The Haunted Pub in Avebury's Stone Circle

It is no secret that my new novel – The Stones of Landane – is inspired by the prehistoric landscape of Avebury in Wiltshire, with its impressive stone circles dating back thousands of years. Legends abound in the small village and the place is so full of ghosts, they almost crowd out the many thousands of tourists who arrive curious and leave shaking their heads in wonder.

 

Avebury has been a place of habitation for millennia so it is no surprise that one of the most haunted locations is the village pub - The Red Lion - which used to be residential but, sadly, is no more. These days it is very much a place to meet, drink and eat in its cosy surroundings and has become much busier than I remember from my first acquaintance some forty or more years ago. There are always gains and losses when a traditional pub undergoes radical renovation in order to accommodate the changing preferences of its target market and I do wonder what its plethora of ghosts make of it all. It would appear that, by and large, they have emerged unscathed and unruffled and continue to go about their daily business.

So who are they, this merry (or not so merry) band of haunters?

First off, there’s a transient visitor that passes near the 17^th century building– a ghostly carriage and horses that is the harbinger of bad fortune. Thankfully, its appearances are rare as it signals the death of a close relative.

Then there’s Florrie. Oh, she’s a tragic lady. Back in the days of the English Civil War, her husband returned home unexpectedly from the fighting to discover her in the arms of another man. Angered beyond reason, he killed her lover, slit Florrie’s throat and dragged her body off to the well. This well, by the way is still there, now illuminated, covered by glass and serving as a fascinating drinks table in the restaurant.

Meanwhile, poor Florrie haunts the pub, searching for her lover or her husband (versions differ) but whoever it was had a beard. Men with such facial hair can expect to find themselves targeted. She has been known to make her presence felt by causing a chandelier to twirl…over the head of a bearded customer.

In one of the bedrooms, two ghost children cower in the corner while a woman sits writing at a table busy with her task and appearing unconcerned by their distress. Maybe they are hauntings existing on two distinct plains and are unaware of each other. Certainly their origins are unclear.

Add to these the many orbs, moving shadows with no known origins, cold spots and host of other phenomena and it is without a doubt that The Red Lion at Avebury can lay claim to be, if not the oldest, then certainly one of the most haunted pubs – and the only one to exist wholly within a circle of prehistoric standing stones.

Want to visit? Here’s the Website

Meanwhile…

‘Fear her now, fear the queen,

As in her stone she reigns supreme…’

When Jonathan agrees to accompany his girlfriend, Nadia, on a trip to Landane, he imagines a short relaxing break in the countryside.  But he quickly discovers that Nadia isn’t just drawn to the ancient Neolithic stone circle, she is obsessed by the megaliths. One in particular. Within hours, her personality begins to change and it isn’t long before Jonathan starts to fear for her sanity.

Reaching far back into the past and up to the present day, those same stones have demonstrated powers beyond reason and, as Jonathan’s girlfriend becomes increasingly distant from reality, some of the ghosts of the past begin to reappear. Now it isn’t only Nadia who is in danger.

What is the secret of the prehistoric standing stones of Landane? What lies within them? And why does an ancient piece of folklore ring so true?

Publishing on January 14th, 2025

(available for pre-order now (ebook, paperback, hardback)

Amazon

Flame Tree Press

Barnes and Noble

Waterstones

Bookshop.org

and/or wherever you shop for books

 Images:

Flame Tree Press

Shutterstock

The Stones of Landane -

 ‘Fear her now, fear the queen,

As in her stone she reigns supreme…’

When Jonathan agrees to accompany his girlfriend, Nadia, on a trip to Landane, he imagines a short relaxing break in the countryside. But he quickly discovers that Nadia isn’t just drawn to the ancient Neolithic stone circle, she is obsessed by the megaliths. One in particular holds a fascination for her. Within hours, her personality begins to change, and it isn’t long before Jonathan starts to fear for her sanity.

Reaching far back into the past and up to the present day, those same stones have demonstrated powers beyond reason and, as Jonathan’s girlfriend becomes increasingly distant from reality, some of the ghosts of the past begin to reappear.

Now it isn’t only Nadia who is in danger.

Publishing on January 14th, 2025

available for pre-order now (ebook, paperback, hardback)

Amazon

Flame Tree Press

Barnes and Noble

Waterstones

Bookshop.org

and/or wherever you shop for books

and to get you in the mood...

Newgrange - Clannad

If You Go Down To The (Screaming) Woods Today...

 

..You had better be prepared to experience more than you bargained for. Especially if the woods in question are in the vicinity of the Kent village of Pluckley. Properly known as Dering Woods, this forest is more commonly known as the Screaming Woods – and for very good reason.

The area itself is situated just south of England’s (arguably) most haunted village – Pluckley – where it seems almost every building and piece of land has its own ghost story to tell. Pinnock Bridge has its Gypsy or Watercress Woman who is supposed to have set herself on fire from a combination of the pipe she was smoking and the gin she was drinking at the same time. She wafts around as a misty figure.

The Elvey Farm has a haunted dairy where an 18^th century farmer – Edward Brett – fatally shot himself. He is still heard, muttering ‘I will do it.’

A black silhouette of a miller haunts the site of an old windmill, while a red lady walks her small white dog around the churchyard and a white lady wanders around inside the same church. The locals at the time of her death must have really feared her. She was buried inside not one, but seven coffins AND an oak sarcophagus. She’s still pacing around there though!

An unfortunate love affair led to the suicide (by poisoning) of the Lady of Rose Court, and a poor man who fell into a clay pit still screams in agony. A schoolmaster who hanged himself is still apparently trapped at the site of his demise.

