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Hidden East Anglia: Landscape Legends of Eastern England
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Bloodfield
East Bilney is a tiny hamlet in the parish of Beetley. A little way north-west of the church, at TF952199, can be found the Bloodfield, so-called because it is said to be the site of a battle during the English Civil War. Sword hilts, spurs and horse trappings are supposed to have been found here, but there's no record of such a battle.
Source: http://www.heritage.norfolk.gov.uk-Beetley
Pilgrim's Meadow pit
Here was a field known as Pilgrim's Meadow, and in it a deep pit that has now been filled. Legend says that a 'golden cradle' lay buried at the bottom of the pit.
Murder in the Well
Still marked on OS maps, but hard to find nowadays, the ancient Mary Bone's Well (TF847287) can be found a little south-east of the remains of the Augustinian St. Mary's priory, between Coxford and Broomsthorpe. Local legend says that the well is named after a woman named Mary Bone, who was drowned there by a priest from the priory.
Source: http://www.heritage.norfolk.gov.uk-Rudham
A smuggler's grave
Just outside the village to the west along the A149, at about TG195426, is a spot where a skeleton was unearthed during road-widening in 1906. According to legend this was the body of a smuggler, slain during an attempted escape from the excise men. Others have said it was a murdered pedlar of watches, targeted for robbery at the local inn. Either way, the remains were finally buried in Runton churchyard. Some have suggested the body was in fact connected with the 'ghostly light' that used to haunt near Runton corn mill, a windmill that still stands about 600 metres away, at TG200422. The light was known to cross the fields from the mill, and disappear into the earth in a copse at or near this spot.
Sources: http://www.heritage.norfolk.gov.uk-Runton Walter Rye: 'a History of Norfolk' (Elliot Stock, 1887), p.227.
The witch tree
Sources: http://thefairytaletraveler.com/2015/10/01/norfolk-folklore/ http://the-norfolk-broads.co.uk/printthread.cfm?Forum=22&Topic=27440
Devil's mere
Langmere (TL906884) is a single small lake, one of many such meres throughout Breckland, but when the water level falls, the little island in it becomes connected to the shore by a narrow isthmus. It used to be said that any shepherd or cattleman who drove his animals onto the island would suffer misfortune or ill. The water was believed to be the domain of the Devil, and none would ever dare to hunt fowl or fish there.
Source: Olive Cooke: 'Breckland' (Robert Hale, 2nd edition 1980; orig. 1956), p.73.
Secret tunnel
At Cross Green, on the corner of Briston Road and Ramsgate Street, stands the former White Horse inn, now a private house (TG090342). Locals tell of a smuggler's tunnel from here, running for several miles north to the coast at Cley. It used to be said that if you placed your ear against the ground here, you could hear the singing of the smugglers1 (or, presumably, their ghosts). A story in the 'Eastern Daily Press' on 17/11/2022 reported that the entrance to a tunnel had been found beneath the house by new owners, but it was blocked off.
About 500m further along, beside Hunworth Road, are the various buildings that make up Mount Farm. During the 1970's, the cellar of one of the houses here was flooded and part of a wall collapsed, revealing a stone-lined tunnel which was soon after bricked-up for safety. This has been loosely connected to old tales of a monastery once having existed here. In the middle of the farm stands the octagonal late-Saxon tower of the former parish church (TG086347), which became dilapidated and was rebuilt using some of the old masonry on its present site, half a mile away. In the field next to the tower, a tractor supposedly fell through the earth into a bell-shaped 'storage chamber' where the monks stored their crops.2, 3 Unfortunately for these tales, although Binham Priory owned one of the Edgefield manors from the 12th century until the Dissolution, there is no evidence of any monastic presence in the village itself.4
Sources: 1. https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/Edgefield tunnel 2. former webpage: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/NORFOLK/2004-07/1089899245 3. former webpage: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/NORFOLK/2004-07/1089839551 4. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/topographical-hist-norfolk/vol9/pp381-389
South of Mount Farm is Mill House, standing on a man-made hill known as The Mount (TG087343). In local folklore this mound was a beacon site, for setting a signal fire to alert the country when danger was near1 (see for example the Armada Beacon, at Theberton) - however, there was actually a post-mill on the spot, which went out of use in 1833.2
Sources: 1. former webpage: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/NORFOLK/2004-07/1089899245 2. http://www.norfolkmills.co.uk/Windmills/edgefield-postmill.html
In 1986, to mark 900 years since the original Norman census, the BBC launched the Domesday Project, in which over a million people (mostly schoolchildren) submitted information on history, life and lore in their local community. In addition to the tunnel story above, the kids of Edgefield recorded that, in the area of the village known as The Green (actually Cross Green), there is a hole in a particular hedgerow known as Bodger's Gap. According to their tale, in 1911 a young man named Mr. Bodger killed his father with an axe, then also slew a Mr. Ford who tried to stop him. Bodger fled through the gap in the hedge, and because of all the blood that was spilt, nothing has ever been able to grow at that spot ever since.1
Legend aside, the circumstances behind the story are substantially true, but have obviously become garbled in memory. At about 2am on June 30th 1907 (not 1911), blacksmith and off-duty parish constable Walter Ford saw, in his next-door neighbour's back garden, a young man whom he knew to be William Jacobs, who lived in Ramsgate Street with his elderly father. Jacobs was a labourer, who had recently 'got religion' and become almost manic in his efforts to recruit others. On that morning, he was shouting out for the Batchelors, who lived there, to come join him, so Ford went over the fence to calm him down. Suddenly, Jacobs pushed him down and stabbed him in the back multiple times with a small knife. Mr. Batchelor came out and was badly wounded, and as Ford tried to crawl away, Jacobs leapt on him and stabbed him again many times. When others arrived due to the commotion, young Jacobs did indeed flee through a hedge. Walter Ford died of his wounds a few hours later, and Jacobs himself was found standing beside the main road by other constables. He offered no resistance at all, saying that he had seen "the devils of the night", that he had meant to kill many others who "did not have the faith", and that "I have been cutting and slashing the whole night. I must have killed two men". When they went to Jacobs' house to tell his father, they found the old man dead, his head split apart by a meat cleaver. Jacobs was later found guilty of the murders, but insane, and he was committed to an asylum.2
Sources: 1. https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/Edgefield 2. Maurice Morson: 'Norfolk Mayhem & Murder: Classic Cases Revisited' (Pen & Sword Books, 2008), p.156-60.
Secret tunnel
On the site of an earlier building, the 15th century Elsing Hall (TG039160) is said to be joined to St. Mary's church (TG051165) by a subterranean passage just less than a mile long. Supposedly, the tunnel was uncovered many years ago and a dog sent down to explore it, with a small bell around its neck. Like the music of the fiddler at Binham, after a while the sound of the bell faded away, and the dog was never seen again. The entrance to the passage was then closed up, and its location has remained lost ever since.
Source: former webpage: www.bookcottages.com/cottages/105-1165-elsing-hall-old-stables.htm
Secret tunnel
In the writer W. G. Clarke's day, rumours abounded of a tunnel beneath the park grounds at Euston, not far from Thetford. Euston Hall (TL898786) dates basically from around 1670, and was built for Lord Arlington. In 1748 a 'Grecian Temple' or summer-house was erected in the park, and then the legend of a tunnel between the two arose. But as far as Clarke was concerned, the 'tunnel' was no more than a covered passageway that led to an ice-house.
Source: W. G. Clarke: 'In Breckland Wilds' (Robert Scott, 1925), p.152. |
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