FOLKLORE ON FRIDAY - The Ghost by the Gretna Green

Some time ago I wrote a series of articles (which I later turned in to a podcast) on the assorted ghost stories associated with Aycliffe Village in County Durham where I spend a good portion of my childhood. One of these local ghosts was an example of a very common sort of spectre, the Phantom Hitcher. In the Aycliffe version, a young woman dressed in white is seen by the side of the road and hitches a ride, only to later vanish from the back of the vehicle. 

Now the interesting thing I uncovered was that while the version I heard in the mid 1970s usually placed the lady in white near the village church and travelling in the direction of Darlington, the story actually dated back to the days of coaches and horses. Back then the A167 which runs through the village was the old Great North Road, and in the days when the coaches ran, the ghostly lady would hitching a ride north and vanish before reaching the nearby village of Rushyford a few miles up the road.

The village is also home to another well-known phantom, the Grey Lady. And over the years, aside from the oft-repeated creepy tales told about both these local ghosts, sightings of a white female figure have been reported in the Aycliffe village area. And recently a reader got in touch to relate his sighting of this strange white figure. It was seen a little to the north of the village, near what was once the Gretna Green pub, and is now back in business as the Gretna Hotel. His account is as follows - 

I was with my friend Chris at the time, and both of us were about 9 year old. Both of us were living near to Neville Parade in Newton Aycliffe. Strangely we were out 'ghost hunting' and rode our bikes over to the Gretna pub which was derelict at the time. We spent a bit of time looking around before heading back over the road (A167). There is a path leading through a small field and then some woods back to the houses. Halfway up this path we stopped to look at a rag which was caught on some barbed wire on the fence that ran along the path (still in ghost hunting mode). After a few seconds I looked ahead into the field and saw a white figure kind of floating towards us. I shouted at Chris to look but he took this as an attempt to trick him or something and promptly rode off on his bike, so I don't think he saw it which was very frustrating at the time! I remember looking up again at this thing and it was a bit closer. I pretty much got straight on my bike and rode off as fast as I could.

So the thing is basically similar to what the other people have described. It was about 30 years ago so my memory is a bit blurry but I remember it being all white, wearing flowing, kind of raggy clothes but no distinctive marks. And the main thing was it had a white face with no facial features at all, which was really weird. Could a veil possibly explain this? It was kind of moving its arms slowly, and moving slowly towards me with very awkward movements from what I remember. Just really weird. It wasn't too far away either, maybe 30/40 feet away. Oddly, at the time I didn't think it was a ghost because it didn't strike me as what a ghost should look like. It didn't look very human, but rather humanoid - if that makes any sense - mainly due to having no distinctive features and the white face area. So I just told people I saw a kind of weird creature/alien/ghost thing.

Now people have obviously said I was 'ghost hunting' so my childish active imagination got the better of me. and I too have thought this could be what happened. That is, until recently listening to you podcast and reading the comments about other people's similar experiences in that specific area. So maybe I did really see something after all? I wonder now that maybe because I was ghost hunting I was more perceptive than I usually would have been. But maybe it was coincidence. I've had a lot of weird stuff happen to me over the years so maybe I'm just more tuned in to these things than some other people. Maybe this thing appeared to me because I was kind of asking for it and it somehow knew. And I just happened to be in a spot where something was hanging around and was able to pick up on that? Or maybe something there is causing people to hallucinate? Or maybe someone dressing up to scare people? Who knows! But at least now know I'm not the only one who's seen weird stuff there!

Very intriguing, I am sure you will agree. Now what struck me as particularly interesting is the detail that the figure lacked a face, for this would appear to be a common feature in most of the reports of the white ghost. Andrew Green in Ghosts of Today lists several encounters with a seemingly female figure dressed in a long garment and a hood but with no face visible within, and often described as moving oddly or even floating. It would seem a similar figure has been seen in the south end of the village near the church, in the surrounding fields, on the road heading north of the village, and even a good way up The Great North Road.

For those who may wish to investigate further, we should note that the area described in the above account has now been built on, and where there was once a field where a young boy saw a strange figure in white are streets of houses. One wonders if any of these residences have reports of unwelcome guests in white...

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FOLKLORE ON FRIDAY - Tales from the Playground Part III - Ghosts of Aycliffe

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been recounting and discussing assorted strange tales I heard as a child at a village school in the North-east of England in the 1970s. And among the usual urban legends and oft-recycled campfire tales, a good chunk of local folklore entered the mix, in particular accounts of various ghosts alleged to haunt the village. 

