| SHUCKLAND Introduction Alphabetical List of Locations | |
| Location: | Overstrand, NORFOLK |
| Legend: | "Old Hucks is the name of a ghost dog. It uses the old disused rail track along Overstrand proceeding into Cromer Beach. That rail line, the M. G. N. from Mundesley into Cromer beach, is done away with now. It was said something happened to Hucks' master, probably tragic, I don't actually know, and the dog frequents this stretch looking for his master. This is also in the area of Poppyland and the great Forest Park Caravan Site. Hucks' red eyes show up at dusk, as one hears the baying and puffing, and is said unlucky to meet, which is more the latter part of the year...and Old Hucks roams around there and back on to the old rail track." |
| Source: | Letter from Beste [?] Evans to me, 28/9/1983. |
| Place Name: | Overstrand - (Prob.) OE 'narrow shore', or poss. 'the other shore' |
| Other: | The Overstrand/Northrepps parish boundary runs along part of the old railway line.
See also encounters below. |
| Location: | On the B1159, Overstrand |
| Encounter: | In the 19th century, the young men of Overstrand "would go out at night along the road [the B1159]..on purpose to wait for 'Old Shuck'. They would have stones ready to throw at him, but could not hit him, as the stones seemed to go through him, and he would keep on walking at the same pace. They said he was a big black shaggy dog, with glaring eyes." (1) "Old Shock or Shuck...a spectre dog...walks the Cromer coast road; last seen at North Repps, 1853..." (2) |
| Source: | (1) Letter from Miss G. M. Keeler to Ivan Bunn, 21/4/1976. (2) J. G. Nall: 'Gt. Yarmouth & Lowestoft' (Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer, 1866), p. 612. |
| Other: | The Cromer/Overstrand parish boundary crosses this road. |
| Location: | On the B1159, Overstrand |
| Encounter: | "A worthy, sensible gamekeeper, now no more, declared and believed, to the day of his death, that one evening it was under his hand, and 'though ready to face any earth-born poacher, four-legged or two-legged, at dawn or at dark', he owned he was so frightened - for he knew what it was he saw glide on before him in the moonlight! Its back, he said, was rough, hard, and shaggy." |
| Source: | James Hooper: 'Demon Dogs of Norfolk & Suffolk', in the 'Eastern Daily Press', 2/7/1894. |
| Comments: | Though no location is given, from the context, it was probably in the vicinity of the B1159 road beside Overstrand church. |
| Other: | See also under Overstrand & the coast. |