Lancashire Sketches

"But his Boggartship, having now fairly become the possessor of a room at the farm, it would appear, considered himself in the light of a privileged inmate, and not, as hitherto, an occasional visitor, who merely joined in the general expression of merriment. Familiarity, they say, breeds contempt; and now the children's bread and butter would be snatched away, or their porringers of bread and milk would be dashed to the ground by an unseen hand; or, if the younger ones were left alone but for a few minutes, they were sure to be found screaming with terror on the return of their nurse. Sometimes, however, he would behave himself kindly. The cream was then churned, and the pans and kettles scoured without hands. There was one circumstance which was remarkable:—the stairs ascended from the kitchen; a partition of boards covered the ends of the steps, and formed a closet beneath the staircase. From one of the boards of this partition a large round knot was accidentally displaced; and one day the youngest of the children, while playing with the shoehorn, stuck it into this knot-hole. Whether or not the aperture had been formed by the Boggart as a peep-hole to watch the motions of the family, I cannot pretend to say. Some thought it was, for it was called the Boggart's peep-hole; but others said that they had remembered it long before the shrill laugh of the Boggart was heard in the house. However this may have been, it is certain that the horn was ejected with surprising precision at the head of whoever put it there; and either in mirth or in anger the horn was darted forth with great velocity, and struck the poor child over the ear.

"There are few matters upon which parents feel more acutely than that of the maltreatment of their offspring; but time, that great soother of all things, at length familiarised this dangerous occurrence to every one at the farm, and that which at the first was regarded with the utmost terror, became a kind of amusement with the more thoughtless and daring of the family. Often was the horn slipped slyly into the hole, and in return it never failed to be flung at the head of some one, but most commonly at the person who placed it there. They were used to call this pastime, in the provincial dialect, 'laking wi't' Boggart;' that is playing with the Boggart. An old tailor, whom I but faintly remember, used to say that the horn was often 'pitched' at his head, and at the head of his apprentice, whilst seated here on the kitchen table, when they went their rounds to work, as is customary with country tailors. At length the goblin, not contented with flinging the horn, returned to his night persecutions. Heavy steps, as of a person in wooden clogs, were at first heard clattering down stairs in the dead hour of darkness; then the pewter and earthen dishes appeared to be dashed on the kitchen floor; though in the morning all remained uninjured on their respective shelves. The children generally were marked out as objects of dislike by their unearthly tormentor. The curtains of their beds would be violently pulled to and fro; then a heavy weight, as of a human being, would press them nigh to suffocation, from which it was impossible to escape. The night, instead of being the time for repose, was disturbed with screams and dreadful noises, and thus was the whole house alarmed night after night. Things could not long continue in this fashion; the farmer and his good dame resolved to leave a place where they could no longer expect rest or comfort; and George Cheetham was actually following, with his wife and family, the last load of furniture, when they were met by a neighbouring farmer, named John Marshall.

"'Well, Georgy, and so yo're leaving th' owd house at last?' said Marshall.

"'Heigh, Johnny, my lad, I'm in a manner forced to't, thou sees,' replied the other; 'for that weary Boggart torments us so, we can neither rest neet nor day for't. It seems like to have a malice again't young uns, an' ommost kills my poor dame here at thoughts on't, and so thou sees we're forc'd to flit like.'

"He had got thus far in his complaint, when, behold, a shrill voice, from a deep upright churn, the topmost utensil on the cart, called out, 'Ay, ay, neighbour, we're flitting, yo see.'

"'Od rot thee,' exclaimed George: 'if I'd known thou'd been flitting too, I wadn't ha' stirred a peg. Nay, nay, it's to no use, Mally,' he continued, turning to his wife, 'we may as weel turn back again to th' owd house, as be tormented in another not so convenient.'"

Thus endeth Crofton Croker's tradition of the "Boggart," or "Bar-gaist," which, according to the story, was long time a well-known supernatural pest of old Cheetham's farm-house, but whose principal lurking place was supposed to be in a gloomy nook of "Boggart Ho' Clough," or "Boggart Hole Clough," for the name adopted by the writer of the tradition appears to be derived from that superstitious belief. With respect to the exact origin of the name, however, I must entirely defer to those who know more about the matter than myself. The features of the story are, generically, the same as those of a thousand such like superstitious stories still told and believed in all the country parts of England—though perhaps more in the northern part of it than elsewhere. Almost every lad in Lancashire has, in his childhood, heard, either from his "reverend grannie," or from some less kin and less kind director of his young imagination, similar tales connected with old houses, and other haunts, in the neighbourhood of his own birthplace.

