Show Notes and Transcript for Episode 10: The Ghosts of St Mary’s Old Church

Show Notes and Links

Link to the podcast: https://weirdinthewade.podbean.com/

Sources used for this episode and further reading

Damien O’Dell’s book Paranormal Bedfordshire and his other works can be found here: https://damienodell.com/shop/

Kevin Gates book: Black Magic Church: The True Story of Clophill can be found here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/black-magic-church/kevin-gates/9781781550502

Information about Kevin’s film the Paranormal Diaries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paranormal_Diaries:_Clophill

Betty Puttick’s books can still be bought, I got ghosts of Bedfordshire second hand. Here’s some info about her books from Waterstones: https://www.waterstones.com/author/betty-puttick/81374

Dick Dawson’s book Scraunchings From Beneath The Dottle Tree: Life In Rural Bedfordshire 100 Years Ago, is harder to find but second hand copies are available via Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scraunchings-Beneath-Dottle-Tree-Bedfordshire/dp/B00PHAVTUS

UK Decay Community website: https://uk-decay.co.uk/heritage/

Sampson / Mammoth the worlds biggest horse: https://prohorse.com.au/blogs/pa/the-biggest-horse-in-the-world#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Guinness%20world,due%20to%20his%20massive%20size.

The history of Sophia Mendham and the church she paid for in Hastings can be found in the second chapter of this online book: https://emmanuelhastings.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Emmanuel-Church.pdf

Aleister Crowley Curse of Hastings: https://www.hmag.org.uk/see-and-do/exhibitions/crowleys-curse/

Luibeilt the highland bothy covered on Uncanny

Here’s a link to the Uncanny episode The Curse of Luibeilt: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0013218

Here’s a link to a news article about the bothy: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-59698147

Some Other Sphere Podcast, here’s the link to Rick Palmer’s podcast which I’m on chatting about the podcast. Out 20th December: https://someothersphere.podbean.com/

Newspaper articles about hauntings at St Mary’s Old Church

Monk like ghost captured on camera: https://metro.co.uk/2016/02/19/does-this-video-show-a-hooded-monk-ghost-creeping-around-a-church-5706153/

Damien O’Dell speaking to Bedfordshire Live about St Mary’s: https://www.bedfordshirelive.co.uk/news/history/abandoned-bedfordshire-church-thats-one-5771331

Path of tombstones controversy at the church: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-45736101

Daily Star, over the top story about St Mary’s this Halloween! https://www.dailystar.co.uk/travel/travel-news/uks-creepy-halloween-village-doors-31324482

Show Transcript

You don’t have to have listened to the last episode The Black Magic church to enjoy this one, which is about the ghost stories associated with St Mary’s Clophill, often referred to locally as the black magic church. However, the last episode did cover the history of the church and how it gained it’s notorious reputation for being a place where magical rites were performed and where the devil was summoned. So, it’s up to you whether you want to listen to that episode first. I’ll still be here with the ghost stories when you’ve finished. Or you can just dive in now.

Still here, great get ready for some particularly chilling and strange ghost stories!

Dramatic Introduction

It’s December 1969, that time between Christmas and New Year, when no one knows what day, it is. The sun stands still after the winter solstice. And the days are dark and cold, but festive lights twinkle and there’s still some quality street left in the tin.

It’s a cold and freezing morning, long before sunrise as Lawrence Steinmetz and his wife Augusta Lily drive carefully through Clophill. I suspect they knew what day it was, being newsagents delivering the papers, it must have been like any other dark December day delivering to the lonely and isolated farms they couldn’t expect a paper boy or girl to deliver to.

They were on their way to Northfield farm which lay between the tiny village of Haynes and Clophill. To reach the farm they needed to take Great Lane which runs parallel to the steep Old Church Path. Great Lane has lovely views across to the ruin of St Mary’s and is a route many would have taken in the past to get to the church turning off on numerous footpaths and bridal ways for the short journey across the fields over to St Mary’s.

Lawrence was driving carefully due to the icy conditions, though it was a journey he’d made many times before. Great Lane is a typical English country road, tall hedgerows and trees crowd on either side. In places the lane snakes but in others is quite straight. Pleasant on a warm summer’s evening but the dark trees and high hedges can be oppressive on a still winter morning before dawn.

As Lawrence kept his gaze on the road for patches of ice, his wife interrupted the stillness by asking

“Look Larry, ahead, is that a light?”

Through the gloom both saw a small meagre light ahead of them. Lawrence wondered if it was a cyclist. Though who in their right mind would be cycling on a freezing morning like this he wondered. He slowed down and dipped his headlights nonetheless in case there was some foolhardy individual riding a bike out there. But as they drove closer it became clear that the light was too high off the ground for a cyclist.

“Lily, I think it’s a horse rider?”

And slowing even further, Lawrence and Lily’s car approached the horse and rider. It was a large horse, dark and powerful looking. Though the rider was carrying a lantern they were hard to make out because the old-fashioned cloak and hood they were swathes in making them almost as dark as the surrounding gloom. Like a monk Lawrence thought. The lantern wasn’t a modern torch either, it was like one of those lanterns you sometimes see outside pubs or posh houses. Proper old fashioned he thought.

