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The Naked Cavalier!
Village pubs, especially after closing time, are a good place to go if you want to hear the local gossip. The colour of the tales usually improves in direct ratio to the amount of beer drunk and with that in mind it may temper your belief in the following.
However, the gentleman who implanted this information in my ear with the sincerity of a vicar preaching a sermon was convinced it was true.
To get in the mood you have to ensconce yourself in the back bar, down a few pints of rough cider and peer blearily through the clouds of pipe smoke at the gnarled old face that looks like oak bark.
Now cast you mind back to the days of the Battle of Worcester. The era when Cavaliers and Roundheads weren’t exactly getting along.
One of the places they chose to settle their differences was at Worcester. Supporters of both causes came from near and far to take part in what the history books record as the Battle of Worcester.
SOLDIER
However, what the history books fail to reveal is the story of one young soldier who came to Worcester to fight and die for his cause. He died all right, but not for his cause and the manner of his going has given rise to the ghost of the naked Cavalier of Kempsey.
While the saying today goes that a sailor has a girl in every port, in those days a Cavalier was generally thought to a girl in every town and a more than likely in every village and hamlet on the way to every town.
And that is what led to the downfall of the hero of our story. Wenching, not a Roundhead blade, was responsible for his demise.
One the eve of the Battle, as the armies amassed and beat their breasts in shows of strength and defiance, Cavalier Fitzwilliam was preparing for the fray in his usual manner.
Tucked away in the village of Kempsey he had a young lady of comely appearance and easy virtue, whose friendship he had nurtured during a visit to the area a few years before.
As his companions cleaned their swords and wiped down their muskets, Cavalier Fitzwilliam slipped away and rode out to the home of the young lady by moonlight.
Despite the late hour there was still much bustle in the village as the arrival of the troops had caused intense curiosity in the neighbourhood.
And when he went to the girl’s home and found it empty, the Cavalier had no difficulty discovering she had moved to another house in the next lane, near the church.
Leaving his horse outside, he scaled the clinging ivy and peered in through the bedroom window. Sure enough there was the girl just as he had remembered her, her long flaxen hair covering the pillow as she slept.
He slipped into the room and gently woke her.
What followed next is probably best left to the imagination, but suffice to say that Cavalier Fitzwilliam had been in the room for just under an hour when the back door of the cottage slammed and a powerful voice bellowed up the stairs.
It was then and only then the girl confessed her "little secret".
Since the handsome young soldier’s last visit she had got married to the village blacksmith, Tom Smithers, a man with hands like prize marrows and 20 stone of solid muscle. His was the voice at the bottom of the stairs and shortly his would be the massive shape appearing in the bedroom doorway.
Cavalier Fitzwilliam, nine and a half stone soaking wet, shot up from the bed as though electrified.
The heavy feet of Tom Smithers were already ascending the staircase as he grabbed his plumed hat and his boots and made for the window.
He nearly fell over as he pulled on the long leather Cavalier boots and the hat saved his head from a nasty cut as he rapped it on the window frame.
Thus he was, poised in the window, stark naked apart from his hat and his boots, as Tom entered the room.
There was nothing for it but to jump.
In Western films cowboys frequently jump off hotel roofs, train carriages and bar room tables on to the backs of horses and come to little harm. But they wear thick leather "chaps".
WAITING HORSE
Cavalier Fitzwilliam had no such protection as he made his leap. Even so his judgement would have been approximately correct had not Tom Smithers emitted another bellow after his disappearing form and caused the waiting horse to shift a few paces backwards with fright.
The result was that poor Cavalier Fitzwilliam landed not astride the comfortable saddle but on the sharp bit at the front, which the more knowledgeable among you will know as the pommel.
Fortunately, perhaps for him, instant death followed. Fortunately in the sense that had he lived he would not have been the same and a Cavalier without the assets of manhood would have been no Cavalier at all.
His scream was indeed terrible and so startled his horse that the terrified animal bolted off down the lane and went full gallop through the village and across Kempsey Common with the naked Cavalier clutching the reins in his death grip.
Thus was born the Ghost of the Naked Cavalier.
