Ancient Wiltshire village is haunted by phantom footsteps, ghostly bells and a pushy lady in white
By Richard Holland
In 2006 I enjoyed a stay in Avebury, hence my particular interest in this fascinating Wiltshire village (see Fascinating Village and Haunted Stone Circle). My hostess was the charming Astrid Charteris, who runs a B&B called Longstones Cottage. The house is named after two huge standing stones which stand about 100 yards away. They are known to the locals as Adam and Eve and are all that remain of the western avenue that formerly led into the great circle in the village [see picture].
Properly speaking, Longstones Cottage is in Avebury Trusloe, a neighbouring hamlet to Avebury. Every morning I would rise just before dawn and walk for about a mile across the fields until I came to the famous stone circle. Here I would soak up the atmosphere of Neolithic mystery and attempt to take photographs (unfortunately it was early September and the heat wave we had enjoyed earlier in the summer had been replaced with low cloud and drizzle). Some months later, leafing through ‘Ghosts and Legends of the Wiltshire Countryside’ by Kathleen Wiltshire, I was surprised to find that the footpath I had taken was known to be haunted!
Wiltshire writes: ‘Herbert Rendle, a Ministry of Works charge-hand who also worked at Avebury Manor, said that one night he was going home from the Manor by the field path past Ruslow Manor [now I believe, a farm]. At an iron gateway he was met by a lady in white lace, with a white hood like a nun, who suddenly appeared. She had a lovely face, but she took Mr Rendle by the shoulders, turned him round, and pushed him away from the gate. Mrs Charlotte Matthews, in Avebury, tells much the same tale.’
If my geography is right, then I used this gateway myself on at least half-a-dozen occasions. My hostess, Mrs Charteris, informed me of two more peculiar incidents in Avebury Trusloe. One occurred inside her home and one in South Street, the lane which runs past it on the way to Adam and Eve.
Mrs Charteris told me: ‘A few years ago, a gentleman I know was walking up South Street when he had a very odd experience. It was night-time, about 10 or 11 o’clock. There was a moon, so it wasn’t totally dark. He heard footsteps coming up behind him at a regular pace. More of a man’s step than a female’s, I think. Anyway, the footsteps came alongside him, and he felt a sort of brush of air, as one does when someone passes close by, and he looked up and said “Good evening” to whoever it was on the lane there with him. But there was nobody there! Wasn’t that extraordinary? There was nobody there at all, and the footsteps ceased. He was absolutely alone on the lane.’
Mrs Charteris had an odd experience of her own at Longstones Cottage. In the early hours one morning she woke up to hear the church bells of Avebury ringing out. Somewhat confused and bleary-eyed, she checked the time and found it was 3am. What on earth were the bell-ringers doing practicing at that time of night? she wondered. She listened to the bells for quite some time; there was no mistaking them. Mrs Charteris’s late mother was living with her then. She learnt from her mother that she too had heard the ringing and had herself noted that the time was 3am. Later that morning Mrs Charteris checked with the vicar and the secretary of the local bell-ringing society and they confirmed the bells had not been rung in the middle of the night.
‘They both looked at me as if I was a bit daft,’ said Mrs Charteris ruefully.
[SOURCE: Ghost and Legends of the Wiltshire Countryside by Kathleen Wiltshire (1973) p 84. Personal communication from Astrid Charteris, Avebury Trusloe.]
© Richard Holland 2008
