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Well, Good Evening, Pilgrim

Yithian

Yithian

Parish Watch
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All right then, hot on the heels of yesterday's supernatural tale I'll post another chosen from literally hundreds solely because its setting is nice and local for me. It comes from Sir Ernest Bennett's Apparitions & Haunted Houses (Faber & Faber: London, 1939) pp. 357 - 358.

Case 101

The legend of a ghostly horse and its rider on the Pilgrim's Way in Kent from east to west is widespread locally; but as far as i know, the only definitive evidence is provided by the three letters which are here published, one from Mrs. Whitehouse of Hadley Cottage, Bexley, and the others from Miss Scarth and her sister Mrs. Arkwright, who write from Charing (May 1937).

In the early nineties [n.b. - 1890s], early in February in the afternon, I was driving with a cousin up Water Lane which leads from Bearsted (near Maidstone) to Broad St. on the Pilgrim's Way, returning from to Hollingbourne where we lived. Something happened to the back seat of the pony-carriage where the coachman was sitting, my cousin was driving, and I called out to her to stop. The man seemed slightly hurt so we made him sit in front and hold the reins and my cousin and I walked behind up Water Lane and turning to the right along the Pilgrim's Way. Some way in front I saw a man in a large hat, such as worn by cowboys, and a very frisky horse. I said to my cousin I would stand by the hedge until he passed. She said she did not know what I was talking about, as she saw nothing. The figure then disappeared. Some years afterwards down Water Lane, a few minutes walk from where I saw the man, Canon Scarth, who was then Vicar of Bearstead, saw a man on a horse who disappeared, and I was told of three farmers who were driving along the Pilgrim's Way about midnight, who heard the sound of a horse coming towards them and peered out into the night. They could see nothing, but their own horse shied right onto the grass. I have not been able to verify this from the actual men themselves.

Yours faithfully,
(Mrs.) J. Whitestone.

Letter from Miss. T. F. Scarth, daughter of the late Canon Scarth:

I well remember my father coming into lunch late, one day in December, and saying, 'I have seen a ghost.'

He was walking up Water Lane, which leads south from Pilgrim's Road to Bearsted, where near the end he was overtaken by a man on a fine horse, who gave him a greting. My father noticed he had a wide-brimmed hat, and, what struck him especially, silver spurs. No sooner had the horseman passed, than he vanished entirely. He was no longer on the road in front, and there was no turning or gap in the hedge where he could have turned off. My father walked on to the cottage at the top of the lane, close to the Pilgrim's Road, where he was going to visit a sick woman. He asked the daughters if they had seen a ride go past, but they had seen no one, and when questioned, they said no horse could have gout out of the lane without passing their house.

We were anxious to know what the mysterious horseman was like. 'He Was', said my father, 'a dark man, and reminded me of a portrit at Mrs. Green's house Hucking Hill.' When the relatives of Mrs. Green were asked whose portrait my father meant, they immediately said it was a Mr Duppa, a relation and ancestor of the De Uphaughs now at Hollinbourne House. They added, 'He is supposed to haunt the hill.'
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[Canon Scarth's other daughter then corroborates the story in a third letter where she discovers a witness to the Canon's conversation with the rider (who did not see the rider ride off) and a 'explanantion' that Mr Duppa was supposed to have committed suicide by riding full tilt into the closed Iron gates Hollingbourne House (presumably he was thrown to his death)]
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As an aside, I have a personal experience of being in a car with three friends on Water Lane late one evning in the autumn of 5 or 6 years ago. For about 6 or 7 minutes there was a slight hum and the car vibrated noticeably but still very slightly...no horseman or hoof-steps though...

edit: typos corrected
 
Isn't this anywhere near to the Bluebell hill road ghost sightings? I know that's in the Maidstone area
 
Ozymandias said:
Isn't this anywhere near to the Bluebell hill road ghost sightings? I know that's in the Maidstone area
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Its within 5 or 6 miles...easy riding distance ;)
 
Just thought it was unusual to have two markedly different types of road apparition appearing that, relatively, close to each other.
 
Anonymous said:
Just thought it was unusual to have two markedly different types of road apparition appearing that, relatively, close to each other.
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I suppose it depends what you believe is causing the apparitions--there could be quite a number of connections from meteorological and environmental to seismic, subsonic and electromagnetic.

Ley lines, if it floats your boat.
 
Great story, though I got a little distracted by all the alliteration: in a house at Hucking Hill is the portrait of an ancestor of De Uphaughs of Hollinbourne House; he is supposed to haunt the hill.
 
Yithian said:
As an aside, I have a personal experience of being in a car with three friends on Water Lane late one evning in the autumn of 5 or 6 years ago. For about 6 or 7 minutes there was a slight hum and the car vibrated noticeably but still very slightly...no horseman or hoof-steps though...
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You must live fairly local to me Yithian! I've not see or heard anything ghostly anything on Water Lane ghostly when out and about, though saying that I've never even felt a shiver at renowned haunted locations around the county!
 
HypnosMetis said:
You must live fairly local to me Yithian! I've not see or heard anything ghostly anything on Water Lane ghostly when out and about, though saying that I've never even felt a shiver at renowned haunted locations around the county!
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Local?

Not for a long time, but I grew up in Bearsted.

Not a supernatural experience, but for me any number of Kentish lanes with ragstone walls and overarching trees evoke the very same feeling that I had when reading ghost stories in the autumn: that sensibility born when the present world recedes, history surges and the moment is pregnant with possibility.
 
Nearer the Aylesford area than Bearsted, but I had friends from school who lived there. Plus it's only up the road really, so somewhere I pass through pretty regularly!
 
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