In time for Halloween on October 31, Michael Montagu has some ghost stories from around Rye.
We live in a very beautiful area. So beautiful in fact, that it seems some of the long ago residents can’t bear to leave it. We know that Rye is well served for spectral ex-residents, but other local areas have their fair share of them too.
Just up the road, in the lovely village of Appledore, there was a report of spectral soldiers during the late 1940s. It seems that during the second world war, the soldiers had been billeted in a house in the village. Tragically, as with so many service men and women, they were all killed. It is said that after the war, the part of the house that they had lived in was visited by screams and shouting. No one seems to be aware of anything happening more recently. Reports have come in from a number of locations that more war sounds continue to occur, such as those made by Spitfires, Lancaster bombers and the terrible Flying Bombs. At another house in Appledore, during the seventies, one family reported hearing noises from the empty attic and unexplained bangs from the staircase. They also reported the sound of whispering from one of the bedrooms.
Northiam has not been overlooked by incorporeal visitors. Two ladies from the past seem to have stayed on to enjoy the hospitality of the Hayes Hotel. We are told that one sits quietly in the bar, working industriously away at her spinning wheel. Another lady called Molly Beale was killed by her lover at the hotel, because she wouldn’t leave her husband and run off with him – not, unfortunately an uncommon happening even now. Hotel rooms are named after Molly, her husband Captain Snelling and the scurrilous lover, Leyton. The Snelling room even has a description of what happened on a beam. Molly has been seen walking across the hotel yard, followed by the sound of creaking floorboards – a bit odd that? She also has a tendency to hurl things around a bit in the bar – and who can blame her?
Mediaeval Bodiam Castle has two ghosts, but one, it seems, is unconnected to its turbulent past. This shade is most likely that of a boy who in the 19th century seems to have met his end in the moat. Some people have reported seeing a red lady looking out of a window, but nothing else seems to be known of her past.
Guests at the George Hotel in Lydd have often complained about a cat jumping onto their bed during the night. Except that when turning on the light, there is no cat in the room. Late in one evening in 1998, a motorist on Jury’s Gap in Lydd saw a young man standing in the middle of the road. Fortunately, the driver had good reflexes and braked quickly, so avoiding a collision. The man jumped into a ditch. Getting out to check that he was alright, the driver had a terrible shock on finding no one there.
It will surely come as no surprise to hear that there are spooky stories connected with the site of the Battle of Hastings. The Saxons, in retreat from a squadron of Norman cavalry, have been seen travelling quickly along Senlac Ridge. It has also been claimed, but no one seems to have seen it, that when it’s raining, the blood of the battle dead is seen oozing down the hill. The abbey itself seems to have monks in residence still, with Monk’s Walk nicknamed Ghost’s Walk by the local people. For good measure a Norman Knight is still around, along with the ubiquitous Red Lady. Red ladies seem to be as numerous as the places where Queen Elizabeth I is said to have slept. Alexander Pope said: “Dowagers as plenty as Flounders.” This writer says: “Red Ladies as plenty as Flounders.”
Next week Michael has another local ghost story – probably the most famous one in Rye.
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