Knutsford
is situated on the Cheshire Plain close to its neighbouring communities of Alderley Edge
and Wilmslow. It is recorded in the William the Conqueror's Domesday Book of 1086
as Cunetesford ("Canute's ford"). King Canute
(Knútr in Old Norse) was the king of England (1016–1035)
and later king of Denmark, Norway and parts of Sweden as well. Local tradition
says that King Canute forded the River Lily,
which was said to be dangerous then, here.
This is feasible as the River Lily, until given a channel to run in,
meandered over the valley floor and fed into the mere in an area still known as
The Moor creating quite a marshy area.
There is a wide
selection of pubs and restaurants which makes Knutsford a popular destination
for dining and drinking. The two main
town centre streets, Princess Street (also known locally as Top Street) and
King Street lower down, known as Bottom Street, form the 'hub' of the town. At one end of the narrow King Street is an
entrance to Tatton Park. The Tatton estate was home to the Egerton
family.
Ancient towns have
their own folklore, and Knutsford is no exception. One tale tells of an
elderly lady who was buried in the Old Churchyard at Knutsford, with the
unusual stipulation that a small sack of unshelled hazelnuts be placed beneath
her head. Unfortunately the nuts proved
to be uncomfortable, so she turned in her coffin. As this made no difference she arose from her
grave one moonlight night, and proceeded to crack and eat the hazelnuts while
seated on her own tombstone. She then
folded the sack for a pillow; retired to her coffin and troubled the mortal
sublunary world no more. But unnoticed
one nut had rolled away; it sprouted, grew, fruited and thereafter its own nuts
attracted the attention of local truants.
Naturally
Knutsford with its narrow streets that still follow the old medieval layout has
its fair share of ghosts. The 300 year
old Lord
Eldon public house is reputed to be haunted by Annie Sarah Pollitt, Knutford's
first May Queen and daughter of James Pollitt the landlord in the late19th
century. Witness reports tell of seeing an
apparition that wears clothing dating from the 1800’s, flickering lights,
moving objects and an unidentified cold breeze.
Staff have reported sightings of the white shade in the lower rooms,
even the landlady, Laura Scullion, from 1999 - ?, has glimpsed the white figure. She had been sceptical about the myth when
she took over the pub but stated to a Warrington
Guardian reporter in June 2001, "We had just closed for the night and
I was standing at the bar with a barman when the white shadow of a woman moved
across the bar and into the tap room."
On the M6, that runs
close by the town, a terrified driver reported a glowing white lorry that
charged towards him travelling the wrong way down the motorway. The driver pulled onto the hard shoulder and
closed his eyes, he even felt the HGV drive past, but when he looked into his
rear view mirror immediately afterwards, there was nothing there. On another road, this time Tatton Mile, the
road running next to Tatton Park, at approximately 22:30hrs on the 19th
October 2009 a driver, driving with his full beams on, spotted the figure of a
man standing in the road with his hand out as if he wanted the car to
stop. As the car drew closer, the figure
vanished, causing the driver to swerve out of shock.
An older story takes
place close to the old turnpike on the A537 from Knutsford to Chelford in the
1800s; it was around midnight when a group of three people passed the
gatekeeper in a horse-drawn gig. The
gatekeeper noted that the young man in the centre was being supported by the
other two. The next day a dead body was
found by the road at Ollerton; the clothing and soft hands suggested someone of
some social standing. The clothes were
retained as evidence for many years but the identity of the body was never
discovered.
The story has passed
into local folklore and appears in Henry Green's 1869 History of Knutsford; a sequel to this event appears in Cheshire Notes and Queries for
1889. Albert A Birchenough recalled his
experience when in October 1872 he had been walking to Chelford; he had been
halfway through his journey having just passed Norbury Booths. It was a Sunday clear night with a starry sky
and the countryside was silent when coming from behind him he heard the rattling
wheels of a horse drawn conveyance. He moved
aside to let it pass, but it stopped some 20 yards behind him. Hearing the sound of voices and two or three
persons jumping down he turned and went back to ask for a lift, but there was
nothing there. A short while later a passer-by
came from the direction of Chelford, this allowed Birchenough to enquire if
there were any turnings nearby. The
reply was 'no' and the stranger put the noises down to the possibility of them
having been created by poachers. A
sensible enough answer perhaps, but it did not explain why Birchenough had
heard a gig.
