.: Haunted Locations

Pluckley Village - Kent, England

Pluckley, a village of about 1,000 people, is situated almost half way between Maidstone and Ashford, in Kent, England (with its International Rail station for the channel tunnel and Europe) and is situated on the edge of the North Downs and the 'Andredsweald' - the ancient Saxon forest which spread along the whole of the South coast of England as far as the Isle of Wight and north to the Down, a high ridge of chalk hills spreading from Surrey towards Dover. The forest that remains is probably some of the oldest woodland in England. Certainly older than the Saxons, who merely named it. 

In Kent, especially in the autumn, 'the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness', suddenly drivers run into almost dense walls of fog lurking along narrow country lanes, or catch the swirling fingers of a disappearing grey cloud. It is not surprising that some well known landscape features are mistakenly attributed to apparitions when approached in these conditions.

The earliest records of haunting seem to be in a book written in 1955, by Frederick Sanders titled Pluckley was my Playground. Mr Sanders mentions both the Highwayman and the Watercress woman as potential spirits; squashes the idea of the miller; and mentions the hanging schoolmaster - as a person not a ghost, and Radio 2 presenter and actor, Desmond Carrington, has admitted to 'concocting a whole string of them' for an article in TV Times in the 1950's.

Of the 12 'official' ghosts mentioned in such books as Peter Underwood's 'Ghosts of Kent' and Joan Foreman's 'The Haunted South' one of the more popular is the Coach and Horses, last seen in the mid 1990's. Four people claim to have seen the coach and horses in the past 30 or so years; one has also seen the monk. 

Of the other 'official ghosts', no one claims to have seen them - at least recently. These others are: the Red Lady of St Nicholas churchyard; the White Lady of both St Nicholas and Surrenden Manor; the Colonel; the screaming man; the Tudor lady.

There are reports of a small dog haunting the churchyard; 2 cavaliers (one at the Blacksmith's and another near Rose Court); old ladies (one again at the Blacksmith's, the other at the Dering Arms); a tramp (wandering around the village); poltergeist activity at Surrenden, the Black Horse, and the Blacksmith's Arms during the time it was a tearoom; A local hotel has been investigated by the Centre for Psychic Research (although the proprietors are not keen to be interviewed) At least four other houses have reported unusual occurrences at various times.

1.   The Coach & Horses - various locations
2.   The Colonel - Park Wood
3.   The Highwayman - Pinnock Crossroads
4.   The Miller - Site of Old Mill
5.   The Monk - Greystones
6.   The Red Lady - St Nicholas Church
7.   The Schoolmaster - Dicky Buss Lane
8.   The Screaming Man - Brickworks
9.   The Tudor Lady - Rose Court
10. The Watercress Woman - Pinnock Stream
11. The White Lady - St Nicholas Church and Surrenden Manor
12. The Black Horse Inn - The Street
13. The Dering Arms - Station Road
14. The Blacksmith's Arms - Pluckley Thorne
15. The Screaming Woods - Dering Woods & Frith Wood
16. The Devil's Bush - Frith Corner

The Black Horse Inn

Pluckley's original Black Horse was sited in a rather modest building amongst a nest of cottages to the west of the church. The premises which now bear the same name began life as a farmhouse surrounded its own moat (long since filled in but partly discernible in places) for many years, then it was the bailiff's house from which the Dering estate was managed

Licensees claim to suffer the annoyance and frustration of having items of property, mainly clothing, go mysteriously missing for long periods. Not always their own property, sometimes articles belonging to customers or members of staff. Despite rigorous searches the missing items elude discovery and then, when all hope of seeing them again has virtually gone, they suddenly reappear in locations in which their presence could not have gone unnoticed.

Some liken these incidents to the work of poltergeist but to lay the blame on the shoulders of a ghostly prankster would be more befitting. The atmosphere in the Black Horse is peaceful and benign and the activities of who or what-ever is responsible for the going and coming of these items present no more than an inconvenience to which the more frequent victims eventually become immune. It would be quite legitimate to regard the perpetrator as a 'ghost' but so far no efforts have been made to add this resident prankster to the village's spectral list and so give the pub 'haunted' status.

St Nicholas Church - 'The Red Lady' & 'Whie Lady'

Who she was, no one seems to know, but she is popularly believed to be the wife of one of the Derings, lords of the manor of Pluckley down the centuries. They were a rich and powerful family marrying with an eye to both financial and political advancement.

Several wives were short lived, producing large families. Of course, not all children survived into adulthood. Many died at birth. It is rumoured that one such child was born to our lady. It died, or was stillborn, and buried hastily, in an unmarked grave. Now this gives rise to all sorts of conjecture! Why not in the family crypt? It is large enough to take the coffin of a small child. Indeed there are several there. So, who was this unfortunate infant? How was he/she conceived? Who, indeed was his mother? A Dering wife - or a Dering daughter? The Dering archives are well documented and it seems strange that as such there is no record.

But popularly, her ghostly form wanders the churchyard at night, sobbing bitterly, and searching for the grave of her unacknowledged child. Why the Red Lady? Nobody seems to know. Could it be the colour of the gown she wears? The halo which surrounds her ghostly figure? Was it the colour of her hair? Perhaps if someone eventually does see her we will all know.

No collection of Ghost Stories would be complete without a 'White Lady' and in Pluckley we have two of them. Or have we? Their stories are very similar, but they have been seen in two different settings, a mile apart! And who is othe White Lady? The most popular theme is that she was another of the Dering Ladies; but it is also said that it is from the medieval period.

The Lady appears both in the Dering Chapel of St Nicholas' Church, and at the Manor house - Surrenden Dering (usually in the library) Stories of both White Ladies tell that she was so beautiful that, when she died at a young age, her bereft husband had her body sealed in a succession of lead caskets before being placed in an oak coffin and lowered into the family crypt. And there she lies, clothed in a rich flowing gown with a glorious red rose at her breast. The lead caskets may have preserved her body, but her spirit is still free.   

Free to appear in the Village Church and free to wander the passages of her old home. Between the wars Surrenden was rented out to the Court of St James' (the US Embassy in the UK) and a regular visitor there was Walter Winan, the big game hunter and horse owner. 

Mr Winan became intrigued with the stories of the Lady's appearances and the effect they were having on the staff at that time and one Christmas Eve he stayed up to see the lady. Ensconced in the library and with his favourite hunting gun across his lap, he waited. The lady obliged, appearing suddenly before him. Swiftly Mr Winan took aim, but the shots passed through her completely, embedding in the panelled wall opposite - through which she vanished.

There is a strong tradition that a tunnel connects Surrenden with the church - in fact it is more than a tradition. In the organ-well there is a cupboard housing some artefacts; a door at the back leads to a, now bricked up, passage.