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True Stories |
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| Blythburgh Common, Suffolk |
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Abbey, Bury St Edmunds |
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This is said to be haunted by the ghost of "Black Toby", a negro drummer who was supposed to be stationed with the Fourth Hussars in the village, sometime in the 18th century. In 1750 on the 26th June Tobias Gill was extremely drunk and having been thrown out of the White Hart Inn was said to have wandered off onto the common where he met a Walberswick girl - Ann Blakemore, whom he raped and strangled with a scraf. The following morning three farm workers found him in a drunken sleep by the side of her lifeless body.
He was tried for the murder and found guilty and hanged near to the scene of the crime on 14th September. He was left on the gibbet for 2 weeks as a warning to others. He was later buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church.
his ghost has been seen many times in the area known as Toby's walk, and supposedly thundering along on a hearse pulled by four black chargers. This is normally witnessed during the month of June. |
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The remains of the great abbey are supposedly haunted by three ghosts. A figure of a grey lady has been witnessed in the Abbey precincts and also in the churchyard. She is believed to be Maud Carew, a nun who was a friend of Queen Margaret, wife of King Henry VI. She is said to have killed Humphrey Duke of Gloucester by poisoning him, who was imprisoned there in 1446 on the orders of William Earl of Suffolk in an attempt to stop a monk also a personal friend of Queen Margaret from being burned at the stake for heresy. Sadly the poor nun also died from an accidental overdose of her own poison and it is said that the monk whose life she had been trying to save cursed her as she lay dying.
The figure of a monk has also been seen in the precincts, but it is thought that he had no connection with her. Another ghost described as a regal figure and said to have been Queen Margaret herself has also been seen there. Legend has it that St Edmund materialised there in AD870 and killed a danish king when he was attacking Suffolk. |
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