The horse and rider showed no sign of stopping nor slowing so Lawrence braked bringing his car to a complete halt. Yet the horse and monk still rode on towards them. What must have been a matter of seconds felt like minutes. Lawrence and his wife froze, as the horse pounded towards them, the hooded figure hunched, the lantern swaying from side to side, up and down, casting jagged splinters of light across their windscreen. Until the horse and rider were upon them. But instead of rearing up or swerving around the car at the last minute the horse and rider passed right through the vehicle and through Lawrence and his wife as they sat there stunned.

Lawrence later reported that:

“My wife and I were horrified we daren’t look behind and I just put my foot down and rushed off. It was a horrible experience.”

They didn’t say a word to anyone for over a year the incident upset them so much. But in 1971 whilst delivering their newspapers on a more pleasant morning a lady in the village asked them if they’d ever seen a cloaked and hooded rider on Great Lane whilst out delivering to Northfield farm? Shocked Lawrence confirmed that he had. The woman then explained that she and her family had once lived on Great Lane but had moved after being so troubled by sightings of this horse and rider, with its old-fashioned lantern, and monk like appearance.

This emboldened Lawrence, he now realised that he and his wife were not alone in seeing this horrifying sight and so when he was next at Northfield Farm, he asked the farmer if he had ever seen this monk like rider as well. The farmer asked him to stay where he was and disappeared into one of his barns. He emerged carrying a battered old horn lantern. The sort that encloses a candle or wick within a metal and glass case with a loop on top for attaching to a stick or handle. Lawrence exclaimed that it was just like the one he had seen the rider carrying. The farmer nodded simply saying.

“This lantern is over 200 years old, mebbe much older.”

So, Lawrence decided to share his story with the Bedfordshire Times. The opinion locally was that the hooded figure was the ghost of a monk from nearby Chicksands Priory making his way to the priory via St Mary’s church. There were reports that this was a popular medieval pilgrimage route.

Lawrence Steinmetz’s revelations led to someone else coming forward claiming that whilst they were near to Chicksands wood one night in their car, a cloaked and hooded figure passed through them and their vehicle in a similar shocking and impossible manner.

Chicksands wood is a curious place, now much of it is given over to mountain bike tracks but as a child we would walk their often and my brother and his friend once reported seeing a monkey in the woods. (A monkey was on the loose at the time from a wildlife park, which we did not find out about until after my brother’s sighting.)

Chicksands priory now situated on the Chicksands airforce base is very close to St Mary’s Church about 3 miles away across the fields as the crow flies or the pilgrims walked back in the day.

So, this ghostly monk and his spectral horse became associated with Clophill, and Chicksands, and is the first ghost sighting to be linked to St Mary’s old church. It’s not the last horse nor monk like figure to be connected with the church either. Over the next 50 years ghostly encounters swirled around this ruined chapel on the hill filling books, blogs, Tik-Tok videos and news sites with more than just the tales black magic and devil worship.

Welcome

Hello and welcome to this Christmas episode of Weird in the Wade, The ghosts of St Mary’s Old Church. What could be more perfect than celebrating Yule or Christmas or any other mid-winter festival than by sharing ghost stories connected to a church. A church that will have seen many Christmases come and go over the centuries. And if rumour is to be believed was the site of pre-Christian worship too, perhaps a site visited to witness the winter solstice. Who knows.

Ghost stories in midwinter make a lot of sense. The nights are long, the weather cold, it is a time of fire side stories as ideas spark in the shadows and our minds turn inward to darker places and times. Christmas was once a time where roles were reversed, masters and mistresses served their servants, misrule was celebrated for a short period of time. In this topsy turvy celebration the other world drew close to ours and the uncanny seemed more real, more possible. And often the world around us at this time of year is transformed by frost and ice, or snow or fog or simply by the long dark nights.

So, keeping with this tradition I am going to tell you some ghost stories associated with St Mary’s Old Church at Clophill. And there are so many stories about this church that it will take up a whole episode. But I hope to release a bonus episode on New Year’s Day about some other Bedfordshire Churches which have ghosts attached.   

Summary

But first a very brief reminder of what we know about St Mary’s Old Church It is at least 700 years old built on a hill above the village of Clophill. St Mary’s fell into disuse in the mid-19^th century when a new church was built in the heart of the village. The graveyard continued to be used well into the 20^th century but was not very secure, with grave robbers being reported within a decade of its abandonment. By 1963 The church was in a ruinous state and became infamous over night when reports of black magic rituals being performed in the church made headline news. Graves and the church itself were vandalised and desecrated. Over the coming decades the church’s reputation for vandalism, kids partying, magic, rituals and devil worship grew. I was terrified by stories of the devil being summoned at St Mary’s as a child. So, it’s not really surprising that ghost stories began to swirl around the site, shifting its reputation into something slightly different.

