attached to the heads, but the whole affair became even more puzzling when Desmond Craigie announced that he had made the heads for his daughter about 1956, when the Craigie family had been living in the house in Hexham where the heads were found. That this was in fact the case was shown by Professor Dearman of the University of Newcastle, who sectioned them and showed that they were artificially moulded and not carved from natural stone.

Which seems to suggest that the heads are, sadly, no longer around.

Jane.
 
I have further info onthe heads which I'll dig out and post presently.

.......

Later: here we go. Seems that Dr Anne Ross, the Celtic scholar who studied the heads and had a scary encounter with a dog-headed entity, asked Mr Craigie to replicate the process he said he used to make the heads - the result was very poor, and nothing like the originals. There was some speculation that he made up the concrete fabrication story to put people off trying to search the area looking for further evidence.

Incidentally, the surrounding area itself had a fair bit of other Fortean stuff going on - UFO's, old sites, weird feelings, etc.

Can't help feeling we haven't heard the last of the story.

Finally, I have it on very good authority that the heads are now in private hands (but Ihave promised not to divulge further. Sorry!)


[edit]dead links squished[/edit]
 
And would your 'source' be willing to let us know if any unusual occurrences are still attributed to said heads?

Hang on, haven't we had a 'dog-headed men' thread on 'It Happened to Me'?




(Thanks for the laughter folks. It's good to know that the Convoy spirit lives on.)
 
Apparently none at all: beyond that I haven't a clue: just know they're still in existence.

I only know that cos I was contacted privately by someone who's doing some stuff on them that may become a book, so doesn't want to give much away.

(Never heard from him again - stu 13/8/07)
 
I don't believe it!

Have just posted a message about the hexham heads at the bottom of this board (in 'General chat' for some reason - I'm new here, forgive me!) and have just stumbled on all this info! Weird...
I shan't write everything out again but would appreciate a response if anyone happens to read it...
 
Tony's Thread

Text:

Hexham werewolf (1970's thing)
Does anyone remember an article on a north east BBC news programme in the mid seventies about two stone heads unearthed in Hexham that conjured up a werewolf apparition? The 'werewolf' appeared to a pretty eminent archaeologist and her family and used to appear with a sort of banging noise at various times of day.... it was passed on to another and the same thing happened. The mysterious thing is is that i looked into this story and rang a museum at Hexham who sent me some newspaper clippings and said that the heads hade been buried in a secret location due to 'trouble'. This really spooked me and sent me off trying to get in touch with anyone involved. I managed to reach an old man who told me he'd MADE the heads - something the archaeologist had disputed (she said they were celtic). As for her - one Anne Ross - I've never managed to reach her (and she is pretty well known).
Any information/memories of this story would be gratefully appreciated!
(oh - and nice, friendly intelligent site by the way!)
 
Eee ... their just like buses them Hexham Heads.

Thanks for the post Stu, it's nice to know someone knows where they are.
 
I'm glad they seem to have survived as well. Sorry for any confusion caused by my previous post - t'was just reporting what I found on the wonderful web (and we all know that's never inaccurate!).

Thinking about it though, maybe the Prof cut up the replicas of the heads that Stu mentioned; or maybe "sectioned" means something different to me that it does to people-who-examine-stone-heads.

Um, I'll slink off back to my corner now and await developments :)

Jane.

PS Welcome, Tony! Don't worry, it happens all the time. Must be a weird syncroncity (sp?) thing.
 
Sectioned

Thanks mejane! The mentioning of 'sectioning' (unless it means the heads were mad) meant that the heads could have had a ridge running around them, indicating moulding; i.e. mass production, copying of some sort. I used to dabble in Plaster of paris and so know my stuff!
-Tony
 
Ooooh, I thought it meant he cut the head into little slices :p

Just goes to show "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" ... especially when that knowledge is gained via the web :) Now I think about it, I can't see any reason why the heads should have been subjected to such a drastic analysis... erm, I'll erm, go back into my corner (whimper). At least my dog still loves me.

:)

Back to the serious stuff, folks.

Jane.
 
Reading through some nostalgic old threads (Dog-head Men and Historical ABCs) and realised summat...

The Hexham Heads, small tennis-ball-sized Celtic-esque stone dog heads, dug up in the 70's in a garden in Hexham, Northumberland. Their discovery caused poltergeist activity and sightings of a terrifying werewolf-like creature to both the family who found them and the archaeologist who took them to Southampton for study. All this being despite a subsequent claim by a former resident of the Heads' home in Hexham that they weren't of Celtic origin, but were made by him for his daughter in the early 50's...

Now, isn't it a coincidence that the Hexham Heads were found in the same Northumberland town that Charles Fort documents a killing spree by a wolf-like entity in the winter of 1904? [See Lo!, pp107-123]

Just a thought.
 
But you'd expect spooky thngs in a place called Hexham, as Hex is another word for magic or enchantment (some computer geeks may not have known that!)
 
I've long held the theory (for 'theory' read 'wrong headed ignorant half formed opinion') that the Hexham Heads affair (that little known Man From Uncle Episode) was a string of massively bizarre paranormal coincidences and sychronicities. So, a man makes heads for amusement (like you'd trust him round your kids), children later do the same thing, wolf-creatures show up and a poltergeist kicks in.