Now such tales of spectres on my own doorstep were a particular favourite of mine, and this was partly because it always deliciously terrifying to learn of ghosts roaming so near to my home. However it was also because these tales passed around in corners of the playground, filled an important gap. Now there have been many guides and gazetteers of strange lands and haunted locations published over the years, but I was always somewhat annoyed that such tomes generally never mentioned anything interesting in my local area. Oh yes, there was always reams written about the big hitters such as Avebury, Pluckley, Hampton Court or Glamis Castle, but often these books gave the North of England somewhat short shrift, and in particular there was rarely anything reported at all for the County of Durham. So then I naturally relished these pieces of local ghostly lore, for they made the immediate world around me a more exciting and magical place. Although given the lurid and generally dubious nature of these tales passed around the schoolyard, even as a child,  I was somewhat sceptical about their veracity. 

However I never forgot them, and in later years a little research would prove that several of these local phantoms were more than the imaginings of school kids. Probably best known to the wider world is a figure that haunts the road through Aycliffe Village. As we mentioned last week, in the old days, the Great North Road used to run through the village, and this particular phantom is believed to date back over two hundred years, first reported in the days when coaching inns thrived. This particular spectre is actually a familiar species of folkloric haunting, the road ghost. And as the name implies, these spirits haunt the sides of roads and highways, and usually they have a Phantom Hitchhiker style story attached to them. And this Aycliffe road ghost is no exception. 

What used to be the Great North Road is the A167 these days, and where it once used to travel through the centre, now it passes through just the North-west edge of the village. At the southern end you pass by an old church, St Andrews which dates back to Saxon times, and on the road leading into the village is where a former coaching inn stood, now a pub the North Briton. Now according to the tales I heard, it was said that the ghost of a young woman haunted this particular stretch of the road. On dark nights, it was said that drivers heading south towards Darlington reported seeing the figure of a young lady, usually described as wearing a white raincoat, standing by the side of the road, seemingly looking to hitch a ride. 

Now over the years, several drivers took pity on her, for as you'd expect it was nearly always a wet and rainy night, and offered the young lady a ride. Our mystery woman in white apparently always wanted to get to Darlington, but much to our gallant drivers' shock and horror, long before they reached the town, the young lady would always vanish from the car. However if your passenger melting away into the rain-streaked darkness wasn't frightening enough, in some versions it was claimed that our unfortunate drivers would look around and see the lady was now suddenly covered in streaming blood just before she dematerialised before their eyes! 

Of course, as is typical in this kind of folk tale, there is an eerie little coda. Our troubled driver would then later discover that the young lady he had picked up born an uncanny resemblance to a woman killed a few months earlier. And the driver would then discover a story that would tell of how she was looking to get home late one night, but unfortunately the vehicle she hitched a ride with met a horrific road accident that killed all involved. Naturally the tale usually concluded with the story-teller pronouncing solemnly that on dark, rainy nights you can still see her trying to get home... 

Apparently just a year after my family moved away from the village, in 1978 a Mr Dennis Fisher reported to the Birmingham Society of Ghost Hunters that the mystery lady had hitched a ride and done her unsettling vanishing turn again. Interestingly in this case she was travelling north and disappeared when they reached Rushyford some four miles up the road. However according to research into this spectre's history by Andrew Green, one of our leading parapsychologists, this is in fact the traditional direction she travels in - 

Ron Watson writing in the Newtonian mentions an earlier report in the Aycliffe Chronicle, of a phantom 'White Lady' haunting the Great North Road. The story is associated with the finding of the body of young woman in 1698 in the nearby River Skerne. She has been witnessed fairly recently, however, over 250 years later, dressed in white and wearing a veil. Originally it seems she was collected by stage coaches travelling between the 'North Briton' and what is now the 'Eden Arms' in Rushyford. 

from Ghosts of Today by Andrew Green (Kaye and Ward 1980)

It is interesting to note these variations in the tales of Aycliffe's vanishing hiker. The versions I heard as a child had clearly been updated to move with the times - her death involved a car accident, had occurred relatively recently, and reflected the fact that most folks were then travelling south into Darlington (where most of our parents were employed) rather than going north between two small villages. But also, as we see from Mr Fisher's report, the traditional version of the haunting was still occurring after I had heard the new variants. Once again, I would be interested to learn which version any of you good folks at home have heard.

As I mentioned earlier, this hitchhiking road ghost is the one you will most commonly find listed in books of ghostly lore that take the trouble to mention hauntings in the North-east. And often appended to the tale are reports of various sightings of a white female figure in the village itself. However I rather suspect these reports relate to the ghost that is most well-known to the locals - the Grey Lady. And shall learn more of this infamous spectre next time...