The story I opened with of Mr and Mrs Steinmetz ghost sighting is one of the most widely reported ghost stories of Clophill. It appears in Betty Puttick’s 1996 book Ghosts of Bedfordshire, then in Dick Dawson’s 2004 work Scraunchings from beneath the Dottle Tree, Life in rural Bedfordshire a hundred years ago. Damien O’Dell covered it around the same time in his book Paranormal Bedfordshire (There’ll be more about Damien O’Dell later in the show) and finally Kevin Gates covered the story in detail in his great book The Paranormal Diaries: The Black Magic Church, The True Story of Clophill. You’ll find the tale of the spectral horse and monk on many blogs and ghost sighting websites too. It seems to be the first recorded ghost story which has a link to St Mary’s Old Church. Interestingly it occurred 6 years after the first reports of grave desecration and rituals. Though it’s important to stress that link to St Mary’s is not a direct one. Great Lane where the rider appeared runs parallel to Old Church Path but does not lead directly to the church. I’ve searched for earlier ghost stories for Clophill and have not found anything apart from one rumour.

Kevin Gates spoke with a local man who believed that the Rector for Clophill in the 1950s, not reverend Barker, who was there during the vandalism and disturbances of the 1960s but a Reverend Grant, may have unwittingly lit the fire of notoriety for St Mary’s old church when attempting to do the exact opposite.

After lead was stolen from the church roof in the mid 50s Reverend Grant was said to have put about a rumour that St Mary’s was haunted. His hope was to deter kids and thieves from heading up to the site during the hours of darkness. But locals have speculated that it was these ghostly rumours that may have alerted nearby students, witches, and occultists to the existence of the church. Now there are many lonely hilltop churches across the country, and some have suffered at the hands of vandals and others have attracted those wishing to perform rituals. I think St Mary’s is particularly inviting for this kind of thing because it is only a short walk from the main road and bus stops, until fairly recently you could drive right up the hill to the church, yet once you are there it feels utterly isolated. This combination of easy access but secluded abandonment was bound to attract those interested in such places. Though if rumours of hauntings at St Mary’s were circulating in the 50s and early 60s it could only have helped fix the churches reputation in local people’s minds. What we do know for sure is that once the church had a reputation for black magic, rituals, and wildness the ghost stories followed.

Hoaxes and Hocus Pocus

It’s not surprising that the church’s reputation has interested more than just witches, occultists, ghost hunters and local teenagers. It has also attracted hoaxers.

In the 1990s after several reports of a ghostly monk being seen moving about the church, a group of ghost hunters discovered a prankster had used a projector to create the effect for a bit of fun.

Kevin Gates has a story of a witches’ coven playing a prank on journalists by sending a tip off about a planned ritual on a certain night which attracted a small crowd of reporters to secrete themselves in the undergrowth of the church yard on said evening. Only for the police to have also been tipped off which meant both groups mistook the other for occultists and ambushed each other. Meanwhile another ruin was used for a ritual without any fuss or disturbance.

There have been many stories reported by kids and adults of witnessing hooded figures walking in procession up Old Church Path and then moving about the church yard like spectres. Even American Air Force Personnel reported seeing fire light and figures on the hilltop from their observation tower.

Witnesses sometimes reported hearing chanting from these cloaked figures but could never make out actual words. These eery scenes were interpreted as being either, witches, satanists or occultists carrying out ancient rituals. Corporeal rather than ghostly figures, which surprises me. It’s not a huge leap to interpret from a distance, the sight of a procession of hooded figures, wielding old fashioned torches whilst chanting as some ghostly manifestation of pilgrim monks rather than actual people. I’m reminded of the Chant trees outside Guildford which led to St Martha’s an old hilltop church far more isolated than St Mary’s at Clophill. The woods are known as the chant trees because of the chanting pilgrims who walked through the centuries ago. And stories swirl of chanting apparitions to this day in those woods. I think an interpretation of the distant glimmer of torch light and monk like figures as satanists or witches is very much of its time. If such a sight was glimpsed today, I am sure we’d be hearing stories about ghostly pilgrims and monks rather than just real-life devil worshipers.

There were some however who did get close enough to the hooded figures to confirm that they were real live people though often they turned out to be parties of youngsters having fun rather than witches or satanists.

There are plenty of tales about the church which defy an easy explanation or at least intrigue and excite the imagination and I’ve noticed that many of them have a link to photography, a hobby that I very much enjoy.

Photography a risky pursuit at Clophill

UK Decay

It’s 1979 and the Luton based punk band UK Decay have found the perfect spot for the cover photograph of their latest EP. Being based locally in Luton they’d heard rumours about the old, abandoned church on the top of the hill just up the A6. They knew of its ruinous state and the tales of rituals and ghostliness. It was perfect, especially as the lead single on the EP, Black Cat is a song about terrible crimes and witches in disguise.

