This Haunted Isle: The Ghosts and Legends of Britain's Historic Buildings by Peter Underwood

Author:Peter Underwood [Underwood, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-06-15T23:00:00+00:00

Ightham Mote, Ightham, Sevenoaks, Kent

Macabre stories are told of Ightham Mote, a moated manor house of great beauty, character and charm, built in 1340 and outwardly little changed since those far-off days. For some 300 years, from the time of Elizabeth I to the middle of Victoria’s long reign, the house was the home of the Catholic Selby family, and consequently there have long been tales of private escape routes and secret hiding-places; but my friend Granville Squiers, who was a mine of information on the subject, assured me that even the so-called dungeon is actually a space created when a modern fireplace was built and there is no space extending beyond the floor-level.

Over the years there have been many dominant and forceful personalities at Ightham Mote; people of dedicated purpose who may have unconsciously contributed to the reported ghostly experiences.

The earliest owner of Ightham Mote of which anything is known is Sir Thomas Cawne who may well have served with the Black Prince in France; he settled here some time during the first half of the fourteenth century and built the kernel of the present house. His great hall is still one of the features of this delightful place in its secluded and peaceful setting. After Cawne, the Haut family held Ightham for nearly a century and a half, Sir Richard Haut enlarging the house by adding two wings, after inheriting the estate about 1450. Sir Richard, a cousin of Elizabeth Woodville, the haughty, ambitious and unpopular Queen of Edward IV, took part in the attempt to seize the reins of power when he and the Woodvilles accompanied the twelve-year-old Edward V on his journey from Ludlow to London. Three of the conspirators were executed but Sir Richard seems to have lain low during the troubled years when the boy-king and his brother were held in the Tower of London and Richard of Gloucester became King.

The property changed hands several times before it became the home of the Selbys, who were to remain here from 1591 until 1889. This Northumberland family may have been involved in border raids, cattle thieving and fierce family feuds; certainly one Selby was suspected of being the chief culprit in an affray during which a man was killed in a church and several other people wounded.

Another member of this family, Dorothy Selby, is believed to have sent a cryptic letter to her cousin Lord Moneagle that resulted in the failure of the Gunpowder Plot of 5 November 1605. According to local tradition she was walled-up in a little room in the tower by those who were sympathetic to the conspirators, possibly by friends of Guy Fawkes himself. And so came into being the story of Dorothy Selby's once-restless ghost walking at Ightham Mote.

There is also a curious story concerning an event that is supposed to have happened in 1552. It concerns a young monk who acted as Priest in secret to the family of Sir Thomas (or Anthony) Browne, First Lord Montagu, at Cowdray, Midhurst, West Sussex and his wife Ethelred of Ightham Mote.

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