Among those who have noticed "Boggart Ho' Clough," is Mr. Samuel Bamford, well known as a poet, and a graphic prose writer upon the stormy political events of his earlier life, and upon whatever relates to the manners and customs of Lancashire. In describing matters of the latter kind, he has the advantage of being "native and to the manner born;" and still more specially so in everything connected with the social peculiarities of the locality of his birth. He was born at Middleton, about two miles from "Boggart Ho' Clough," and, as I said before, he resided for some years close to the clough itself. In his "Passages in the Life of a Radical," vol. 1. p. 130, there begins one of the raciest descriptions of Lancashire characteristics with which I am acquainted. The first part of this passage contains a descriptive account of "Plant," a country botanist; "Chirrup," a bird-catcher; and "Bangle," a youth "of an ardent temperament, but bashful," who was deeply in love with "a young beauty residing in the house of her father, who held a small milk-farm on the hill-side, not far from Old Birkle." It describes the meeting of the three in the lone cottage of Bangle's mother, near Grislehurst wood; the conversation that took place there; and the superstitious adventure they agreed upon, in order to deliver young Bangle from the hopelessness of his irresistible and unrequited love-thrall. "His modest approaches had not been noticed by the adored one; and, as she had danced with another youth at Bury fair, he imagined she was irrecoverably lost to him, and the persuasion had almost driven him melancholy. Doctors had been applied to, but he was no better; philters and charms had been tried to bring down the cold-hearted maid—but all in vain:—

"He sought her at the dawn of day;He sought her at the noonin';He sought her when the evening grayHad brought the hollow moon in."He call'd her on the darkest night,With wizard spells to bind her:And when the stars arose in light,He wandered forth to find her.

"At length sorcerers and fortune-tellers were thought of, and 'Limping Billy,' a noted seer, residing at Radcliffe Bridge, having been consulted, said the lad had no chance of gaining power over the damsel, unless he could take Saint John's Fern seed; and if he could but secure three grains of that, he might bring to him whatever he wished, that walked, flew, or swam."

Such being the conditions laid down, and believed in by the three, they resolved to venture, together, on the taking of Saint John's Fern seed, with strict observance of the time and the cabalistic ceremonials enjoined by "Limping Billy," the seer, of Radcliffe Bridge. "Plant," the botanist, "knew where the finest clump of fern in the country grew;" and he undertook to accompany "Chirrup" and "Bangle" to the spot, at the time appointed, the eve of St. John the Baptist. The remainder of the passage describes "Boggart Ho' Clough," the spot in which St. John's Fern then grew in great abundance, and where the botanists of the district still find the plant; it describes, also, the fearful enterprise of the three at the witching hour of midnight, in search of the enchanted seed:—

"On the left hand, reader, as thou goest towards Manchester, ascending from Blackley, is a rather deep valley, green swarded, and embowered in plantations and older woods. A driving path, which thou enterest by a white gate hung on whale-jaw posts,54 leads down to a grove of young trees, by a modern and substantial farm-house, with green shutters, sashed windows, and flowers peeping from the sills. A mantle of ivy climbs the wall, a garden is in front, and an orchard, redolent of bloom, and fruit in season, nods on the hill-top above. Here, at the time Plant was speaking of, stood a very ancient house, built partly of old-fashioned bricks, and partly of a timber frame, filled with raddlings and daub (wicker-work plastered with clay). It was a lone and desolate-looking house indeed; misty and fearful, even at noonday. It was known as 'Boggart-ho',' or 'Fyrin'-ho';' and the gorge in which it is situated, was, and is still, known as 'Boggart' or 'Fyrin-ho' Kloof,' 'the glen of the hall of spirits.' Such a place, might we suppose, had Milton in contemplation, when he wrote the passage of his inimitable poem:—

"Tells how the drudging goblin sweat,To earn his cream-bowl, duly set,When, in one night, ere glimpse of morn,His shadowy flail had thrash'd the cornWhich ten day-labourers could not end;Then lies him down, the lubber fiend:And, stretch'd out all the chimney's length,Basks at the fire, his hairy strength;And cropful, out of door he flings,Ere the first cock his matin sings.

