Friday 15th November 2024
GHOST WALKS FOR CHRISTMAS, led by John Girvan
Dates:
Friday 22 November 2024
Saturday 7 December 2024
Friday 20 December 2024
Start Time:Â 7.30 pm. The walk last approx. one and quarter hours, but allow extra time.
Tickets:  £8.00 Adults, £4 Children (suitable for ages 11+)
Book Online
Meet:Â Market Cross, Market Place, Devizes.Â
Note:Â These walks are organised and led by John Girvan, not Wiltshire Museum.Â
Danny Howell penned the following note in December 2007. He wrote:
When I lived at Obelisk Court (between 1995 and 2002) one of my neighbours was John Cruse. He lived at No.30 Silver Street, the house on the corner of Silver Street and the lane that goes up to Obelisk Terrace. John was a descendant of the family who had once run a well-known coach hire and motorcycle business in the town. A well-known Warminster family, they were related to the Dawkins’ and Corden’s.
John Cruse was a sensible man and very pleasant to talk to. He once told me, in all seriousness, an anecdote concerning No.43 East Street, the house on the corner of Furlong and East Street, a couple of doors west of the Rose and Crown Inn. He told me that the front door to the house, was approached by a couple of steps that dropped down from the pavement. Nearly opposite the house, between what is now the Plants Green residential estate and the East Street Service Station (the Esso petrol garage), is Roly Poly Lane, a narrow footpath that connects East Street with the north-east corner of Warminster’s Lake Pleasure Grounds (the Town Park).
John told me he had, many years ago, seen a woman – who he called “a grey lady†– come down Roly Poly Lane, cross over East Street, and then descend the steps from the pavement to the doorway of the house, before she passed with ease through the closed door. He had witnessed her disappearing through a solid door.
He told me that several other people, on different occasions, had witnessed this female apparition do exactly the same – exit Roly Poly, cross East Street, and glide with ease through the solid wooden door of the house.
From the Wylye Valley Life magazine, Issue No.41, Friday 13th December 1985:
A reader who lives in the Wylye Valley sent us this ghostly tale of spectral happenings in his village and wondered if we would like to share it with WVL readers. Yes, of course, we would. We would suggest though, that it you are venturing out on a dark December evening, not to read it before leaving home. Wait ’til you get back and make sure you’re not alone in the house!
Do you believe in ghosts? Well, I do, even though I have never seen one but have experienced a sense of unease.
In our local churchyard there is a vault dating back to the late 1800s and it is these inhabitants that are said to roam the village. I have always been reluctant to enter the church alone, sometimes more than others, when that feeling of not being alone has been stronger. Now, I like going around churches and have visited several in my time but with the exception of two others I have never experienced that feeling of unease more stronger than the one in our very own village.
To relate, early one morning, about 1945, I left home to walk to work; at that time I was with the ‘railway’ and my way led past the church. When passing I had the feeling of being watched and on turning I saw and heard a window above the vault close. Nothing odd about that you may say but the church was closed and no light was to be seen!
On another occasion, on returning late from work, as I approached the church I saw the vault lid lift. Needless to say, I did not wait to see more but turned round and took the long way around the village to get home.
Now to go back a few years, in fact to the time when this nation was under the threat of invasion, my father was in the Home Guard and every night they would be out on the Downs. One particular night a dog was heard to howl and the men came down to investigate. They found nothing, not even a dog, and again I will leave readers to form their own opinion of this.
On another occasion, about 1954, my wife, who hails from Aberdeen and knew nothing of these happenings, chanced to meet a lady dressed in black (and believed to be the wife of the incumbent of the vault I mentioned earlier) in the lane by the church. My wife wished her “Goodnight,†and getting no reply, turned around to find there was no one to be seen.
The last incident that I wish to relate to here is a report in the local paper about the same time of a visitor to the village who described the inhabitants as ‘zombies’ because they all stood around and did not say a word. Did we experience a ‘time warp’?
On joining the RAF in 1951 I spent very little time at home since, so my experiences are only based around the 40’s and 50’s. I expect some readers will recognise the village I live in by my own account above, probably because it will echo their own experiences.
Good hunting. Moonraker.
Victor Strode Manley, in Volume 10 of his Regional Survey of the Warminster District, compiled in the 1920s and 1930s, includes the following note:
Narrator: Mr. Foreman, West Street, Warminster. April 1931.
Re-told by R. Davis.
He worked as a shepherd until lately on Mr. Stiles’ Farm on Warminster Down. No one could be got to remain in the farmhouse because it was said to be haunted. The crockery rattled and fell, doors shut of their own account and were only opened afterwards with difficulty, so it was demolished.
(Query – Was this the same place as mentioned in the tale of the haunted sheepskin?)
Some years ago he took a flock of sheep from there to Tilshead, and returned via Imber, where he had a pint at night. When he reached the foot of Sack Hill, a white form came from the direction of Battlesbury, but it had no definite form. It stood in the middle of the road in front of him and remained there until his near approach, when it glided into a copse at the side of the road. There was no wind but a rustling sound came from the copse.
The same thing happened to him on another occasion.
Victor Strode Manley, in Volume 10 of his Regional Survey of the Warminster District, compiled in the 1920s and 1930s, includes the following:
45 East Street, Warminster has the reputation of being haunted as stated by several persons.
In May 1931 I was given two incidents by Mrs. – who used to live in the terrace adjoining the house. It was about eleven o’clock one night when she was going home, and near the house she could see a woman with long sleeves. The stranger gave her a poke in the back and was asked if there was not room for both on the pavement. The stranger crossed the road and then rose from the ground and passed out of sight.
Her father was going to work very early one morning and is positive he saw a spectral figure come from the house, cross the road, and disappear up the lane by the posts.
George Strode Manley informs me he remembers a Mr. Petherbridge living there. He was engaged in making ploughs.
No explanation has been offered.