Now, after experiencing all that, you could well be forgiven for deciding to retire to the local hostelry (the Black Horse Inn). Surely here you could kick back and relax over a pint of foaming ale or a glass of comforting wine? Not a bit of it! After the phantom coach and horses have thundered by outside, expect things to start flying around you as the resident poltergeist gets to work.

But I digress. Back to the woods.

In the 18^th century, a highwayman called Robert du Bois was tracked down and run through with a sword while he hid in a tree in these very woods. Another version states that he was dragged to the woods before being lynched. Either way, his are the screams which give the woods their name - along with a couple of other unfortunates, such as the army colonel who hanged himself and still can be seen dangling from his tree, and the ghostly soldier who wanders the woodland paths. Others who have simply lost their way - and never found it again - add their desperate voices to the cacophony from beyond the grave.

Sceptics might say it’s just foxes. Everyone knows foxes can make a terrible racket. As if hell itself had opened and let the screams of the damned escape.

But those of us who know about such things, don’t need any such explanations.

Do we?

Evil runs deep at Mordenhyrst Hall…

When Grace first sets eyes on the imposing Gothic Mordenhyrst Hall, she is struck with an overwhelming sense that something doesn’t want her there. Her fiancé’s sister heads a coterie of Bright Young Things whose frivolous lives hide a sinister intent. Simon, Grace’s fiancé, is not the man she fell in love with, and the local villagers eye her with suspicion that borders on malevolence. 

Her friend, Coralie, possesses the ability to communicate with powerful spirits. She convinces Grace of her own paranormal gifts – gifts Grace will need to draw deeply on as the secrets of Mordenhyrst Hall begin to unravel.

Amazon

 Flame Tree Press

 Barnes and Noble

 Simon and Schuster

 Waterstones

 and all good bookshops - in the high street or online

 

 Images:

Flame Tree Press

Shutterstock

Witch Bottles - No Home Should Be Without One

In my collection, The Crow Witch and Other Conjurings, you will meet a selection of sorcerers and wise women and in one story in particular - The Malan Witch - the witches are a powerful, evil force to be reckoned with. If you had been living anywhere near them, you would have been glad you had walled up a dead cat, hidden away a written charm or two, a horse’s skull and some (preferably children’s) shoes. As a cat lover of major proportions, I was relieved to discover that the walled up cats I had read about were, in almost every case, already dead when they were inserted into a cavity in the wall. They were certainly a common enough occurrence. Many medieval houses in need of restoration have revealed a little feline mummified carcass among the wattle and daub.

Even with all this protection, you might not be completely safe If you fell ill inexplicably and suddenly, your crops failed, or your animals got sick and died. You would know that somehow or another you had upset a witch and he – or more likely she – had put a curse on you. Then, most assuredly, you would need your own witch’s bottle.

Witches’ bottles have been found in both the U.K. and the United States, indicating that the practice travelled across the Atlantic with the earliest British settlers.

Although they have most certainly been around since Elizabethan times - if not earlier - one of the first mentions of such a bottle occurs in 1681 in Saducismus Triumphatus, or Evidence Concerning Witches and Apparitions, written by Joseph Glanvill. The author gives a description of how such a bottle would be created. A man whose wife is sorely afflicted is told to, “Take your Wive’s Urine… and Cork it in a Bottle with Nails, Pins and Needles, and bury it in the Earth; and that will do the feat.” We are told, “The Man did accordingly. And his Wife began to mend sensibly and in a competent time was finely well recovered.”

The ‘cure’ worked well for her – but had another effect, for across town, a wife complained that someone had killed her husband. It transpired that he was a known “Wizard” and must have put a curse on the woman whose husband was wise enough to equip himself with a witch’s bottle. So, these bottles not only had the power to counteract the magic, but were able to turn it back on the perpetrator.

So, what did they look like? Usually they were constructed of brown or grey salt-glazed stoneware. Some – known as Greybeards or Bellarmines – were embossed with a bearded face. Bellarmines also had the dubious distinction of being named after a particularly obsessive Catholic Inquisitor. Some weren’t buried, but deliberately destroyed as part of their function. Some people believed that you should throw the witch’s bottle on the fire and when it exploded, it would break the spell and kill the witch.

By the early 19^th century, witch bottles were constructed from glass bottles, vials and other containers. Traditionally – and perhaps ironically – it took a witch to prepare a really effective bottle. As described above, into the bottle went the victim’s urine, hair or nail clippings, and some red thread taken from a ‘sprite trap’ (a device used to trap troublesome spirits). Other ingredients historically included blood, glass, wood and bone. Witch bottles are still with us and more recently, these unsavoury ingredients have largely been replaced by rosemary, needles, pins and red wine.

Once prepared, the bottle is then buried in the house, under the hearth, at the furthest point of the house, or some inconspicuous other place. It is believed that the bottle will capture the evil, and impale it on the pins and needles before drowning it in red wine and sending it on its way, using the rosemary. As long as the bottle remains hidden and unbroken, so its power will endure.

These days, there are a range of alternative ingredients for making up a witch bottle. These include: sea water, earth, sand, stones, salt, knotted threads, vinegar, ashes, coins, oil, feathers, shells, herbs and flowers.

Two witches, burned for their evil centuries earlier, now hell-bent on revenge.

A woman who seems to step out of an old Hollywood movie, and a castle with a murderous past.

A seer whose deadly prediction was hidden away for a future generation.

A mysterious portrait that is far more sinister than mere paint and canvas.

An old woman only the foolish would ridicule, for she knows the secrets of the land and how to harness its power.

All these and more conjurings abound, and you would do well to remember, my dear reader…

When the seeds of revenge are sown, beware the harvest!

Available from:

Amazon

Weird House Press

Waterstones

and other online and high-street retailers

Images:

Shutterstock

Weird House Press