Welcome to the Pluckley page, I have included this because so many people visit Canterbury thinking that Pluckley is just round the corner, in fact it is only 20 minutes from Canterbury but if you do not have a car you will have to take a train to Ashford via the Canterbury west railway station and change at Ashford, then take a local train to Pluckley station, and a taxi to the village. hence most people take the Maidstone Bus Service via Ashford and walk in the summer. During Halloween (31st October) the village swells to staggering numbers of coach parties. My advice do not go on Halloween go in the day time in summer - there are some very good pubs and all are well worth a visit. The Dering Arms is haunted and close to the station, and the Black Horse is also haunted and is located next to the church. Pluckley was also the film location for H E Bates "The Darling Buds of May" staring David Jason and Pam Ferris - and a very young Catherine Zeta Douglas (Nee Jones)
There are so many Ghosts in Pluckley it is a wonder anyone can walk out of the village without being covered in ectoplasm. Imagine buying a house here and not being told if it was haunted only to find out within the first six months that the ghost took a very strong dislike to you and your family? Welcome to the age of the Home information Pack!
Click to find the ghost you need
The_Coach_and_Four
The_Colonel_of_Park_Wood
The_Highwayman_
The_Miller
The_Monk The_Red_Lady
The_Schoolmaster The_Screaming_Man The_Tudor_Lady The_Watercress_Woman The_White_Lady
The_Black_Horse The_Dering_Arms Blacksmiths_Arms The_Screaming_Woods The_Devils_Bush Pluckley Church
Top The Main Village web Page is here
Park Wood, as an actual wood, no longer exists - its trees having been grubbed out in 1965 to provide land for agriculture. The colonel apparently hung himself from the branches of one of the trees in the wood that, until its eventual levelling, provided a home for his restless spirit.
Nothing else is known of the colonel except that his ghost could often be seen marching briskly through the woods and that its appearance in no way caused distress.
There are no clues as to his earthly identity or to what, if any, were his links with Park Wood apart from it being the spot where his life ended. In the absence of more information one wonders how it was known he was a colonel - even if he paraded in full uniform an observer must have obtained a very close look at him to recognise the insignia of his rank.
There are a number of accounts of the ghost of the highwayman of Pluckley. There
are no records as to who he was, where he came from and when he lived. It is
possible that this is yet another tale made up to enhance the popular myth of
Pluckley's many ghosts.
If he existed who killed him is another unknown - some say he was pursued and
killed by his enemies, possibly villains like himself, but others state that he
was 'run to earth' which would suggest his attackers were on the side of the
law.
One of the popular versions says that: near Pluckley is an old common - not as
extensive as Hampstead Heath or Heathrow (favourite haunts of highwaymen) but no
doubt providing a fairly profitable living for gentlemen of the road. Through
Hothfield common, on the road from Ashford to Maidstone, led a Toll road, so it
was frequented by a reasonable amount of traffic and is generally accepted to
have attracted various villains.
In the latter part of the 18th century, a local highwayman was cornered by the
Bow Street Runners (early cops) and, trying to escape, was pursued down through
Pluckley village. Taking a fork by the Blacksmith's Arms Inn and forge, he
headed for the forest.
At the crossroads stood an old hollow oak tree. The runners were out of sight.
Leaping from his horse, our villain secreted himself inside the oak with not a
moment to lose, and waited with bated breath for them to go past. Unfortunately
he reckoned without his horse. Left to itself the animal, instead of cantering
on into the woods, put its head down and started to graze. Allowing the others
to continue, one Bow Street Runner remained behind. Inspecting the area, he
noticed that one of the trees was hollow. Creeping up to it, he plunged his
sword into a knothole, thereby piercing the highwayman through the heart.
Another account tells not of the traditionally horse-mounted highwayman but of a
sneaky footpad who would secrete himself in the hollow of the old tree awaiting
the arrival of unfortunate unsuspecting victims. Allowing the traveller to pass
by he would creep out from his hide and execute a surprise attack. Word of the
scoundrel's practice reached a man about to journey the road past Frith Corner -
a man who was no fool, had little fear and certainly no intention of falling
victim to such a cowardly attack.
He approached the corner as though completely unaware of the lurking danger but
when only a few feet from the tree he drew his sword, moved swiftly forward and
thrust the blade deep in the hollow
Directly to the west of The Street on
the opposite side of the B2077 once stood a 19th century windmill. One of its
tenants in the 1930's was a Richard Buss - Dickey Buss to the locals - whose name
by common usage was given to a tree lined lane which provided one of the access
routes to the mill.
During Buss' milling days its age began to tell and eventually it became
structurally unsafe
to operate. He had no choice but to close it down. In a totally dilapidated
state the mill was still standing when, at the end of April 1939, a terrible
thunderstorm broke over the village. In the midst of the storm lightening struck
the old building and it quickly burned to the ground.
It was during the intervening years that stories grew up that the mill was
haunted, aided no doubt by the habit of young master Buss of setting bird traps
in the top of the mill. To keep larger birds away - and probably other
interested small boys - he draped long white sheets below the traps. Thus the
story was set of the haunted mill!