Um, actually, I think I retract the above theory. Perhaps if a 'stone tape' type thing was going on, it wasn't the heads themselves? I wonder what the history of the site was.
 
rynner said:
But you'd expect spooky thngs in a place called Hexham, as Hex is another word for magic or enchantment (some computer geeks may not have known that!)

'Hex 'em', possibly?
 
Anyone got a Place-Name Origin book?

According to Brewer (1894) Hext means highest, much as next means nearest. I see Hexham is up the Tyne valley - but there are plenty of places higher...
 
Hexham (Northumberland )
Hagustaldes ham 685 (c.1120). 'The warrior's homestead'. Old English hagustald + ham.

A Dictionary of English Place-Names, Oxford University Press, © A.D. Mills 1998
 
I found a letter the other day which Doctor Anne Ross submitted to
The Unexplained magazine, after the claim for a very recent date for
the heads had been made.

She said that she had never claimed the heads were Celtic, merely
Celtic in style. Then she went on to suggest that a later emulation
of that style could stir up the old powers anyway!

The connection with Fort's wolf-like entity is a new one, I think! :)
 
Yeah, the old houseowner coming forward as making the heads in 1953 for his daughter raises some weird questions...

*Is it the mere Celtic-shape of the heads that summoned the beast, rather than actual Celtic origin?

*Were the heads being found a mere coincidence, and the paranormal events unrelated?

*Why were they buried?!!!! And why were they made in the first place... I know there were no Playstations in 1953, but even then surely children would be decidedly unimpressed if their dad made them two Celtic-style stone dog heads to play with?

*Was the man inspired to make the heads as some kind of wolfiness surrounding the house - the heads being the result of the manifestation, not the cause?

*Was the beast an entity created by the minds of those who saw them, a kind of Tulpa type thing?
 
Good questions, 'sprout - this MB has missed your keen, analytic mind!
 
re:- hexham heads

the nite that the reaport was shown on "nationwide" i had an experience which ill relate :-
that night i was asleep i awoke by the bedroom door slowly beening opened (the door rubbed on the carpet being plastic (large looped)) then hearing a shufleing sound along the carpet towards the window & then from the window to my bed and these action/movement repeated (and let me assure u that i was very much awake through this event) and during the whole time i was hot, sweating ice cold sweat i had feeling from what ever was in the room was "curiostoty" after was seem ages the "entity?" left the room closeing the door (un)fortunatly? i was under the covers with my eyes tightly shut the following morning i asked my mam&dad and my unger bro did them come in to my room that last night and they all said no!!

so did i imagine all of this or what the hell happened?????
 
melforkbeard said:
re:- hexham heads

the nite that the reaport was shown on "nationwide" i had an experience which ill relate :-
that night i was asleep i awoke by the bedroom door slowly beening opened (the door rubbed on the carpet being plastic (large looped)) then hearing a shufleing sound along the carpet towards the window & then from the window to my bed and these action/movement repeated (and let me assure u that i was very much awake through this event) and during the whole time i was hot, sweating ice cold sweat i had feeling from what ever was in the room was "curiostoty" after was seem ages the "entity?" left the room closeing the door (un)fortunatly? i was under the covers with my eyes tightly shut the following morning i asked my mam&dad and my unger bro did them come in to my room that last night and they all said no!!

so did i imagine all of this or what the hell happened?????
Sounds to me like a classic hypnogogic sleep experience - you think you're awake, but you're actually in a dream-state, hearing and seeing bizarre things; sounds especially are very weird; you're certain that there are things in the room with you. I've had plenty of these, so I'm speaking from experience.
 
melforkbeard said:
re:- hexham heads

the nite that the reaport was shown on "nationwide" i had an experience which ill relate :-
that night i was asleep i awoke by the bedroom door slowly beening opened (the door rubbed on the carpet being plastic (large looped)) then hearing a shufleing sound along the carpet towards the window & then from the window to my bed and these action/movement repeated (and let me assure u that i was very much awake through this event) and during the whole time i was hot, sweating ice cold sweat i had feeling from what ever was in the room was "curiostoty" after was seem ages the "entity?" left the room closeing the door (un)fortunatly? i was under the covers with my eyes tightly shut the following morning i asked my mam&dad and my unger bro did them come in to my room that last night and they all said no!!

so did i imagine all of this or what the hell happened?????

Maybe younger brother was sleep walking. I used to sleep walk to the toilet downstairs (even tho we had one next to my room) in the middle of the night when I was younger.
 
thanx 4 sujestions

no my younger bro had never sleepwalked atoll and i was deffinatley awake otherwise would i have felt my self sweating ice cold rivulets of sweat?

slitly diff track ive had dreams were im awake but i known im asleep the worst one was im smokeing and i fall asleep (sic?) and drop the fag (cigarette 4 usa members) after a few mins i really wake up and then franitly stripe the bed looking for the fag checking the whole room even now i deff make sure the last fag i have in bed is deff out also wot with haveing three cats
 
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