A History of the Ancient Parish of Leek

Spectacular natural phenomena, sundials made of ice and stories of a headless horseman! John Sleigh’s 1862 collection, A History of the Ancient Parish of Leek is the subject of our maiden episode!

‘An old witch of the Frith used to transform herself into the shape of a hare, and allow Mr. Wood’s dogs to course her, for the sake of a small gratuity usually given to her husband, who would discreetly hint at her whereabouts.’

Tales From Antiquaria is a podcast dedicated to exploring the legacy of work published regarding folklore and local history during the golden age of antiquarian writing in the nineteenth century.

For show notes and links, visit the episodes page at talesfromantiquaria.com.

Episode written, produced and presented by Eli Lewis-Lycett. All source material taken directly from the stated publication. Main theme music by Humanoid Media. Incidental music from Restum-Anoush. 

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Transcript

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Sundials made of ice and stories of a headless horseman. We'll hear about them all tonight. My name is Eli and this is Tales from Antiquaria, Episode I: A History of the Ancient Parish of Leek. I've been involved in folklore research, history, writing, and podcasts for quite a few years now, and in that world, one of the most useful and wonderful tools we have is the library of books written by antiquarian writers in, for the most part, the 1800s. These collections are full of folklore, legends, and general historical observations from a time when the writers were often collecting things firsthand. Most of their content, however, isn't that widely circulated, but they're full of absolute gems. And so that's where the idea for the podcast came from: finding an outlet for all of these oral histories and to dive into them and share them with other like-minded history fans exactly as they were originally recorded. The writers were often quite interesting characters themselves, and we'll typically touch on their background before we jump into the tales on each episode. The entries we share here are pulled from the various collections we cover, as I found them interesting, unique, downright weird at times, or otherwise noteworthy. Some passages are short and sparse, others far longer and much more detailed. That's simply the way these books present themselves. But no matter how much we can fit into an episode, there's always way, way more available in the book itself. So should you wish to, you can explore every book we cover yourself by using the links in the show notes. And finally, I suppose I should make a point of saying, as obvious as it might seem to most, nothing is meant to offend, but if tales of witchcraft, civil war, knights, fairies, and seventeenth century murder, or the way those tales may be told are subjects that make you uncomfortable, probably best to stop listening now. However, if those kind of topics are a bit of you and wet the whistle, so to speak, hopefully you'll find this an enjoyable listen. Born in 1826, John Slee was a Staffordshire local who enjoyed a successful legal career. This allowed him to indulge his passion for local history and afforded him the opportunity to create the title from which we draw tonight. A History of the Ancient Parish of Leake, published by Robert Wall of Leake in 1862. A good chunk of the book is focused around the history of the local Abbey, Julicris, and its founder, the sixth Earl of Chester, Ranolph to Blondeville. Both will crop up in the episode tonight. Elsewhere we've got ghosts, secret passages, and a really early example of the kind of lore we see in a lot of werewolf films today. Except in our case tonight, it's a witch and a hare, so keep your ears open for that one. Leek, for those who are unfamiliar, is the historic market town of the Staffordshire Moorlands, a region of North Staffordshire that borders both Cheshire and the Peaks of Derbyshire, or as Slee himself described it back in 1862. Leek, the metropolis of the Moorlands, and now a busy manufacturing town with some 10,000 inhabitants and one of the best markets in the Middle Counties, is healthly situated above the valley of the Barren Chernet. Surrounded by an amphitheatre of rocks and hills, from some of the higher points of which you can discern the Great Pennine Chain, the Welsh Mountains, the Rikin in Shropshire, the Vale Royal of Cheshire, and the estuaries of the Dee and the Mersey beyond. It is a beautiful landscape, one I know quite well. So episode one, let's begin On the death of Ranulph de Blondeville, whose heart was buried in Lake. The Chronicle of Julicris gives a wild tradition respecting the Earl Ranulf, that on the day of his death a great company in the likeness of men, headed by a certain potent parsonage, hastily passed by an Anchorite sal near Wallingford. The hermit seeing them asked, Whither are ye wending so fast? And thus the one questioned replied, We are demons, making speed to the death of Earl Ranulf, so we may accuse him of his sins. The hermit, hearing this, asked the demon to return the same way within thirty days and let him know the result. The demon came accordingly and said that the Earl had been for his iniquities condemned to the torments of Hal, but that the great white mastiffs of Julicris had yelled so loudly when his sentence was executed that the depths of Hal had been disturbed by the noise and their prince had been compelled to release him, for no greater enemy of theirs than Ur Ranulf had ever before entered the infernal regions. A secret passage from the Abbey. Traditions of concealed wealth, as for instance of a golden chair and candlesticks, linger about these crumbling ruins, and popular belief still exists that there is a subterranean passage running hence, crossing under the bed of the river to the old church at Leek, about half a mile distant. The death of William Trafford. Near the Vicarage House is a small upright stone in memory of William Trafford of Swarthamley, the royalist who died December 10, 1697, aged 93. It depicts him with a threshing flail in his hands, a wheat sheaf at his feet, and the words now thus in a scroll over his head. The popular tradition is at being hard pressed by a troop of Cromwell's ironsides, he assumed this disguise having