"By the side of the house, and through the whole length of the valley, wends a sickly, tan-coloured rindle, which, issuing from the great White Moss, comes down, tinged with the colour of its parent swamp. Opposite the modern house, a forbidden road cuts through the plantation on the right towards Moston Lane. Another path leads behind the house, up precipitous banks, and through close bowers, to Booth Hall; and a third, the main one, proceeds along the kloof, by the side of the stream, and under sun-screening woods, until it forks into two roads: one a cattle-track, to 'The Bell,' in Moston; and the other a winding and precipitous footpath, to a farm-house at 'Wood-end,' where it gains the broad upland, and emerges into unshaded day.

"About half way up this kloof, is an open, cleared space of green and short sward: it is probably two hundred yards in length, by sixty in width; and passing along it from Blackley, a group of fine oaks appear, on a slight eminence, a little to the left. This part of the grove was, at the time we are concerned with, much more crowded with underwood than at present.55 The bushes were then close and strong; fine sprouts of 'yerth-groon' hazel and ash were common as nuts; whilst a thick bush of bramble, wild rose, and holly, gave the spot the appearance of a place inclosed and set apart for mysterious concealment. Intermingled with these almost impervious barriers, where tufts of tall green fern, curling and bending gracefully; and a little separate from them and near the old oaks, might be observed a few fern clumps of a singular appearance; of a paler green than the others—with a flatter and a broader leaf—sticking up, rigid and expanded, like something stark with mute terror. These were 'Saint John's Fern;' and the finest of them was the one selected by Plant for the experiment now to be described.

"A little before midnight, on the eve of St. John, Plant, Chirrup, and Bangle, where at the whale-jaw gate before-mentioned; and, having slightly scanned each other, they proceeded, without speaking, until they had crossed the brook at a stepping-place, opposite the old Fyrin-ho'. The first word spoken was—'What hast thou?'

"'Mine is breawn an' roof,'

said Plant, exhibiting a brown earthern dish. 'What hast thou?' he then asked.

"'Mine is breet enough,'

said Chirrup, showing a pewter platter, and continued, 'What hast thou?'

"'Teed wi' web an' woof,Mine is deep enough,'

said Bangle, displaying a musty, dun skull, with the cap sawn off above the eyes, and left flapping like a lid by a piece of tanned scalp, which still adhered. The interior cavities had also been stuffed with moss and lined with clay, kneaded with blood from human veins, and the youth had secured the skull to his shoulders by a twine of three strands of unbleached flax, of undyed wool, and of woman's hair, from which also depended a raven black tress, which a wily crone had procured from the maid he sought to obtain.

"'That will do,'

said a voice, in a half whisper, from one of the low bushes they were passing. Plant and Chirrup paused; but Bangle, who had evidently his heart on the accomplishment of the undertaking, said, 'Forward!—if we turn, now a spirit has spoken, we are lost. Come on!' and they went forward.

"A silence, like that of death, was around them as they entered on the opening platting. Nothing moved either in tree or brake. Through a space in the foliage, the stars were seen pale in heaven, and a crooked moon hung in a bit of blue amid motionless clouds. All was still and breathless, as if earth, heaven, and the elements, were aghast. Anything would have been preferable to that unnatural stillness and silence—the hoot of the night owl, the larum of the pit sparrow, the moan of the wind, the toll of a death-bell, or the howl of a ban-dog, would, inasmuch as they are things of this world, have been welcome sounds amid that horrid pause. But no sound came and no object moved.

"Gasping, and with cold sweat oozing on his brow, Plant recollected that they were to shake the fern with a forked rod of witch hazel, and by no means must touch it with their hands, and he asked, in a whisper, if the others had brought one. Both said they had forgotten, and Chirrup said they had better never have come; but Plant drew his knife, and stepping into a moonlighted bush, soon returned with what was wanted, and they went forward.

"The green knowe, the old oaks, the encircled space, and the fern, were now approached; the latter stiff and erect in a gleamy light.

