Folklore may be defined as the beliefs, legends and customs of ordinary people, which have continued outside the accepted patterns of contemporary knowledge, sometimes down to the present day. All traditional material must be treated with caution, especially when we ask whether the story is true.

Sometimes stories contain an element of truth, but often they are distorted by time and changed each generation according to the beliefs then accepted.

• Kingswood in the 1830's
  • an antiquarian met a women who lived at the Old Abbey where a goblin under the floor performed acrobatics with the flagstones, tipping over chairs. Today we would call this a poltergeist.
• At the top of Rushmire
  • is a field known as Pug's Path. Its name contains the word 'puck' (goblin) and to early inhabitants of Wotton this place was presumably haunted by such a creature.

• Bradley Court - Wotton-under-Edge
  • has the ever-popular white lady, who appears in the garden,
• Owlpen Manor - Uley
  • has the story of an old man walled up in a secret room, who crumbled to dust as the antiquarians peeped in, having discovered his hiding place by measuring the thickness of the wall.
• Kingswood House - Kingswood, nr Wotton-under-Edge
  • opposite Katharine Lady Berkeley's School, has a good selection of ghostly phenomena. A carriage and horse enters one of the gates, drives round the house and disappears out of the gates. The ghostly carriage is a fairly frequent phenomenon, though it is more usually associated with straight stretches of road, as at Wickwar, Saddlewood, and Frocester Hill, where there is a ghostly stagecoach accident. Kingswood House also has a black dog which leaves the house and crosses to the field opposite. There is also a Grey Lady who approaches from the Kingswood direction and enters the house.
• The Ridge - Dursley
  • now only a few ruins with a new house built within them, has a fair collection of sinister or inexplicable happenings. It is believed that the family had to give it up as it was haunted by a lady in white, a murdered ancestor, whose terrible screams disturbed the house. Strange lights were seen flashing in the trees and horses would refuse to pass the spot easily. From the 1920's there were tales of piano playing being heard in the empty house and, more recently, the appearance of a silent, watching figure by the coach-house door, and a malevolent atmosphere felt by the builders in the 1960's who, moving from under an arch, narrowly missed being crushed by a heavy keystone which fell on the exact spot where they had been standing.
• Newark Park
  • built by Sir Nicholas Poyntz who was granted Kingswood Abbey at the Dissolution, is recorded as being haunted by some monks who had failed to make good their escape through the secret passage. Their bones are still in the tunnel but their spirits appeared on the eve of every saint's day issuing from a panelled wall, crossing the room and descending the staircase with candles, chanting as they went.

Wotton-under-Edge itself

• Symn Lane Ghost - Wotton-under-Edge
  • she appears as a women with hair on fire, and sometimes is seen running screaming down the road. She was the victim of a particularly unpleasant event late last century in which her son returned from Australia to claim his inheritance and, not being satisfied, killed his mother, set fire to the house on The Chipping and went up on Wotton Hill to watch it burn, where he was later arrested.
• The Ram Inn - Wotton-under-Edge
  • the ghost of the old innkeeper a ghostly lady by the name of Elizabeth, believed to have been murdered and buried beneath the bar.
    (Full Story Click here)
    Film crew stayed at the Inn on the 14th August for more information click link above.
    

Calendar customs Vincent Perkins 1830 - 1921 recorded

• Shrove Tuesday
  • the Pancake Bell was rung, Pan-On, Pan-On for five minutes at Noon.
• Mothering Sunday
  • custom to visit parents, and the landlady at The Swan treated the household and friends to cake and wine.
• Good Friday
  • the young people went to Nibley Knoll to play games, whilst the older looked at the vendors of Hot Cross Buns and ginger beer.
• May Day
  • everyone went to the Westridge Wood to collect May Bough at 5.00 am returning 7.00am. These were used to decorate shop windows and houses, and the children wore a few leaves of beech pinned on their cloths to show that they had been up early. Women bathed their faces in May Dew and May Walking continued well up till the last War.
• Whit Monday
  • was the day for Cockshoot Fair a disreputable revel held in Westridge Wood.
• Fair Sunday
  • the nearest Sunday to September 25th was a very great day in the last century.

Wotton-under-Edge A Century of Change - Geoffrey Masefield

Book of Magical Herbs Herbal History, Mystery, & Folklore

Britain's Living Folklore