buried his valuables beneath the very floor of the barn in which they found him, and to all their questions he answered simply between each stroke of his flail, now thus, now thus. This in turn led them to suppose he was nothing but a rustic idiot, and so they took their departure, leaving him unmolested. On a natural phenomena visible from the churchyard of St. Edward's. From the higher churchyard is an extensive and varied view, embracing both the roaches and the cloud, and in the summer solstice the sun seems hence to set there twice, for disappearing behind the latter mountain, he again shows himself on the north side before finally sinking beneath the horizon. And so it is that within a very few miles, the inhabitants have the rising sun when he is in fact past his meridian, as at Naridale, and then the setting sun twice in the space of a very few hours as seen here at Leek. A legend of the Black Mirror. Among the unusual accidents that have attended the female sex in the course of their lives, I think on the narrow escapes they have made from death, whereof I met with one, mentioned with admiration by everybody at Leek, that happened not far off at the Black Mirror of Moridge. Though famous for nothing for which it is commonly reputed, that it is bottomless, that no cattle will drink of it, nor birds fly over it, it is famous for the single deliverance of a poor woman enticed hither on a dismal stormy night by a ruffian, who, having first gotten over the child, intended in this remote, inhospitable place to have dispatched her by drowning. That same night there were several persons of inferior rank drinking in an alehouse, the cock at the corner of the marketplace and Stockwell Street at Leek, whereof one, a butcher, having been out and observing the darkness and the other ill circumstances of the weather, came in again and said to the rest of his companions, he would be stout indeed that would venture to go to the Black Mirror in such a night. When one of them replied that for a crown or some such sum he would undertake the journey, the rest joined their purses, and the bargain being struck, away he went. At length coming near the mere heard the lamentable cries of this distressed woman. She was begging for mercy, which at first put him to a stand, but being a man of great resolution and some policy, he went boldly on, counterfeiting the presence of diverse other persons with him, calling out Jack, Dick, Tom, here are the rogues we were looking for. This being heard by the murderer, he left the woman and fled, and she was found stripped of her clothes at the Mir side and brought back to Leek, both as ample testimony of him having been at the mere and of God's good providence too. Selected old customs. One of the very few old traditional customs still kept up in this locality is that of begging or pulling for soul cakes, very much like the modern buns, on All Saints' Day, November the 1st. Children will go from house to house, singing some such doggerel as this. An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry, or any good thing to make us merry. One for Peter, two for Paul, three for him who made us all. Up with your kettle and down with your pan, give us some apples, and we'll begin. Go down in your cellar and there you will find a barrel of ale and another of wine. We hope you'll prove kind with your wine and your beer, and we'll come no more a soul in till this time next year. This charming piece of rustic ritual links to older pre-Reformation practices of souling, seeking prayers and offerings for the dead, which later transformed into more secular festive traditions involving food, song, and seasonal cheer. Another singular custom which was until very lately prevailing here is that of lifting or heaving at Easter. On Easter Monday, the young man would deck out a chair with flowers and ribbons and carry it about, compelling every young woman they met to get into it and suffer herself to be lifted as high as they could reach into the air. If she refused, she would be kissed. On Easter Tuesday, the young women in turn would deck out their own chair and lift the men or make them pay a fine. This custom, which also prevailed in some of the neighbouring counties, appears to have been admitted even amongst the highest ranks of the 13th century, for it's recorded in a wardrobe account preserved among the records of the Tower of London that King Edward I in the eighteenth year of his reign paid a large sum of money for refusing to be lifted into the chair of the Queen's Seven Ladies of the Bedchamber and Maids of Honour. A mysterious pack at Hairgate. Hairegate, an ancient Dutch-looking house, was the seat of a branch now extinct in the male line of the Chorley family. About a century ago, when the surrounding country was all unenclosed, a gang of pedlers encamped on the moor near Hairgate. They asked permission to leave one of their packs in the kitchen, under the pretense that it contained something unusually valuable. That night a maidservant, having admitted her lover after the family had retired, seated herself upon the pack, only to perceive that it suddenly became animate and gifted with the power of motion. On examination it was found that a man was concealed within, who, by this wily Trojan horse method, hoped to secure his accomplice's admittance later and thus enable an easy ransacking of the premises. A letter to the Christian Remembrancer concerning a sundial of ice. No solution was ever ventured for the marvellous circumstance narrated in the following letter, extracted from the Christian Remembrancer. Mr. Editor, the other day I read Bishop Burnett's Life of Sir Matthew Hale. The illustrations on page 68 called to my mind those used by Dr. Paley in the beginning of his natural theology. And then my thoughts became occupied, as they often had before, with what I once saw at Meerbrook, a sundial formed of ice. I beg to send you an account of this curiosity taken from my father's diary, assuring you that what is described really was seen, and that the account is not at all exaggerated, but strictly agreeable with truth. It was observed in the year 1822 and was as follows. Tuesday, February 12th, 1822. A most curious nomin of ice appeared upon our dial post, exactly in the same direction as the old brass one had appeared. It seemed the old one had been removed