The Jarvis Brook Road Spectre (Crowborough; E. Sussex)

[lordmongrove]

According to Jennifer Westwood in her 1985 book Albion, a Guide to Legendary Britain ,a lane in Crowborough, East Sussex, called Jarvis Brook Road, is haunted by a ghostly bag of soot! This horrific phantom supposedly attacks anyone who sees it, though quite how a bag of soot would attack you aside from making you dirty, is hard to imagine. Apparently in the 19th century a farmer tried to stand up to the bag of soot but it chased him off.

 

[EnolaGaia]

The story of the Jarvis Brook Road spectre can be traced back at least as far as the 1970s.

This 2012 blog entry attributes it to a 1974 folklore compendium by Katharine M. Briggs.

Review / Commentary About:
The English Ghost: Spectres Through Time
Peter Ackroyd

"Another quote. 111, from Katharine M. Briggs' The Folklore of the Cotswolds (1974) - "...In Crowborough, Sussex, there was Jarvis Brook Road; it was known, or believed, to harbour the presence of a 'spectral bag of soot' that would pursue the unwary."Which immediately reminded me of an essay in A Pleasing Terror, a collection of M. R. James's stories and essays about his work. It too mentioned "a road in Crowborough (Sussex) was haunted by a spectral bag of soot which chased people." And that's the sort of mental image that sticks with you (and honestly, makes me laugh quite a bit). [Note: both refer to the same book by Briggs.]

SOURCE: http://batgrl.booklikes.com/post/233239/post

The Jarvis Brook spectre is also mentioned in:

Jacqueline Simpson, The Folklore of Sussex
(The History Press, revised edn 2002, originally published 1973)

 

[EnolaGaia]

This 2014 ParanormalSoup forum entry (to which no one replied) is quoted from "an old book" that the poster never identifies. At face value it indicates the Jarvis Brook spectre is no longer "active."

Another apparition, of a most peculiar kind, made its appearance occasionally in the Jarvis Brook Road. I do not recollect hearing of a similar spectral appearance. It assumed the form of a bag of soot, and would run after the wayfarer who had the misfortune to traverse this road on the particular night when the ghostly soot-bag held its revel. A boastful blacksmith, having primed himself with beer, determined to encounter the soot-bag, and boldly ascended the hill, while his companions waited at the base to witness the result. Very soon he was seen running at full speed down the hill, pursued by the bag of soot. So terrified was he that he did not stop till he reached his house and had bolted himself within it.

This ghost must have been the spirit of a chimney-sweep who had some grudge against the good people of Jarvis Brook. Very few persons would like to come into contact with a bag of soot, either material or spiritual, and there can be no discredit in trying to escape from it. Perhaps the chimneys at Jarvis Brook were never swept, but whenever the soot accumulated were set fire to, which is a Sussex mode of cleaning chimneys. This may have been a grievance to a local sweep, who avenged himself in the manner above related, having carried his grievance into the other world.

His perturbed spirit is now at rest; at least we must suppose so, as he no longer appears in the Jarvis Brook Road.

http://www.paranormalsoup.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=40779