Ghost Flap in Derbyshire April 16, 2025
Author: Beach Combing | in : Uncategorized , trackback
Beach introduced before the term ghost riot: we also need another expression for the occasional ghost flaps, when entire communities go ghost crazy. Here is a nice one from 1858 for Great Hucklow. Hucklow is in the hilly Peaks.
The village of Hucklow, situated between Eyam and Tideswell, has been of late thrown into a state of consternation by the alleged visit of an unearthly visitant. Some time ago, a woman, highly respected in the village, died, and bequeathed her entire wardrobe to an only married sister. The request was not complied with, and angry recriminations repeatedly ensued. At length the husband of the dead woman’s sister died, and rumour relates that shortly before death he hinted that he would, in ‘spiritual guise and form,’ visit the house where the vestments his wife’s sister were wrongfully retained, until they were given up to his wife.
Honestly, the things some people waste time with on their death beds. In any case, readers will know the convention that a spirit cannot rest if there is unfinished work: though by rights it should be the ‘highly respected’ woman, not her brother-in-law.
A faint whisper soon went round that the spirit or ghost had been seen to glide into the room where the contested garments wore deposited, and there open the boxes and scatter the contents in every direction. Nightly the inmates of the house saw (as they allege) the intruder dart from one room into another, —all at once in pantry, passages, staircase, below and above, and in every other possible place and direction on the fearful premises.
OK a clothes-scattering ghost. What is interesting is the dimensions of the flap.
With but few exceptions, the entire population of this village are impressed with the conviction of the unsubstantial reality of the ghost.
Other ghost flaps: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