The band travel up to the church together all packed into one car. The photographs they take are moody in black and white, with the band members standing together nonchalantly, in one of the open arches into the church, another darker arch shadowy behind them. The lead singer Steve Abbot known as Abbo is crouched down, his head surrounded by a halo of wavy hair. It’s a perfect EP cover for a band described by NME as “the Cult before the Cult.”

The atmosphere is fairly typical for a photo shoot until the final photo is taken. Then suddenly, like a shadow rushing across a clear sky the mood plummets. Dread descends on them like icy fingers tip tapping down their spines. There’s no time to think. Each band member just knows, they have to get out of there. No need for discussion, they just rush to the car as if the hounds of hell are on their heels.

“Just drive!”

So, they do down the narrow windy track until there, out of nowhere in front them they see it, brakes slam to avoid hitting a glimmering white horse. Their heightened fear makes the sight of this beast appear even more ethereal. Hair’s prickling on their arms, goose flesh spreading. Then one of them snaps out of the spell saying, “It’s just an escaped horse mate” and with that the horse turns on its tail and trots down the track away from them around a bend.

So, on they drive, taking the bend on to a long straight part of the road, but where they should see a horse there’s nothing. Yet the thick tree and hedge lined track are impossible for a horse to get through or leap over and even if it did, they were so close behind it, they’d have seen some trace of the horse. But there’s nothing, just empty dirt road, no hoof prints, nothing.

It is said that after this incident the band believed that their luck changed, and not for the better. Some in the band felt they were cursed after their photo shoot at Clophill’s black magic church. And that it took years for this stain of misfortune to finally be rubbed away.

I’m struck by the fact that this mysterious encounter is with another horse, although a riderless one this time. A write up of this incident on a UK Decay forum, says that the villages of mid Bedfordshire have a particular folklore relating to horses including flying horses. In fact, one of the pubs in Clophill is called the Flying Horse. I’ve tried to find any folklore relating to Bedfordshire horses but have only found one thing so far. And that’s that the small village of Toddington, just a few miles southwest of Clophill is famous for producing the world’s tallest and heaviest horse. This was back in 1846 and Samson, or Mammoth as he was renamed still holds the Guinness world record for height and weight of any horse. At his heaviest he weighed 1500 kg or 3300 lbs and was over 21 hands high which is about 7 feet 2 inches. There is a supposed photo of him, but it’s disputed whether it’s actually a photo of Mammoth as it looks a little too modern. I’ll link to it in the blog.

I’ll also share some links to UK Decay’s community page which is a treasure trove of punk and post punk music memories from the Bedfordshire area and of course UK Decay themselves.

Paranormal Power Couples and Sophie’s Ghost

The link with photography is a little tenuous in the UK Decay story, it was just a photo shoot after all. The next photography related stories both include husband and wife paranormal investigators, and photographic evidence.

Kevin Gates in his book on the black magic church reports that on a cold winter’s day in early 1972 Janet Bord and her husband Colin visited St Mary’s to take photographs and experience the infamous site. As is expressed by many who have visited St Mary’s Old Church, Janet felt extremely uncomfortable as soon as she arrived, and her discomfort did not subside for the whole time she was there. The couple were used to visiting places associated with the paranormal, but Janet told Gates that she can still remember the horrendous atmosphere of the church, of its supernatural presence, which she attributes to the black magic rituals which were still taking place at the time. The couple did not stay long and after snapping a few shots they rushed back to the safety of their car. When Colin later developed the photographs from that day, he found a mark on one of the negatives that neither of them could identify. The implication is that they had somehow how photographed the source of malevolence Janet had sensed.

But it would be a few years later in the decade that a claim of actual photographic evidence of a ghost at St Mary’s, would be put forward for the world to judge. In 1977 paranormal investigator Tony Broughall told the world about his visit to St Mary’s Old Church, with his wife Georgina back in the November of 1972. He took lots of photographs in black and white as he wandered the site, some of them including Georgina smiling in front of the church. The Broughalls like the Bord’s were seasoned paranormal investigators at home in places that others considered frightening or unsettling. They had the whole place to themselves and so they made the most of it.

They weren’t expecting anything unusual to show up in the photos as they’d been alone and hadn’t seen anything uncanny or concerning. Yet Tony was convinced that something anomalous had shown up in just one of the photos taken. The picture is of Georgina smiling in front of the church with a view into the interior through the huge south facing window behind her. It’s what’s inside the church that caught Tony’s interest. He and others swear they can make out a white figure inside the chapel.

The figure has been described as either wearing a long white gown or possibly a clergyman’s surplus. Another layer of strangeness to the photo is that to view the figure through the window at that angle, Broughall worked out that it must have been floating around 6 feet off the floor inside the church.

The apparition was given the name “Sophie’s ghost.”

Now how the ghost got its name is one of those stories that just couldn’t happen today but back in the early 70s seems to have just been normal. A local schoolteacher, called Roger decided to carry out an archaeological dig at the church with some of his students. This was apparently against the wishes of the local archaeological society, but Roger just went ahead anyway. As part of this project some of the kids interviewed villagers about their memories of the church and village life. One old boy told the tale of St Mary’s Old Church being haunted by the ghost of a woman called Sophie. Now Kevin Gate’s speculates that this might be the story put about in the 1950s by Reverend Grant to keep kids away, or it could be some other ghost story associated with the site.