"'Is it deep neet?' said Bangle.

"'It is,' said Plant.

The star that bids the shepherd fold,Now the top of heaven doth hold.

"And they drew near. All was still and motionless.

"Plant knelt on one knee, and held his dish under the fern.

"Chirrup held his broad plate next below, and

"Bangle knelt, and rested the skull directly under both on the green sod; the lid being up.

"Plant said,—

'Good St John, this seed we crave,We have dared; shall we have?'

"A voice responded:—

'Now the moon is downward starting,Moon and stars are all departing;Quick, quick; shake, shake;He whose heart shall soonest break,Let him take.'

"They looked, and perceived by a glance that a venerable form, in a loose robe, was near them.

"Darkness came down like a swoop. The fern was shaken, the upper dish flew into pieces—the pewter one melted; the skull emitted a cry, and eyes glared in its sockets; lights broke—beautiful children were seen walking in their holiday clothes, and graceful female forms sung mournful and enchanting airs.

"The men stood terrified, and fascinated; and Bangle, gazing, bade, 'God bless 'em.' A crash followed as if the whole of the timber in the kloof was being splintered and torn up; strange and horrid forms appeared from the thickets; the men ran as if sped on the wind—they separated, and lost each other. Plant ran towards the old house, and there, leaping the brook, he cast a glance behind him, and saw terrific shapes—some beastly, some part human, and some hellish, gnashing their teeth, and howling, and uttering the most fearful and mournful tones, as if wishful to follow him but unable to do so.

"In an agony of terror he arrived at home, not knowing how he got there. He was, during several days, in a state bordering on unconsciousness; and, when he recovered, he learned that Chirrup was found on the White Moss, raving mad, and chasing the wild birds. As for poor Bangle, he found his way home over hedge and ditch, running with supernatural and fearful speed—the skull's eyes glaring at his back, and the nether jaw grinning and jabbering frightful and unintelligible sounds. He had preserved the seed, however, and, having taken it from the skull, he buried the latter at the cross road from whence he had taken it. He then carried the spell out, and his proud love stood one night by his bed-side in tears. But he had done too much for human nature—in three months after she followed his corpse, a real mourner, to the grave!

"Such was the description my fellow-prisoner gave of what occurred in the only trial he ever made with St John's Fern seed. He was full of old and quaint narratives, and of superstitious lore, and often would beguile time by recounting them. Poor fellow! a mysterious fate hung over him also."

This description of "Boggart Ho' Clough," with its dramatic embodiment of one of our strong local superstitions, is all the more interesting from the pen of one who knew the place and the people so well. I know no other writer who is so able to portray the distinctive characteristics of the people of South Lancashire as Samuel Bamford.

It is now some years since I visited the scene of the foregoing traditions. At that time I was wholly unacquainted with the last of these legends, and I knew little more about "Boggart Ho' Clough," in any way, than its name indicates. I sought the place, then, solely on account of its natural attractions. Feeling curious, however, respecting the import of its name, and dimly remembering Roby's tradition, I made some inquiry in the neighbourhood, and found that, although some attributed the name to the superstitious credulity of the native people, there was one gentleman who nearly destroyed that theory in my mind at the time, by saying that, a short time previous, he had dined with a lawyer who informed him, in the course of a conversation upon the same subject, that he had recently been at a loss how to describe the place in question, having to prepare some notices to be served on trespassers; and, on referring to the title-deeds of the property, he found that a family of the name of "Bowker" had formerly occupied a residence situated in the clough, and that their dwelling was designated "Bowker's Hall." This he adopted as the origin of the name, and described it accordingly. But the testimony of every writer who notices the spot, especially those best acquainted with it, inclines to the other derivation.