A quarter of a mile down the hill from St Nicholas' Church stands Greystones, a pale-grey mansion dating back to the 1863. To link the house and the church poses no problem as for many years it was the official residence of the local curate and was called Rectory Cottage until it was renamed Greystones in 1924.
Residents from the present day back to 1954 state they have not experienced anything in the way of 'ghostly manifestations.' From the dates mentioned it would therefore seem reasonable to surmise that the monk lived in and later haunted the house between the years 1863 to 1954.
But traditionally, the monk is tied to a Tudor Lady and this would put him back
to the 16th century - a time when no building stood on that site. One story is
that he was enamoured with the Lady of Rose Court, a Tudor house nearby. A more
popular idea is that he was the confessor of that lady during the time when the
Roman Catholic religion was banned, meeting in secret. It is likely that the
monk, had he existed, would have come to a tragic end. Many Papist monks did
when they came to England at that time. He has reputedly been seen at night as a
shadowy figure reflected on walls in some of the newer homes along the path he
and his lady may have trod.
All accounts of the haunting of Greystones identify the ghost as a 'monk' but just how that particular religious office has been recognised has not been explained. Had the spectre's attire been described it might have offered some guidance but in the absence of such a clue one is left to guesswork. It could be that no one mentioned his dress because no one ever has actually seen it or him.
Who she was, no one seems to know, but she is popularly believed to be the wife
of one of the Derings, lords of the manor of Pluckley down the centuries. They
were a rich and powerful family marrying with an eye to both financial and
political advancement.
Several wives were short lived, producing large families. Of course, not all
children survived into adulthood. Many died at birth. It is rumoured that one
such child was born to our lady.
It died, or was stillborn, and buried hastily, in an unmarked grave. Now this
gives rise to all sorts of conjecture! Why not in the family crypt? It is large
enough to take the coffin of a small child. Indeed there are several there. So,
who was this unfortunate infant? How was he/she conceived? Who, indeed was his
mother? A Dering wife - or a Dering daughter? The Dering archives are well
documented and it seems strange that as such there is no record.
But popularly, her ghostly form wanders the churchyard at night, sobbing
bitterly, and searching for the grave of her unacknowledged child. Why the Red
Lady? Nobody seems to know. Could it be the colour of the gown she wears? The
halo which surrounds her ghostly figure? Was it the colour of her hair? Perhaps
if someone eventually does see her we will all know.
The year was about 1920 and the schoolmaster from Smarden made regular weekly
trips to Pluckley to meet with Henry Turff, Pluckley school's headmaster. They
met in the Black Horse, and over a few drinks they sat and discussed philosophy.
Then, one summer, the Smarden teacher went missing. A couple of weeks later,
miller Richard Buss taking a short cut home came across his body hanging from
one of the bay laurel trees that grew just below the mill.
The trees have long been cut down. The school master's ghost is just another
popular tale told to eager ghost hunters looking for a story - no one is
recorded to have ever seen any such apparition.
It would now be impossible to pinpoint the exact spot where this unfortunate's
life is believed to have been brought to its sudden and tragic end. He was a
worker at the brickworks who fell to his untimely death into one of the
clay-holes on the site. There are no reports of a visible ghost here - nor are
there any reports of such a tragic accident, only the ghostly echoes of his last
terrifying screams as he hurtled headlong into the workings - which are very
similar to those bloodcurdling screams of a vixen echoing across the weald on a
still night.
Rose Court is a large old house on the Pluckley to Bethersden road. There are
records to show that it has stood for 250 years, but the original deeds were
lost in a fire and it is believed it was built more than 100 years earlier. It
is thought to have been built as a home for the mistress of a son of one of the
Lords Dering and it is this lady's ghost that haunts the house and its well-laid
out gardens.
The lady kept two dogs and at times the house echoes to her voice calling them.
Her visits occur usually between 4 and 5 o'clock in the afternoon - the period
during which she died. She took her own life by drinking the juices of ivy and
other poisonous berries. It is worth recording that the kennels of the East Kent
Hunt were not too great a distance from Rose Court. At approximately 4 to 5pm
the hounds were fed. The ensuing noise carried, at times quite clearly, as far
at Rose Court. Since the hunt kennels have moved, reports of hearing her dogs
have stopped.
Once an old gypsy woman scratched a meagre existence by selling the watercress
she gathered from the Pinnock Stream. She would habitually break the monotony of
her labours by taking time off to indulge in her two main pleasures in life -
smoking and drinking. She smoked a pipe and drank gin from a bottle carried
tucked away in the safety of her basket. Frequent spillage's, due to the
shakiness of old age or just general sloppiness, rendered her shawl highly
inflammable. So much so that when a spark fell from her pipe on to the fabric it
immediately set alight. Literally, in a flash her clothes were a mass of flames
that completely engulfed her body - moments later she was dead.
Her ghostly image has gradually faded over the years and later witnesses report
seeing no more than a misty figure seated on the bridge. The Pinnock Bridge is
at a low part of the village and air, trapped between the woods to the south and
the foot of the North Downs, frequently makes these lower areas more prone to
sudden mists. Driving through one of these sudden patches, one can be forgiven
for 'seeing' a little more than one would normally expect.