What nailed the name in place was what the school archaeological dig uncovered. As well as finding a cross wrapped in reeds and some animal bones (many were certain these were linked to the black magic rituals,) in the northeast end of the church a number of skeletons were uncovered and amongst them a coffin plate simply stating: Sophia Mendham born 6^th Feb 1806 died 21^st May 1893.

Sophia was the wife of John Mendham the rector of Clophill from 1844 to his death in 1869. He and his wife oversaw the building of the new St Mary’s church down in the village but would have used the old church for at least the first 5 years of their time at Clophill. After her husband’s death Sophia who was a Yorkshire woman, from Hull, moved down to the south coast and St Leonards on Sea right next to Hastings. Here she paid for the building of a new church known as Emmanuel Church on West Hill, Hastings the church hall still bears her name. The building of the church cost £4500 a vast sum of money at the time. Local guides to Hastings in the late 19^th century comment on how Sophia Mendham was the sole funder for the building. When Sophia died, she left a fortune of £26481 17s and 10d. She was buried in Clophill Old Church alongside her husband I assume. But remaining in Hastings for a moment another character loosely tied to our story also retired there for the last years of his life, none other than Aleister Crowly the man who popularised the idea of black magic rituals in the first half of the 20^th century. There’s even an urban legend that he cursed Hastings so that anyone who has ever lived there cannot leave unless they have a piece of Hastings castle in their possession or a hag stone (a pebble with a natural hole worn through it by the sea) from the beach. I’ve never lived in Hastings but a good friend of mine did, and she made sure she had both I believe before leaving!

But I digress. Back to 1972 and Roger with his students carrying out the dig at the church. Just the name Sophia being on the coffin plate is enough to ignite the imagination of those involved and Tony Broughall. It was seen as too much of a coincidence, there must be a ghost named Sophie or Sophia in the church. And now we know that Sophia was a generous god-fearing woman involved in the building of at least two new churches. If anyone was going to find it hard to rest in a chapel defiled and desecrated by vandals, it was surely Sophia.

And so, the legend of Sophie’s ghost was born. Since Tony Broughall published his findings about Clophill church in 1977 others have claimed to have seen a shining white figure in or around the church. Something not dissimilar to what was captured in the photograph.

Now I’ve not seen the photograph, my description of it is based on Kevin Gate’s book, and others who have written about it. Gates does in the end dismiss the photo, in a very polite and thorough way. He puts it down to pareidolia which is that nifty knack humans have of seeing faces in abstract patterns. Looking for faces in clouds or tree bark or figures in shadows. We’re really good at it. I’ll share some good examples on the blog. It seems that some at least think the floating white apparition is just a trick of the light.

But on the floating aspect. One thing to consider if this isn’t a trick of the light. Is that both the height of the floor in the church and the outside of it has substantially changed since the 1970s. For one the church yard was levelled and in some areas built up. The gravestones were moved to form a protective ring around the church yard wall. This was done to put an end once and for all to grave desecration. The inside of the church is now grass and gravel path. Which must be substantially higher than it was before. The south window once described as high off the ground is now just a few feet. And from the outside you can sit in the window easily as it is so low to the ground there. This is very different to how the grounds were before. And my point is that if a figure was glimpsed through the window that appeared to be impossibly high off the ground. That same figure viewed today would just be walking normally.

Now I don’t know what’s more outlandish the idea of the spirits or the dead returning, demons or entities being summoned or timeslips showing a glimpse of how things were or how they will be in the future. But it’s an interesting thought that compared to the 1970s when you walk around St. Mary’s church today you are walking on ground elevated from where it was a few decades ago.

But that is not the end of the ghostly happenings relating to photographs. Because sometimes the most frightening things are what we can’t see or something that should be visible but isn’t.

The Photographer and the Motorcyclist

I must thank Damien O’Dell for giving me permission to cover this story as you’ll find it exclusively in his Paranormal Bedfordshire book, which he still has copies of and offers free postage and package for. I’ll post a link in the show notes on the blog and in the show description for you. I can definitely recommend the book as it has loads of brilliant stories in it. Damien is also the founder of Anglian Paranormal Investigation Society and has a wealth of experience in the field.

Our story is one told to Damien personally. It happened to a photography student, Lynette who was taking photos of the ruins for her portfolio. It was a warm summer’s day in 1996. Whilst she was engrossed in her task, she suddenly noticed a young man in motorbike leathers standing to her side. Now I’m a photographer and I’m used to people politely waiting just behind me or to my side when I’m photographing, and it is often quite unnerving. But Lynette found this particularly peculiar because she had not heard the young man approach nor the sound of a motorbike nearby. The motorcyclist chatted with her asking what she was doing. He went on to explain that some of his relatives were buried in the churchyard, even pointing out their graves. The whole time they spoke Lynette marvelled at how warm this young man must be in full leathers on such a hot day.