My companion gently nudged his empty mug towards me.
"On a moonlit night I’ve seen ‘ee," he whispered. "It’s hawful. The screams and the blud and that ‘oss covered in sweat."
"I’ll have another pint."
Evidence for the Ghost's Existance
Jim Barnett wrote in the guestbook:
Nice site - well done please can anyone help me on a little quest? My father was based at Defford? airfield near Upton around 1946 & tells of hearing a ghost(?) horse gallping past - I took this with a pinch of salt until I saw the site! any info?
I replied:
Defford Airfield is still there. It is about 2 miles east of Kempsey Common. As the ghost story says that the horse "went full gallop through the village and across Kempsey Common with the naked Cavalier clutching the reins in his death grip", it may be possible that the horse got as far as Defford - Andy.
The Rocky Ghost
By Mike Pryce
...All of which
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| The Flooded Rocky. |
And if you know Anne Bradford, this means very strange holiday memories indeed.
For Anne is interested in ghostly goings on and has written umpteen books about abnormal happenings, both in Worcestershire and farther afield.
Her latest is called Haunted Holidays, just the sort of thing you need before setting off to spend dark nights in a caravan in the depths of the New Forest or in a hotel room on the edge of some Scottish Loch.
Over the years Anne has gleaned a host of ghost stories relating to holidays, some of which have happened in Worcestershire, while others involve experiences of Worcestershire folk holidaying elsewhere.
One I had never heard before was of the two women, identified in the book only as Jane and Tracey, who saw a ghost while walking their dogs on holiday in the village of Kempsey late one autumn evening.
It was a clear, bright autumnal night as the pair made their way down the lane that leads to the old ford. (See note)
"Suddenly I had this prickly feeling, as if I was being watched," said Jane. "I then saw, leaning back against a gate leading into a field, the black shape of a human figure, or to describe it more accurately, a black void, which was blocking out everything behind it."
Tracey was more detailed in what she saw.
"The man was leaning against the gate with his legs crossed. He was about 35 with dark hair and he looked like a Victorian farm labourer with a neckerchief, hob-nailed boots, a cap set at a cocky angle and the cheekiest grin you ever saw. I saw him quite distinctly, and he looked perfectly real."
As the two friends were wondering what to make of the man he suddenly disappeared.
"Had he stayed a bit longer, I feel sure he would have said 'Evenin' ladies'," added Tracey.
Kempsey likes to pride itself on being the source of several ghost stories, often related late in the evening in local hostelries when the liquid has flowed and the imagination runs riot, but this was an apparition seen by two sober friends on a night cold enough to bring anyone to their senses.
Haunted Holidays by Anne Bradford and David Taylor is published by Hunt End Books.
Note:
Jane wrote to me to say that "Tracey (who now lives in Australia) saw the black outline and it was me who saw the chap properly. I used to live in Kempsey but have moved away."
"The sighting took place - not at the Rocky but at the junction of Pixham Ferry Lane and Old Road South."
"I was 37 ish when the we saw the ghost/spirit. I was living in Kempsey at the time and Tracey and her husband came to visit us."
"We decided to give the dogs a last walk quite late at night so that Tracey and I could have a good chat without the men! We walked along the main road then turned left down Pixham Ferry Lane, at the bottom of the lane we turned left to walk down Old Road South, just as we turned down Old Road South we both became aware of an erie feeling and both of us saw this chap leaning back against the gate. I saw him quite clearly, he was dressed like an old fashioned labourer, with a waistcoat, open shirt, kerchief tied around his neck and his cloth cap at a very cocky angle. He was watching us with a cheeky look. We both stopped dead in our tracks and by the time we had looked at him then at each other then back again he was gone! Needless to say she and I walked very quickly home. I was trying to remember to dogs reaction, they didn't bark and I don't remember them making any noise at all. Perhaps they were as surprised as we were. I told Tracey to write down her side of what she had seen and I did the same. It was then we realised that she had seen the outline with a void like middle but I had seen more detail."
" The night was very crisp, and it was a bright November starlit night".
hits since 9th September 1999.