However the most famous,
or at least most notorious, apparition is that of Edward Higgins. He lived for
some time in Heath House in what is now known as Gaskell Avenue, which is just
a few doors beyond the house where famous Victorian novelist Elizabeth Gaskell once
lived as announced
by the wall plaque. Gaskell wrote about Higgins in her short story
The Squire's Tale, as did Thomas de
Quincey in Highwayman.
"Squire" Higgins as he was known to his friends in the local
gentry, appears to have been of good birth, and on
moving from Manchester, took up residence in Knutsford, Cheshire around1756, where he was accepted by
the community as a gentleman of reasonable means.
He
cannot have been short of money for he bought number 19 which is situated
opposite the Common, the house was at the time covered in ivy and known as the
Cann office as it had once been the place where scales and weights were tested.
His origins are
obscure, but what is known is that in 1754 he had been convicted of
housebreaking in Worcester and sentenced to transportation for seven years to
the American colonies. However shortly
after his arrival in Boston, Higgins stole a large amount of money from the
house of a rich merchant, bought himself a passage home and was back in England
within a few months.
The marriage of Edward
Higgins, Yeoman, and Katherine Birtles, spinster, is recorded in the parish
church register on April 21st, 1757, where she signed her name
as ÒKathruneÓ. It is not known whether
this was a normal spelling at the time or if she was illiterate.
At
this time wives were not expected to be particularly inquisitive about their
husband's business affairs, and Katherine was probably happy to believe that
Edward lived on the rents from properties he owned in various parts of the
country. Higgins is recorded as a fit
and athletic man who rode to hounds, owned several horses and was reputed to be
very fond of his five children. As was
befitting a man of his standing Higgins and his wife dined with their
neighbours and so become familiar with the layout of his hosts’ homes, this
enabled him, at a later date, to sneak back for a spot of burglary.
On
one occasion Mr. and Mrs. Higgins were guests of Samuel Egerton, at his Oulton
Park house, while playing an after dinner game of whist Higgins took a fancy to
a jewelled snuff box which was lying on the table. As the roads back to Knutsford were dark and
dangerous the Higgins’s were staying the night; while the household slept; one
guest crept into the host's dressing room and took the snuff box which he then
hid outdoors for retrieval later. Naturally
the theft
was discovered the very next morning; Higgins summoned all the servants and had
their rooms searched. There was, of
course, no question of searching the guests’ rooms for ladies and gentlemen did
not do such a thing. Mr. Egerton was
grateful for Higgins’ prompt action even though the box was not found.
Burgling
the homes of his Knutsfordian friends was not Higgins’s solo source of
ill-gotten income, when the nights were amenable he would muffle the hooves of
his horse, so as not to disturb the neighbours, and would head out to the
Chester Road where he would hold up a coach or two. Part of the road between Knutsford and
Chester had been turnpiked; the private company charged with collecting the toll
had greatly improved the old muddy wagon track consequently traffic on the
turnpiked carriageway was increasing.
This was too good an opportunity for Higgins to allow to pass by and he found
it easier to hold up a coach than to burgle a house as travellers usually kept
a few guineas handy to surrender to the first "gentleman of the road"
who stopped them.
Higgins’s base of
operations for his
highwayman exploits was the coaching house, the Royal George
Hotel, what better place could there be for a highwayman to assess the likely
bounty carried by a coach then the very establishment where the passengers
alighted for a spot of refreshment.
Higgins almost
came unstuck after a ball at the Royal George Hotel; he had
seen Lady
Warburton
of Arley wearing expensive jewellery and decided to waylay her carriage as she
journeyed home but her Ladyship recognised him and asked why he'd left the ball
so early.