Lynette politely extricated herself from the conversation explaining she needed to get on with her task. (Something I also have had to do on many photography outings, we think of the British public as being reserved but have a camera in your hand somewhere quiet and you’ll be surprised who will approach you to chat!)

After taking a few more shots, Lynette turned to see where the motorcyclist had got to, only to not see him anywhere. But her bafflement soon slipped into annoyance when she realised that he’d left his crash helmet in one of the arched windows and so it was sure to be visible in at least some of her photographs. Not being able to locate the young man she headed home.

On developing her photographs, she peered at them waiting to find the ones where the crash helmet would appear. But to her shock none of the photographs included the crash helmet, yet she knew it had to be in shot of the photos she had taken at the end of her trip there.

It was only when a little while later that she spoke to some friends about her strange encounter at St Mary’s that she was told that others had also encountered this motorcyclist in the church yard. He would materialise out of nowhere and disappear just as swiftly. Never the sound of motorbike engine. Never a sign of where he came from or how he left. It was believed that he was the spirit of a young man who had lost his life in a motorcycle accident quite some time ago.

I find this story particularly compelling and unnerving for a number of reasons. Unnerving because my dad has always ridden motorbikes and I’ve often been pillion with him. I grew up around other motorcyclists and bikers and if you have friends in these circles you are bound to know someone who has or you yourself will have lost a relative or friend through accidents. Often the casualties are young men, and it is utterly heartbreaking.

I find this story compelling because Lynette does not report being scared or unnerved by the encounter whilst it’s happening after the initial surprise at someone sneaking up on her. If anything, I can imagine she was mildly irritated by having her photo shoot interrupted by someone wanting to make small talk and then leaving his stuff in shot!

Of course, it could just have been an actual friendly motorcyclist, and she may have been mistaken about the position of the helmet but it’s not the kind of thing photographers tend to get wrong. If you know something was in shot that you didn’t want to be there it’s usually because that thing was in shot. It’s a sad but fascinating ghost story though.

Filming the impossible

The next photography related stories are far more recent. First up is a story reported widely in the UK media in 2016.

With headlines like “Does this video show a hooded monk ghost creeping around a church?” you can see why it caused a bit of a stir.

Two paranormal investigators, Dean Johnson and Charlie Spalding were visiting the church which by 2016 was now in the care of a local charity who have transformed the site into a heritage, wildlife, and ecological haven. But I’ll explain more about the church today at the end of the show. They’d had a good explore and as they were leaving decided to film one last video of the church. It was in this video which is linked to on the show blog, weirdinthewade.blog that whilst panning around from the site notice boards towards the church and sweeping across the south side slowly, they captured what looks like a hooded figure in a black cloak move across the doorway inside the church.

They ran back towards the church, as any dedicated paranormal investigators would, only to find it empty including the bell tower which was firmly locked. They were at a loss as to what it could be and so went to the press with the story. Here’s a great quote from Dean about his thoughts on it:

‘I’m not sure if I believe in ghosts but I certainly believe in the multiverse where people can cross over into our time from different dimensions.’

It seems Dean favours a time slip or parallel universe intrusion explanation for the siting. He does go on to remind the journalists of St Mary’s devil worship past which is a great excuse for the newspapers to dig up the history to pad out their articles.

The video is interesting, and it really does look like a monk walking across the doorway. But the camera is moving, and I wonder if it is a shadow, though I can’t quite work out what is casting it. And with our old friend pareidolia are we just making a random shadow appear like a monk. Have a look and let me know what you think.

Our next story relates to filming at the church appears on the Bedfordshire Live website in August 2021. It’s a story about some strange goings on whilst a good friend of Damien O’Dell’s (yes he of Paranormal Bedfordshire fame and founder of Anglia Paranormal Investigation Society) was filming at St Mary’s. Damien’s friend and an actor were standing together during filming when they saw a dark shape much bigger than a human come racing towards them. Damien is quoted by Bedfordshire Live as saying:

“They both ran and something shoved the actress who fell into him (Damien’s friend). She was terrified. He then felt something grab his arm, but couldn’t see anything there.”

It was not a prank and no one else was at the site because it was sealed off for filming with a police officer guarding the path up. In fact as Damien goes on to explain:

“When they explained what had happened, instead of laughing at them the copper said he had spent a lot of time guarding the abandoned site and many people experience similar things.”

The police officer wasn’t wrong, when you look at reports either in books, blogs or social media what tends to be reported about St Mary’s are the following:

A feeling of dread, menace or hostility in the area of the church and graveyard.

Shadows, including huge shadow figures or shining white vapours or mists being seen.

Glimpses of shadowy monks or hooded figures.

Damien O’Dell tells Bedfordshire Live that something might have been left behind by the occultists or devil worshipers in the past, as they attempted to conjure spirits, demons or the devil, which seems to be a popular belief with those who visit the site. Another is that paranormal activity is down to the desecration that disturbed those who should have been allowed to rest in peace.

