Tags
beamish, Beamish Hall, bride in the trunk, Ghosts, grey ladies, Hauntings, north east ghosts, Pockerley Old Hall, real life ghost stories, starling Bridge
Image by Lenora
It is the time of year to catch up with old friends, preferably by a roaring fire and with a glass of vino in hand. Circumstances have kept Bonnie and myself from each others company for the past couple of months, so what better time to catch up and make new plans than in that dead zone between Christmas and the New Year.
It was half way through the second bottle of wine that Bonnie confided in me a very strange experience she had recently.
One day in late November, Bonnie had visited a local museum: Beamish. A large open air site dedicated to the Mining Heritage of the North East, and containing entire buildings and streets transported brick by brick and painstakingly reconstructed on the 300 acre site. After wandering around the homely Edwardian Terraces and the cosy pit cottages with their market gardens, and taken a ride or two on the tram cars, Bonnie found her footsteps leading her towards one of the more remote parts of Beamish: Pockerley Old Hall.
Pockerley Old Hall, tucked away in the treeline. Image by Lenora.
The Old Hall sits nestled amidst a dark copse of trees and is set very much apart from the quaint little town – with all of its touristy hustle and bustle and jolly Edwardian re-enactors. The hall has a remote, older feel to it, emphasised by its situation overlooking the empty shell of a church and the old railway line below it; if you look carefully further down the line you can even see a macabre old gibbet standing amongst the trees.
Unlike most of the other buildings at Beamish, Pockerley Old Hall has always been there – it is mentioned in records dating back to the twelfth century and the existing building has solid defensive sections dating back to the mid fifteenth century, while the plain but elegant farm-house was built in the 1700’s.
Bonnie explained that she was exploring the cramped and low ceilinged chambers of the old hall, milling around with other visitors, when she came to an upstairs room in which the farmer would have lived. Finding the room stifling and unpleasant, she said that she turned towards the window that looked out over the grounds in order to get some air. By the window was an old desk, and nothing more of note.
Upper window at Pockerley Old Hall, image by Lenora
Suddenly, from the area of the desk a figure of a woman emerged, where no woman had been moments before. Bonnie said she was immediately frozen to the spot by the inexplicable occurence. There was no door or stairwell from which the woman could have appeared, and no possible explanation for her sudden materialization. Bonnie described the figure as being just under 5 foot tall, clad in black, with a long skirt, jacket and shawl, and a hat with a veil – she thought the figure looked like a woman in mourning. She was able to stare through the veil and into the apparitions eyes, and recollects the face of a middle-aged woman staring back at, or perhaps through, her.
Insidious, 2010, Dir James Wan
So solidly did the woman appear that Bonnie explained it seemed that she was blocking her way, and it was only when the figure melted back into the area near the desk that Bonnie was able to pull herself away and leave the chamber.
I asked her how the experience made her feel, how did she ‘know’ the woman wasn’t ‘real’ and she said that she was gripped by a sense of fear, so much so that her heart was racing and she was shaking. When I asked her if she was alone when this happened, she said, no. Other people were in the room, yet nobody else saw the woman. Bonnie explained that she had to get out of the hall immediately and could not be persuaded to re-enter to ask the curator if there was any explanation of this apparition. (This is not the first odd experience that Bonnie has had, she had a similar unusual encounter when we visited the notoriously haunted Chambercombe Manor in Devon a few years ago.)
I have done a little research and although Beamish does have some hauntings associated with it, none seem to exactly fit this pattern. The closest that I could find related to the Grey Lady of Starling Bridge (near Beamish Hall). She is supposed to have been the daughter of the owner of Pockerley Old Hall, who fell in love with the heir to Beamish Hall. Both families frowned upon the match as the girl was betrothed to another. The tale states that the unwilling bride fled to Beamish Hall on her wedding day and hid from her pursuers in a trunk in the cellar, where (in the best folk-tradition of brides in trunks) she perished, her body not being found for several months.
Her shade is supposed to haunt the bridge near the hall, waiting for her true love, and she has been sighted on several occasions in the past few years….perhaps the grim-faced middle-aged woman in mourning, that Bonnie met with, was the lost brides’ grieving mother….?
Needless to say, we finished the second bottle of wine quite quickly!
Image by Lenora
Sources
http://www.beamish.org.uk/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wear/content/articles/2005/03/30/haunted_house_feature.shtml
http://friendsofbeamish.co.uk/archives/newsarch4.html
The Haunted Palace 
Very creepy. Never had an experience like that. One day, maybe. If I’m reeeeeally good.
