The #Ghosts of St Michael and All Angels:
Situated in the village of Ford, #Northumberland, overlooking the Milfield Plain, a rich area of pre-historic monuments, towards the Cheviot Hills. The oldest parts of the church are 13th Century and would have stood when James IV of Scotland took Ford Castle (behind me as I took the photo) before the Battle of #Flodden in 1513, fought just a few miles to the west.
Both the church and the castle were heavily renovated in the 19th Century.
The old Rectory used to stand between the church and the castle, said to have been a very old house, but now gone without a trace. A guest who stayed there once, in a room in a narrow wing facing the castle to the north, reported being disturbed in the night by a 'violent shaking' of the bed curtains, and a voice in her ear said twice, "This is not a spare room.".
On another occasion in the late 18th Century, two men of the village, one of them the schoolmaster, passed the churchyard after dark and saw the Rector (priest) standing in the moonlight, as if preparing to take a funeral. He then walked away and passed into the church. At the time, the Rector was very ill in bed, and died soon afterwards.
It was a traditional belief in the area that to be buried to the north of the church was a terrible thing, although it was noted that this belief had died out by the end of the 19th Century.
#History #Folklore #Stories #FolkStories #FolkHistory #GhostStories #Haunting #Supernatural @folklore