and its vacant place filled with water about an inch deep. This icy nomin was nearly the same size as the old brass one, dated 1673, nearly of the same thickness and exceedingly clear, transparent and hard. Lines too were drawn from the centre or point of the Norman to the circumference as if marking out the hours. Who can give a probable philosophical account of this strange phenomenon? The morning of the day above mentioned being fine and the sun out, I was walking near the spot when I observed something shining on the dial post. I took this to be glass, but walking up to it I beheld to my astonishment a sundial of ice. I immediately showed this to my father and others and a pail was placed over it, preserving the curiosity until about noon on that day when the nomin fell. Where it had stood we observed a fissure through the surface of the ice which had represented the dial plate. But the cavity cut in the stone for the reception of the dial plate was quite smooth and contained nothing to cause the water to be frozen in that particular form. The situation of the dial is about six yards to the south of our chancel door and in all other directions quite open. If you do not think the nature of this subject such as to forbid its appearance in your Christian remembrancer, and if you should allow a small space and some future number for the whole or part of this account, and if you or any of your ingenious and learned readers should be pleased to favour us with some curious observations on this extraordinary phenomena, I doubt not that they would be thankfully received by many of your friends, and especially, Mr Editor, by your constant reader and very obedient servant, James Turner. The hare of Leak Frith. An old witch of the Frith, we are gravely assured, used to transform herself into the shape of a hare and allow Mr Wood of Frith Bottom and his dogs to course her for the sake of a small gratuity, usually given to her husband, who would discreetly hint at her whereabouts. She always managed, however, to baffle the dogs, disappearing at a particular hole in the fence. On one occasion she was so hard run that her husband within view cried out, Now Nan, run for thy life or they'll be eaten. As she escaped through the usual gap, the foremost dog made a snap at her and tore out a quantity of fur. On looking over the wall, the huntsman discovered an old woman adjusting her disordered dress and smoothing her hair down over a wound in her forehead. The Cannibals of Lud Church. Another tradition connected with this district is so horrible and improbable that had it not already appeared in Legends of the Moorlands, we should scarcely venture to quote it. A flash peddler known as Ward of the Brook, overtaken by night in the vicinity of Lud Church, entered a lonely roadside in. There he was accosted by a child, who ran up to him exclaiming, What fat hands you have, what nice pies they will make. Disturbed by the remark and recalling ill reports about the house, he resolved to flee. Making an excuse he slipped outside and made off through back forest to Blackbrook, where, leaping from rock to rock, he took refuge under Castor's Bridge, a rude arch on the river Dane. No sooner had he esconded himself than he heard the cries of men and bloodhounds in pursuit. They tracked him to the stream but were foiled by the water, despite coming within a few yards of its hiding place. The next day he informed the authorities. The occupants of the house were seized and shortly afterwards executed on several well authenticated proofs of murder. The house itself was then utterly demolished. The headless horseman of the Moorlands. Many ghostly legends and superstitions still retain their sway over the minds of the denizens of these Moorland wilds. Most notable is the legend of the headless rider who haunts the moors between Leek and Warslow. Numerous authentic exploits of this spectre are on record, attested to by so many credible living witnesses, that to doubt them would be worse than heterodoxy. Account 1. The Market Fresh Traveller. A man returning from Leek, perhaps somewhat market fresh, saw just beyond Leek Edge a neighbour on horseback. He hailed him for a lift home, but no sooner was he mounted than he discovered to his horror that his companion was in fact the goblin horseman. Too late, the horse sprang forward with whirlwind swiftness, leaping fields, trees, hedges, and ditches. One moment the man felt his feet brushing treetops, and the next he was hurtling over the heath. In the end he was found at his own doorstep, bruised and broken, and died a few days later of his injuries. Account two. The swain and the phantom. A young swain from near water houses, on his regular visits to his sweetheart, became so accustomed to the phantom's presence that, as our informant phrases it, they used to walk again one another. When he told a friend about the encounters, the friend begged to come along, and eventually the horseman appeared. He's there. Where? whispered the friend, who lacked the gift of second sight. Grasp by hand came the reply, and as our palms touched, the young man shrank back in terror, perceiving the ghastly figure at his side. Account three, the howdy ride. On another occasion, a rustic was sent to fetch the howdy wife, midwife, from Warslow. On the way, the apparition joined him unceremoniously. His horse trembled, the dog yelled, and the man broke into such a profuse sweat that it settled as due on the outside of his overcoat. On arrival, the woman, observing his disordered state, questioned him closely. Though he was reluctant to admit what had occurred, she agreed to return with him, and they arrived home without further molestation. But the next day the horse dropped down dead between the ploughstealths, and the dog too soon after sickened and died. Ultimately, seven clergymen were called in to speak to and lay this Bet Noir of the Moors. So there we have it, a history of the ancient parish of Leek. There was a reason I chose this book for the first episode. It's a title I've drawn from heavily in the past for research projects. I suppose I thought that familiarity might ease me in. I'm not sure it did. But I've really enjoyed reading these tonight, and I hope you've enjoyed listening. We'll be back soon with the next episode. So until then, take care and may your God go with you.