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I know! Nothing as spook-tacular as that ever happens to me either – boo hoo!
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The stories told to you directly by someone you know are always the best. I will have to read the other story linked to also. My only really ghostly encounter was while biking with a friend around the Gettysburg battle field and at the bottom of Little Big Top hill where a ferocious battle went on we had stopped the bikes and i could feel and almost see the soldiers hunkered behind the rocks and trees looking at us with guns pointed. Boy did that give me a chill.
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That is pretty creepy!
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Regarding passed on coven leaders – Dr Santee died the year before i met them all then became HPT. Lady Phoebe was my teacher and initiator and died in 2006. Previous to this week i have only had them appear in one dream in which we were all flying on brooms through a very stormy night with her to my left and he just beyond and she looked over at me and had the eyes of a cat. This week they appeared in dreams twice. But one night i called them as i was falling asleep and i swear to the gods they were in my bedroom, very palpable, though i had my eyes closed. I asked her to be my Indian medicine woman and for him (he was an MD) to be my spirit doctor as i go through and recover from surgery Monday and she moved closer to the bed and blessed me and i still feel the bliss and cry almost every time i speak of it. I guess i should write it up at the COC blog post but it is almost too personal, and certain ex coven members and rogue covens spy on me through that site, shame on them, but i feel comfortable writing it here in this comment no one i know here will read.
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What an amazing story, thank you so much for sharing it, I can imagine how much that must have meant to you, especially at a time when you really needed that strength behind you. When my mum died I had the most vivid dream the night before her funeral, it was so ‘real’ – she looked so well and said to me ‘Don’t worry, I’m feelilng so much better now’ – I have only told a few people about that (guess I’ve told a few more now!) but it meant so much to me at the time, it still does.
It would be really good if you could write it up for your blog, its such a shame that coven politics can get so awkward.
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I have visited Pockerly Hall a few times over the years, and always felt a bit creepy. I visited it again today with my daughter, we went upstairs to look at the bedrooms. I asked her would she like to stay the night here, we both said No Way!.. there was something about the place that felt uneasy and strange, cannot actually put my finger on it, but just felt a bit uncomfortable. Althoug it’s a fascinating place to visit and in a beautiful spot. I just get the feeling the place has a few stories to tell, and would love to know more aout the history.l
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It definitely has an atmosphere, and at night, with only a flickering candle for light, I think some of those hidden stories would begin to creep out of the shadows….
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Myself and my daughter went to pockerley farm.My daughter took a photo of upstairs in one of the bedrooms,when we looked closely at it,the picture had a face on the trunk in the attic bedroom.She still has this picture. She thinks the face is the lady in the trunk.
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Hi Wendy, thank you for sharing that story – it’s very creepy! Lenora
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Funny u write this.
i am trying to search past tenants og pockerley hall.
as a child my father took me an my family to visit pockerley hall, but this was before it was turnt into what it is now. non of this comercial stuff was there even the tunnel the train goes beside the all was boarded off. but my point is he told me he and his family when he was a young boy lived in that house for a short period but there where too many ghostly on goings he told me of a story about his grandmother, she would read a book in bed by candle light and woke the house hold screaming, petrified convinved that she had just been strangled. apparently there where even finger prints where she had been. also he mentioned his older sisters pushed him up the staires one evening and a secrect door opened to another room of off the staire wall.?
how true any if this is i dont know. but seems strange.
i dont have contact with him now so i cant get him to confir it and i cant find any history of previous tenants either.
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What an interesting story, my daughter and I both found the place a bit creepy too, especially the bedrooms, it had that ‘feel’ about it. So there could certainly be something in what your dad said. You could try searching the census records to see who lived in the place, they go back to 1837-1911. It will name all the residents. Would be interesting to find out.
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I USED TO VISIT PCKERLEY FARM WHEN I WAS YOUNG ,IT BELONGED TO MY UNCLE JEFF AND HIS WIFE AND THIER OLD AUNT TOTTY WHO USED TO MAKE PROGGY MATS IN FRONT OF THE FIRE SITTING IN A ROCKING CHAIR, MAYBE SHE IS THE GHOST , GREAT MEMORIES . KEITH.
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That’s a wonderful thought, she sounds like she’d be a lovely ghost!
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