No collection of Ghost Stories would be complete without a 'White Lady' and in
Pluckley we have two of them. Or have we? Their stories are very similar, but
they have been seen in two different settings, a mile apart! And who is our
White Lady? The most popular theme is that she was another of the Dering Ladies;
but it is also said that it is from the medieval period.
Needless to say, there are no written records to back up either story.
The Dering family only came to Surrenden Dering, through careful marriages, in
the early 1400's. The Lady appears both in the Dering Chapel of St Nicholas'
Church, and at the Manor house - Surrenden Dering (usually in the library)
Stories of both White Ladies tell that she was so beautiful that, when she died
at a young age, her bereft husband had her body sealed in a succession of lead
caskets before being placed in an oak coffin and lowered into the family crypt.
And there she lies, clothed in a rich flowing gown with a glorious red rose at
her breast. The lead caskets may have preserved her body, but her spirit is
still free.
Free to appear in the Village Church and free to wander the passages of her old
home. Between the wars Surrenden was rented out to the Court of St James' (the
US Embassy in the UK) and a regular visitor there was Walter Winan, the big game
hunter and horse owner.
Mr Winan became intrigued with the stories of the Lady's appearances and the
effect they were having on the staff at that time and one Christmas Eve he
stayed up to see the lady. Ensconced in the library and with his favourite
hunting gun across his lap, he waited. The lady obliged, appearing suddenly
before him. Swiftly Mr Winan took aim, but the shots passed through her
completely, embedding in the panelled wall opposite - through which she
vanished.
There is a strong tradition that a tunnel connects Surrenden with the church -
in fact it is more than a tradition. In the organ-well there is a cupboard
housing some artefacts; a door at the back leads to a, now bricked up, passage.
Pluckley's original Black Horse was sited in a rather modest building amongst a
nest of cottages to the west of the church. The premises which now bear the same
name began life as a farmhouse surrounded its own moat (long since filled in but
partly discernible in places) for many years, then it was the bailiff's house
from which the Dering estate was managed.
Licensees claim to suffer the annoyance and frustration of having items of
property, mainly clothing, go mysteriously missing for long periods. Not always
their own property, sometimes articles belonging to customers or members of
staff. Despite rigorous searches the missing items elude discovery and then,
when all hope of seeing them again has virtually gone, they suddenly reappear in
locations in which their presence could not have gone unnoticed.
Some liken these incidents to the work of poltergeist but to lay the blame on
the shoulders of a ghostly prankster would be more befitting. The atmosphere in
the Black Horse is peaceful and benign and the activities of who or what-ever is
responsible for the going and coming of these items present no more than an
inconvenience to which the more frequent victims eventually become immune. It
would be quite legitimate to regard the perpetrator as a 'ghost' but so far no
efforts have been made to add this resident prankster to the village's spectral
list and so give the pub 'haunted' status.
Standing at the approach to the village station, these premises were originally
a hunting lodge. The owners share their home with the ghost of an old lady who
seats herself at a table by the window through which she seemingly views the
world outside. So clearly has she appeared that she could quite easily have been
mistaken for a flesh and blood customer but for the peculiar bonnet and
old-fashioned dress she wore - plus the fact that she vanished on the spot
immediately her presence was commented on.
Although this lady has appeared enough times to be accepted as part of the
furniture she has never been included in Pluckley's inventory of established
ghosts.
In the dim, but not so distant past, Pluckley had two forges. One near the main part of the village which served mostly the gentry and village tradesmen, and the other down the hill at the Thorne which catered for the rural community and general road traffic. It survived until just after the last war.
Situated as it was at the bottom of the long incline up onto the North Downs of England, this second forge became a convenient place to stop and attach additional teams of horses. It was almost a natural progression for an alehouse to be established, and The Blacksmith's Arms survived when the forge eventually became redundant. It was a popular meeting place for the increasing population of the hamlet Pluckley Thorne. In the field opposite, the sport of goal-running attracted all the young men of the parish every Saturday night when home matches were played. After the war, a small housing estate was built and a general stores was opened in the old forge area.
There is a tradition of a cavalier haunting the upstairs. There are no records as to who he may be, or why he may be there.
Below Pluckley is a sizeable area of woodland officially named Dering Wood but
also known as Smarden Woods. Another portion of the same wood is popularly
called 'Fright Wood.' Both are part of the ancient Andredsweald: that stretch of
woodland that once ran along almost the entire south east of England. These
woods are a haven for wild animals - not least of all foxes and it is the sound
of a vixen's scream that has caused many ghost hunters to rename it the
Screaming Woods.
Fright Wood is a derivative of Frith - an old English word meaning land that is
of poor agricultural quality. There were farmers in the area with the name of
Frith in the 1580's, and with Frith Farm nearby it is almost certain that the
popularist name of Fright Wood is yet another attempt to give Pluckley yet more
status as ghost central for England.
How or why this story has grown up, no one knows. The tale is that if one dances three times round a certain bush (and presumably chants the right phrases) then the devil will appear. The bush can be found at Frith Corner and one assumes is one of many bordering either the wood or the fields in that area.
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