Very few who visit St Mary’s Old church in the last fifty years will have been unaware of its past which means from a scientific point of view most who visit have been “primed.” By which I mean that if you know a site has a reputation for ghostliness or occult practices it’s hard for us humans to enter that site without preconceptions. If you believe in the supernatural you may walk up the hill to the church in trepidation steeling yourself for an uncanny encounter. A Christian maybe uncomfortable approaching the church because they believe that the devil has been summoned there or at the very least the sanctity of the church and those buried there have been defiled. Even a sceptic can’t approach the church without out an idea about what might have caused others to attribute the paranormal to the building. We all take our baggage with us to St Mary’s rattling behind us as a rag tag tangle of beliefs, fears, and assumptions. This makes it really difficult to objectively experience the church today. But before I tell you about my visit to St Mary’s this year there are a few other unusual aspects to the site I need to tell you about.

Not just ghosts

The death stone.

Local kids have long used a visit to St Mary’s old church as a rite passage. A visit in the dark on a dare was popular when I was growing up a few miles away in Henlow. Many first dates for local kids would include a walk up to the church in daylight so that the holding of hands and arms around each other for comfort would be needed.

But one local tradition is that one of the gravestones in the church yard known as the death stone holds magical powers. If you stare at it for long enough it will reveal the date of your death, or some claim you will levitate off the ground. I remember these stories being told when I was growing up along with the next one which is if you run around the church anticlockwise, 13 times you will summon the devil. It’s a similar idea to an older story from Meppershall and a character called old Jiggler which I’ll cover in a future episode of the podcast.

Chicksands

I’ve mentioned chicksands a few times in relation to Clophill old church. It’s nearby and is the site of an old priory. More recently it was a secretive American Airbase and currently it’s still a secretive military base. Chicksands has also cropped up in other Weird in the Wade stories most notably in relation to UFOs. And its UFO’s again which feature today, Kevin Gates reports a few sightings of UFOs originating from the area of the church but firmly linked to Chicksands where one encounter was observed by a resident of the air base. And of course one of the prevailing theories about the ghostly monks spotted at St Mary’s is that they were on their way to and from Chicksands Priory. The priory itself has a very macabre ghost story associated with it which I’ll cover in a future episode.

There are even reports that military service men were behind some of the rituals, bringing US frat club style hazing ceremonies to Clophill.

Bog Cat sightings

I am also delighted to tell you that there are at least two big cat sightings reported on Old Church Path, one fitting the description of the black panther like creature seen in not so far away Silsoe which we covered in the bonus episode in November. Another big cat sighting was a more unusual one. This was made by a former curator and vet form Whipsnade zoo who saw a large cat the size of a cocker spaniel and of a silvery brown mottled colour in the area of St Mary’s church. He claims to have a photo of it but doesn’t seem to have shared it with anyone.

St Mary’s Old Church today

As mentioned in the previous episode, there were still calls for the demolition of St Mary’s in the 1990s. Thankfully that did not happen but during the 2000s there was debate at council level about what to do with the site. One suggestion was to turn it into a bothy and encourage walkers on the Green Sand Way and other walking routes to over night there! If you listen to the podcast Uncanny you’ll understand why this idea fills me with delight and horror. We could have had our own Bedfordshire Luibeilt. I’ll link to the Uncanny episode about Louibeilt on the blog but it’s an isolated Scottish bothy that has terrified many who have stayed the night there and haunted one man in particular for most of his life. But sadly, the option was rejected as too expensive so we can’t sleep at St May’s after all.

Instead, a heritage and ecco charity was set up to manage site. The church was made safe, including the tower which you can now book to climb up. Wildflowers were planted, information boards erected and a set of ecco lodges built nearby r by for hire for overnight night stays or business team building trips.

In a project that proved controversial some of the tomb stones, which had been moved years before in a bid to make the site safe were now embedded in the ground flat to make a path which intermingles with stone slabs with poems written by school children about the church, carved into them. In 2018 when the path was unveiled local facebook groups were filled with angry locals and the story made in into the national media. Where headline writers revelled in calling the decision a “grave error.” The managers of the site argued that the gravestones had been moved years ago and that by placing some of them in the path it was educational and a way to bring the history of the church to life.

Personally, I found the path very moving, reading the children’s poems and the graves was a poignant juxtaposition of life and death.

And so, to my visit earlier this year in May. I went with my Mum and Dad and their trusty dog Bella who I refer to when on podcast business as the pod dog. You can see photos of her on the podcast insta account. It was a stunningly beautiful day in mid-May. Church bells and birdsong greeted us as we arrived in Clophill. I was struck by just how steep the hill up to the church is and what a faff it would have been to trapse up there every Sunday for the inhabitants of Clophill. No wonder they wanted a new church.

