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Author: Richard Holland
Ghostly birds are an unusual phenomenon. Perhaps the best known is that of ‘The Spectral Bird at West Drayton’. It is often referred to in anthologies but the original tale comes from an 1885 book by Canon F G Lee, Glimpses in the Twilight, and is rarely quoted in full. I have pleasure in doing so here:
‘In the middle of the last century, circa 1749, owing to several remarkable circumstances which had then recently occurred, a conviction became almost universal amongst the inhabitants of the village, that the vaults under the church of West Drayton, near Uxbridge [Hertfordshire], were haunted. Strange noises were heard in and about the sacred building, and the sexton of that day, a person utterly devoid of superstition, was on inquiry and examination compelled to admit that certain unaccountable occurrences in regard to the vault had taken place.
‘There are, it is said, three large vaults under the chancel – in the chief of which, towards its eastern part, the ancient and noble family of Paget find their last resting-place. Two other vaults are situated near the west end of the choir, one of the De Burghs, a more ancient family still. From each of these, the most remarkable knockings were sometimes heard, commonly on Friday evenings as was said; and many curious people from the village used to come together to listen to them. They were never either explained or explained away.
‘Some people affirmed that one person had secretly murdered another, then committed suicide, and that both the bodies had been buried side by side in the same grave. Others maintained that three persons from an adjacent mansion-house in company had gone to look through a grating in the side of the foundation of the church – for the ventilation of the vault, and from which screams and noises were heard constantly – and had there seen a very large black raven perched on one of the coffins.
‘This strange bird was seen more than once by the then parish clerk pecking from within at the grating, and furiously fluttering from within the enclosed vault. On another occasion it was seen by other people in the body of the church itself. The wife of the parish clerk and her daughter often saw it.
‘The local bell-ringers, who all professed to deny its existence and appearance, one evening, however, came together to ring a peal, when they were told by a youth that a big raven was flying about inside the chancel. Coming together into the church with sticks and stones and a lantern, four men and two boys found it fluttering about amongst the rafters. They gave chase to it, shouting at and endeavouring to catch it. Driven hither and thither for some time, and twice or thrice beaten with a stick, so that one of its wings seemed to have been thus broken and made to droop, the bird fell down wounded with expanded wings, screaming and fluttering into the eastern part of the chancel, when two of the men on rushing towards it to secure it, and driving it into a corner, vaulted over the communion-rails, and violently proceeded to seize it.
‘As the account stands, it at once sank wounded and exhausted on to the floor, and as they believed in their certain grasp, but all of a moment – it vanished! It is said to be [still] seen, from time to time, often perched on the communion-rails of the sanctuary, or heard fluttering violently within the vault beneath.’
c. Richard Holland 2011, quoting ‘Glimpses in the Twilight’ by G F Lee (1885)
Originally published on Uncanny UK and reproduced here by kind permission of Richard Holland
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