Higgins is said to have
murdered an old woman on one of his ‘rent collecting’ jaunts. He returned from Bristol with hundreds of her
Spanish dollars but as Spanish dollars began circulating in the North West the fable says
the highwayman told a local gossip in a Knutsford pub about someone being
robbed in Bristol. The drinker, who
prided himself on hearing any news first in the town, soon became suspicious of
Higgins. Higgins left
Knutsford hurriedly in late 1764. He had
been tracked back to the town after robbing a house in Gloucester and was
arrested in his own home by the local constables. He asked leave to prepare a few items to take
with him and was allowed to go upstairs, the constables never saw him
again. It is said Higgins escaped
through a secret passage that lead onto the Heath.
Leaving
his wife to sell the house and follow him, with the instruction not sell the
board, which hung over his dining room fire place that had painted in gold
letters 'Do Not Steal' Higgins set up a house in French Hay, near Bristol and again
lived as a gentleman, this time calling himself Edward Hickson.
Highwayman
Higgins’ luck finally ran out in 1767 when having told his wife he was
"collecting the rents" he travelled to Wales. After breaking into a house in Carmarthen
Higgins was spotted by two butchers who were suspicious of his being abroad so
late at night. It is said that Higgins put
up a good fight but their dog got the best of him. Unable to protest his innocence having been
caught with a piece of the broken key, the other piece of the key being still
in the lock, and other items from a chest in the house he had robbed in his
pocket Higgins was put under lock and key in Bristol.
Here
Higgins was identified as an escaped prisoner but he tried to get out of it by
handing over a fake official pardon. The
authorities realised that it was a forgery and his fate was sealed; Higgins was
sentenced to death. While waiting for
his sentence to be carried out he wrote, "I beg you will have compassion
on my poor disconsolate widow and fatherless infants, as undoubtedly you will
hear my widow upbraided with my past misconduct. I beg you will vindicate her as not being
guilty of knowing about my villany."
Squire
Higgins died on the gallows at Carmarthen on Saturday 7th November,
1767.
It is said that in the
dead of a dark and moonless night Higgins can still be seen riding his horse
through the streets of Knutsford on his way to visit a chosen house or, if off
on one of his highway visits, searching for a likely looking coach to stop and demand
coin of the realm from its occupants. On occasion late night revellers, while making their way home along the narrow streets, have seen and heard a phantom coach moving over the cobbles outside the Royal George Hotel. This too it said to be Higgins, this time off on one of his ‘rent collecting’ excursions.
Now
let’s look again at some of the Knutsford ghosts; Knutsford is in a low lying
area full of meres, (bodies of open water, often slow moving and deep), marshy
areas and small rivers, when the weather conditions are right these give off
vast amounts of mist, some light, some not so light and more often then not
white. As for the tale of the ghostly
figure seen on Tatton Mile, we have a tired driver in the late hours of an
October night with his head lights fully on.
Was it really some spectral hitchhiker or a trick of the mist and light
on tired eyes with a little bit of pareidolia thrown in for good measure?
In
the case of the ghostly HGV wagon, that stretch of the motorway is known to be
affected by fog and mist, could it not be the same although no time of day is
given for the event.
The
ghost of Annie Sarah Pollitt; we have a 300 year old building, this in itself
will lend to creaks and draughts, the flickering lights could be tired wiring,
a bad change over at the generator or even a faulty bulb. Again the apparition is seen late at night;
could it be tired eyes, a drift of mere mist invading the building, or even
having drunk a spirit or two too many?
As
for Highwayman Higgins; ghostly coaches travelling over the cobbles of the
Royal George, or the sound of a late night goods train, for these move along
the line that runs through the valley bottom much later into the night than the
passenger services do, (this was a regular occurrence particularly when ICI had
a big works on the outskirts of Knutsford), distorted by the open moor then the
confines of the narrow streets combined with a little mist and a few
beers?
And,
while it may sound sceptical to some, we must bear in mind that, not only are
there quite a few busy little pubs in Knutsford, but a portion of the town’s
income is based on tourism and what brings tourists better than a ghost or two?
Around
Haunted Manchester, Peter Portland. Publishers AMCD.
http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/EG-Knutsford.html#2
http://tonyshaw3.blogspot.com/2009/12/elisabeth-gaskells-knutsford-plus-john.html