I was nervous about visiting, the church had hovered in my nightmares as a child. The stories I’d heard about it as a 9 and 10 year old were lurid and thrilling. But I think it would have been impossible to be spooked on such a wonderful day. The earth was just bursting with life, there was blossom and wildflowers the sound of insects was immense, I’ve not heard buzzing like it in years. Here’s a recording I made at the time. It’s before I had the lav mic, so the quality isn’t the best.

It definitely did have a peaceful and tranquil atmosphere, but there was something else beneath it. A sadness maybe a sense of weariness almost. My Dad did describe it as spooky, and my Mum said it was lovely and peaceful but conceded the atmosphere would be very different at night or on a dark winters day.

So, as you come to the close of this episode, I will be visiting St Mary’s Old Church in the depth of December. If you are listening on day of release, I may even be there now walking under skeletal trees, peering through the arches, treading on the tombstones. If you check out the podcast social media, you’ll hopefully see updates from my visit. And all going well in the next bonus episode of Weird in the Wade I’ll tell you about my time there and share some other ghostly stories associated with Bedfordshire churches! I am hoping to get that episode out to you as a New Years treat on New Years Day!

But don’t rush off just yet I have some exciting news about the band UK Decay! The ones who saw the mysterious white horse.

Last night, Saturdaay 16^th December I got a message from Steve Spon, the lead guitarist from the band. I’d reached out to see if they’d be happy to share their account first hand with me. I’m hoping, time allowing that early next year I will get to speak with Steve about what happened at Clophill. Steve said that it was an event that has stayed with him. It clearly had a profound effect on him and all those involved. I’d like to thank Steve for getting back to me especially at such a busy time of year. Fingers crossed I’ll be able to have a chat with him early next year!

And in some other exciting news!

I will be chatting with Rick Palmer on his wonderful podcast Some Other Sphere this month. Due out on Wednesday 20^th December we talk all things Weird in the Wade, paranormal, historical, and why Christmas is a time for ghost stories. Some Other Sphere is a great show, each episode Rick interviews someone from the world of folklore, the paranormal, magick or the occult. He’s had some brilliant guests like Evelyn Hollow, Fred Anderson, Alisa and Bethan from Erie Essex, Emma Heard of Weird Wiltshire fame, and even the legend that is Lionel Fanthorpe! I was extremely honoured to be asked on to Rick’s show. I’ve posted a link in the show description as well as the show blog to Some Other Sphere so please do give it a listen and explore the back catalogue of fantastic episodes.

Also don’t forget you can check out photos, and links to further reading and information on the weird in the wade blog which has the easy address to remember of weirdinthewade.blog I’ll be posting new photos of St Mary’s on the blog in the next couple of days.

As we draw to the end of 2023 I’ve been reflecting on the year and marvelling at how if I’d been told this time last year that I’d be ending 2023 with a growing podcast about weird and strange local history I’d have been thrilled and a little daunted! Since Uncanny Con back in March, 2023 has been a weird but wonderful ride and I couldn’t have done it without you fabulous listeners!

When the Haunted Pound Stretcher episode came out in May I thought I might make three or four other episodes, but obviously I’ve made more than that and I will keep making episodes about the peculiar and the paranormal in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire and beyond. It has meant so much to me to hear listener’s feedback about the show. You’ve told me that weird in the wade has been a bright spot in a dark year, has made some of you feel less lonely and welcomed and introduced others to the area of Biggleswade and Bedfordshire, others have just told me that they’ve enjoyed being scared, or appreciated the sound effects, the research or the story telling. All your feedback really means a lot to me. It’s humbling and well I’m just chuffed that you’ve enjoyed these stories that I’m telling.

By making the podcast I have also made a whole host of new friends around Biggleswade, and further afield on social media and across the world from the US to Australia and everywhere in between! It’s a bit mind blowing.

So I just wanted to say a really huge thank you to all of you who have listened this year, who’ve been in touch, shared your stories, made suggestions, supported the podcast by buying the show a coffee on Ko-fi, by telling your friends and family about the show, and by simply tuning in for each episode. Thank you so so much. It means the world to me it really does. I hope you all have a very merry Christmas and peaceful new year!

I want to say some special thank yous to Tess for her continued support, her brilliant musical compositions, and for being an all-round brilliant friend.

I’d also like to say thank you to Paul Jameson for being my first actual guest on the show, sharing his experiences in Potton Wood and supporting the show.

I have a big diolch yn fawr iawn (sorry about the pronunciation) to Owen Staton for his support, for sharing his stories with me and for inviting me on to his wonderful podcast.

I’d also like to thank Penny and Alan for sharing their stories with us.

Also thank you Liz for your support this month on Ko-fi it really means a lot.

I couldn’t end this list of thankyous without giving a huge shout out to Uncanny, to Danny Robins and everyone on the Uncanny team. With out Uncanny Con there’d be no Weird in the Wade and the whole Uncanny Community has been so welcoming and supportive of me and the show! Thank you and remember to stay spooky!  

Weird in the Wade is researched, written and presented by me Nat Doig

Theme music is by Tess Savigear

All additional music and sound effects by epidemic sound.