As we approach Halloween, a time associated with witches, hobgoblins, fairies, demons and other evil spirits, we are reminded that Hestercombe has been no stranger to the paranormal in years gone by.
One of the earliest mentions of the unexplained on the estate is recorded in a 1924 poem, entitled 'The Hestercombe Warning' by Russell Markland ("R.M. Ingersley") which is based upon an unusual encounter in Hestercombe Park about 1665. One day Sir John Warre’s minister, who lived nearby, met a ‘strange old man with gleaming eyes, yet venerable’ on his way to visit the baronet and received a warning: ‘Prepare thyself, for such a day (which was about three days later) you shall die.’ The minister laughed off the prophecy and walked on, later joking with Sir John and Lady Warre over the matter. On the morning of the third day, Sir John called upon the Parson early to invite him to go hunting and ‘to chaff his neighbour once again upon the warning’. A maid went up to his room ‘where, shrouded in a heavy gloom, was found the Parson – dead!’ The old man had spoken truthfully.
Mary Butters (1910-2005), daughter of Charles Henry Butters, gamekeeper to E. W. B. Portman 1907-17, had an unnerving encounter with the supernatural when only a child. On the night of the annual servant’s ball (which was usually held around Christmas time), Mary’s babysitter, Mrs. Bess Porter of Buncumbe, near Kingston St Mary, was bringing Mary home in a pony and trap when ‘the horse shied at an apparition by the Rose Hill turn. Both saw the ghost and heard the rustling of her skirts’. Blimey!