Oxfordshire Ghosts, Folklore and Forteana
Cobb's Coach
Location: Adderbury - Area around Cobb House (no longer standing)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: George Cobb left death bed instructions that four oaks on his land should never be felled - sure enough, soon after his death the alterations were made, and Cobb's ghost travelling in a funeral coach has been seen since.
The Devil Helps Thrice
Location: Adderbury - Church
Type: Legend - Old Nick
Date / Time: Fourteenth century
Further Comments: This church is one of three in the area (Bloxham and King's Sutton being the other two) that were paid for by three brothers. One of their workers who helped construct this tower never took any pay, never slept and never ate - he vanished as soon as the tower was built. The brothers were convinced that they were helped by Old Nick.
Crying Child
Location: Ashbury - Ashdown House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Several ghosts are reputed to haunt the house and the grounds. A phantom crying child lurks in the woods, while the stables are home to a groom who hanged himself. A grey lady is said to gaze from a window on the second floor.
Mrs Whittaker
Location: Bampton - Manor House
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: When the clergy tried to exorcise this shade, they found it so strong the only way to subdue it was to place the ghost in a large barrel of beer. The barrel stayed in the cellar of the house for many years, though its present whereabouts is unknown.
Sheppard
Location: Bampton - Road between town and Clanfield
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This figure, dressed in old clothing (although one story says he appeared naked) appears to lonely travellers along the road.
Horace
Location: Bampton - Talbot Hotel
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Mid-to-late-twentieth century
Further Comments: A former member of staff, Horace still turns up on occasion to keep an eye on the newer employees.
File Flinger
Location: Banbury - Co-op Travel Shop, White Lion Walk
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: 2003
Further Comments: An entity here locks the toilet door, creates the smell of toast, and knocks files of documentation from the shelves.
Dropped Mortar
Location: Banbury - Crouch Hill
Type: Legend - Old Nick
Date / Time: Hill still present
Further Comments: During the construction of the churches at Bloxham, Adderbury and King's Sutton, the Devil was thought to have lent a hand. During the work he slipped and dropped some of the mortar he was carrying, thus creating Crouch Hill.
Trap Door
Location: Banbury - Private residence along Middleton Road
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: September 1969 - July 1970
Further Comments: A couple living in a Victorian property were subjected to several months of phantom activity. Footsteps were heard in a room where one witness was sitting, a room was ransacked by an invisible entity, and a solid wood trap door to the attic raised itself 45 degrees for several minutes. The house was finally blessed, but the occupiers moved out not wanting to wait to discover whether the blessing was successful.
Cavalier
Location: Banbury - Reindeer Inn
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Having vanished for many years now, it is reasonably certain this once gruesome entity has now gone forever.
Beast of Banburyshire
Location: Banbury - Surrounding area
Type: ABC
Date / Time: January 2006
Further Comments: Named as a big cat hotspot, this area of Oxfordshire has had dozens of reports of large felines over the first five years of the twenty-first century.
Blind Algar
Location: Binsey - Holy Well
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Well still present
Further Comments: Algar was blinded after being stoned for touching the hand of the woman he loved. He prayed to St Margaret for help, and she give him the well that restored his sight.
Petty Officer
Location: Binsey - Perch public house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twenty-first century
Further Comments: A Royal Navy petty officer is said to haunt this pub having drowned himself a short distance away.
Old Edwin
Location: Blewbury - New Inn
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: Edwin Fry, the landlord who ran this public house during the middle of the twentieth century, still returns to look around the place. His hollow footsteps are the only indication of his presence.
The Devil Helps Thrice
Location: Bloxham - Church
Type: Legend - Old Nick
Date / Time: Fourteenth century
Further Comments: This church is one of three in the area (King's Sutton and Adderbury being the other two) that were paid for by three brothers. One of their workers who helped construct this tower never took any pay, never slept and never ate - he vanished as soon as the tower was built. The brothers were convinced that they were helped by Old Nick.
Monk in Brown
Location: Burford - Burford Priory & Old Rectory
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Bell at 02:00h (reoccurring)
Further Comments: The phantom monk is only one of several spooky occurrences at this site; another is an unearthly bell that makes itself heard at two every morning, and the dead gamekeeper who patrols the area with his rifle.
Black Cloud
Location: Burford - Road between Burford and Minster Lovell
Type: Other
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This cloud has been seen moving against the wind and causes an extreme state of terror if enveloping any witness.
Sir Laurence Tanfield
Location: Burford - Roads in the area
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The evil Sir Laurence Tanfield and his wife, the Lady Tanfield, are said to travel the area in a fiery coach. To observe the coach is said to bring bad luck or death. One story says Lady Tanfield was bound into a bottle and cast into the river.
The Wardrobe
Location: Carterton - Carterton Manor
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1937
Further Comments: Mrs Barclay advertised for someone to remove a haunted wardrobe in 'The Morning Post' newspaper on 19 August 1937. She had bought the object three years previous, through it was not until the start of 1937 that the wardrobe doors would open and close shut continuously, even breaking string tied around them. A phantom man began to appear around the house, old and bent over, and wearing a deerstalker hat. However, once sold and removed, the manor was never troubled again.
Burning Witches
Location: Chadlington - Hawk Stone (or Hawkstone)
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Stone still present
Further Comments: Local legend says that a chain would be passed through the eye hole in the stone, enabling witches to be held and burnt at the site.
White Stallion
Location: Charlbury - Countryside around village
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Roaming riderless, this white (or grey, according to other reports) horse jumps large hedges and runs wild in the area.
Bear
Location: Charlbury - Wychwood area
Type: Cryptozoology
Date / Time: Early 1990s
Further Comments: A bear was said to have taken up residence in the surrounding woodland. Described as dark brown and the size of a sheepdog, the creature's footprints were also discovered, although it is not known whether they were formally identified as belonging to a bear.
Grey Geese of Addlestrop Hill
Location: Chastleton - Goose Stones
Type: Legend
Date / Time: A couple of stones still present; most have been moved
Further Comments: An elderly lady driving her geese down the road met a witch who requested charity. The elderly woman refused, so the witch turned the geese to stone.
Four Nuns
Location: Checkendon - Checkendon Court
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Mid-twentieth century
Further Comments: This small procession of nuns silently drifts along the footpaths surrounding the court.
Monk
Location: Chesterton - Road between village and Weston on the Green
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A local legend says that the monk who had the affair with 'Mad Maude' from Weston on the Green now haunts the road between two villages and chases anyone he encounters.
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