But the locality has other points of interest, besides this romantic nook, and the tales of glamour connected with it. In it there is many a boggart story, brought down from the past, many a spot of fearful repute among native people. Apart from all these things, the chapelry of Blackley is enriched with historic associations well worth remembering, and it contains some interesting relics of the ancient manner of life there. In former times the chapelry had in it several fine old halls: Booth Hall, Nuthurst Hall, Lightbowne Hall, Hough Hall, Crumpsall Hall, and Blackley Hall. Some of these still remain. Some of them have been the homes or the birthplaces of men of eminence in their day—eminent for worth as well as station—among whom there is more than one who has left a long trail of honourable recollections behind him. Such men were Humphrey Chetham, Bishop Oldham, and others. Bradford the martyr, also, is said to have resided in this township. William Chadderton, D.D., Bishop of Chester, and afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, was born at Nuthurst Hall, about the year 1540. George Clarke, the founder of the charity which bears his name, and one of Fuller's Worthies, resided in Crumpsall. The following particulars respecting the district and its notabilities I glean from the recently-published "History of the Ancient Chapel of Blackley," by the Rev. John Booker, B.A., of Magdalene College, Cambridge, curate of Prestwich. First, with respect to the ancient state of Blackley, in the survey of Manchester, as taken in the 15th Edward II. (1322), and preserved by Kuerden,56 the following official notice of the township occurs:—"The park of Blakeley is worth, in pannage, aëry of eagles, herons and hawks, honey-bees, mineral earths, ashes, and other issues, fifty-three shillings and fourpence. The vesture of oaks, with the whole coverture, is worth two hundred marks [£133. 6s. 8d.] in the gross. It contains seven miles in circumference, together with two deer-leaps, of the king's grant." This short but significant passage is sufficient to give, the reader a glimpse of the appearance of Blackley township five hundred years ago. From the same authority, we learn that Blackley park (seven miles in circumference) was, at that time, surrounded and fenced in by a wooden paling. "The two 'deer-leaps' were probably cloughs or ravines, of which the most remarkable is the 'Boggart Hole Clough,' a long cleft or dell between two rocks, the sides of which rise abruptly and leave a narrow pass, widening a little here and there, through which flows a small brook. This is the last stronghold of Blackley's ancient characteristic features, where rural tranquility still reigns, free from the bustle and turmoil of mercantile industry around it."

The following particulars respecting the etymology of the name "Blackley," will not be unacceptable to students of language:—"Its etymology is yet a disputed point, owing to the various significations of the Anglo-Saxon word, blac, blæc, bleac, which means not only black, dark, opaque, and even gloomy, but also pale, faded, pallid, from 'blæcan,' to bleach or make white. And, as if these opposite meanings were not sufficiently perplexing, two other forms present themselves, one of which means bleak, cold, bare, and the other yellow; the latter syllable in the name, ley, legh, leag, or leah, signifying a field or place of pasture." On this point, Whittaker says, in his "History of Manchester," "The Saxon blac, black, or blake, frequently imports the deep gloom of trees; hence we have so many places distinguished by the epithet in England, where no circumstances of soil and no peculiarities of water give occasion to it, as the villages of Blackburn and Blackrode in Lancashire, Blakeley-hurst, near Wigan, and our own Blackley, near Manchester; and the woods of the last were even seven miles in circuit as late as the fourteenth century.

"Leland, who wrote about the year 1538, bears testimony to the unaltered aspect of Blackley, under the influence of cultivation, and to the changes incident to the disafforesting of its ancient woodlands. He says:—'Wild bores, bulles, and falcons, bredde in times past at Blakele, now for lack of woode the blow-shoppes decay there.'57

"Blackley had its resident minister as early as the reign of Edward VI., in the person of Father Travis, a name handed down to us in the pages of Fox and Strype. Travis was the friend and correspondent of Bradford the martyr. In the succeeding reign he suffered banishment for his Protestant principles, and his place was probably supplied by a papist."

The site upon which, in 1815, stood the old hall of Blackley, is now occupied by a print-shop. Blackley Hall "was a spacious black-and-white half-timbered mansion, in the post and petrel style, and was situated near to the junction of the lane leading to the chapel and the Manchester and Rochdale turnpike road. It was a structure of considerable antiquity, and consisted of a centre and two projecting wings—an arrangement frequently met with in the ancient manor-houses of this county—and bore evidence of having been erected at two periods.

"Like most other houses of similar pretensions and antiquity, it was not without its traditionary legends, and the boggart of Blackley Hall was as well known as Blackley Hall itself. In the stillness of the night it would steal from room to room, and carry off the bedclothes from the couches of the sleeping, but now thoroughly aroused and discomfited inmates."58