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Photo of my old school in Chipping Norton - Penhurst National Children's Home
Chipping Norton is an old market town (the name is probably derived from the anglo-saxon for sheep market), situated 20 miles to the north-west of Oxford in England, UK.
This ancient Cotswold town goes back to at least medieavel times (William the Conquerer, Norman invader, famous in British history for inventing "1066 and all that", mentions it in his Doomsday Book) and is full of folklore and ghost stories.
In fact, the town was once known as Black Chipping Norton because as major junction for carriages travelling the length and breadth of England, it was regular haunt of highway robbers who would gather in the many inns and taverns to gain information as to what was travelling where....
Photo of Chipping Norton during my schooldays in the 1960s
Photo of Chipping Norton when I was 15 in 1968
Prior to this, Chipping Norton (known to the locals as "Chippy") also had a notorious reputation on account of clerical and monastic sex crimes and allegations of witchcraft. For example, beneath the streets of the town were secret tunnels leading from the local monastery to the nunnery whereby monks and nuns enjoyed scandalous liasons.
Photo of Remains of Medieval Monastery beneath hotel in Chipping Norton
A local pub, The Blue Boar is said to be haunted by the ghost of a nun who had been sentenced to be "bricked up" into a wall for being particularly depraved. Her horrible death would have been like being buried alive, deprived of food, water, light and air.
Next door to my old school is an old Norman church, which is said to be haunted by the ghost of a priest who committed suicide by hanging himself from the tower.
Photo of the apparently haunted St. Mary's Church
The skies above Chipping Norton also seem to have been "haunted" by unusual aerial phenomena (of course, after the Second World War, many of the "unidentified" sightings could have been explained by the presence of a number of USAF Air Bases in the locality. Which came first? The Chicken or the Egg? Are some military bases deliberately situated in known UFO/Paranormal "Hotspots"?) and as a child I found a library book on my town's history which had a chapter I might have headed....
UFOs over Chipping Norton, Oxon in 1610.
| "STRANGE and Wonderful News from Chipping-Norton, in the County of Oxon, of certain dreadful Apparitions which were seen in the air on the 26th July, 1610, at Half an Hour after Nine o’clock at Noon, and continued till Eleven, in which Time was seen Apperances of several flaming Swords, strange Motions of the superior Orbs; with the unusual Sparkling of the Stars, with their dreadful Continuations: With the Account of the Opening of the Heavens, and strange Appearances therein disclosing themselves, with several other prodigious Circumstances not heard of in any Age, to the great Amazement of the Beholders, as it was Communicated in a Letter to one Mr. Colley, living in West Smithfield, and attested by Thomas Brown, Elizabeth Greenaway, and Anne Gutheridge, who were Spectators of the Dreadful Apparitions: And if any one would be further satisfied of the Truth of this Relation, let them repair to Mr. Nightingales’s at the Bear Inn, in West Smithfield, and they may be satisfied." |
This is the extraordinary title of an old broadside manuscript which is available for viewing in the British Museum. What follows is a description of the objects seen:
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"There issued great sheets of flame, or glances of lightning, without thunder. There were
strange alternations in the motions of the stars. In the western part of the heavens, the skies
opened, and a perfect flaming sword pointed to the east. It was of prodigious size, and twirled
round and round.
The golden stars seemed all in clusters, as if set in battel array. Hot flashes descended and ran
along the ground. The skies unfolded, and another sword, in appearance five yards long, and of a
bloody color, appeared, to the stars swiftly shooting round about it in a unwonted manner.
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Doctor Nabs World of Paranormal
© 1997 jinghiz@msn.com
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