Exmoor Lockdown Diary 73 - The Black Dog
Perhaps those of us who’ve been in the more strict kind of lockdown are going a little bit crazy. I say that, because my son said it.
I was on the phone to him just now, looking out of a bedroom window on the scorching hot day outside, when I noticed a large black dog running across our neighbour’s garden. Mark and Jan do not have a dog any longer - when they did it was a large yellow hound - so the appearance of this canine made me stop and stare.
As the dog ran around I mentioned to my son that it could be a bad sign. A harbinger of death, even. Because the West Country is filled with ghost tales which focus on black dogs - and they tend to be bad news for anyone who sees them. Harry, my son, said perhaps I was at last going a little stir-crazy or maybe had drunk too much cider.But this was the first thing in the morning and, anyway, I will now prove to him the truth behind the black dog story by re-telling the following tale.
Which., by the way, appears in my book Christmas Ghost Stories.
Here’s the story I wrote a few years ago…
Normally the site of a dog, black or otherwise, wouldn’t cause me anything like a fright, but I had just been talking to artist Tad Mandziej who drew the picture that inspired this article.
Artist - and my great friend - Tad Mandziej
Look into the subject of black dogs and you will soon find they have a dubious name in the British countryside. Down the centuries there have been more sightings of phantom black dogs than of any other spooky being or creature.
Black dogs rule the sepulchral roost. They are at the top of the premiership division when it comes to frightening rural spectres. They haunt where other ghosts fear to tread.
Well known ghost writer Theo Brown once noted that she had counted some 50 black dog related stories in Devon alone – and that there were hundreds of tales of spooky canine sightings around the country.
Tad’s black dog narrative is as chilling as any. It is authenticated by official documentation and it features parsons, bells, candles, a cold grim lonely pond and a pillar of flame.
The haunting is said to occur in a lonesome corner of West Somerset just outsider the boundaries of Exmoor National Park. Many readers will have passed through Washford on the main Minehead to Taunton road, but few will have explored the wide open hills that rise to the south of the village.
These are the sandstone foothills that eventually rise to meet the Brendon escarpment, but immediately south of Washford they remain modest windswept affairs where few people roam save for the occasional farmer tending his cereal crops.
Tad 30 years ago out mushroom picking with me
Somewhere in the middle of all this land of agricultural silence there is an ancient manor house, said to be one of the most haunted in England. And there is a pond. A dank, lifeless, pothole of a pond sunk in the middle of the sandstones unheralded save for the few scrub trees that surround it.
Hillhead Pond is the sort of place that sends you scurrying on your way with unexplained thoughts of death and drowning. Local kids are warned to stay clear by worried mums and dads. Even the birds seem to forsake this sorry pool of dark water.
But a few centuries ago it was the central scene of some hair-raising and extraordinary goings-on – sombre happenings that are documented in the annals of Bardon Manor, situated just a few fields away to the south.
Tad told me: “It was when seven parsons came to Bardon with ‘bell, book and candle to exorcise a troublesome spirit’. That’s what the documents say.
“They did exorcism and somehow finished up with great big black dog on their hands. So they put a halter round its neck and took out to Hillhead Pond where they ordered the servants to throw it in. They were told that they must, on no account, look back after they’d done this. But, of course - humans being what they are - one of the servants couldn’t resist a quick look and they saw a huge pillar of flame leaping out of the pond.”
Tad (top left) looking spooky himself at Roadwater Panto
Since then there have often been sightings of this terrifying creature roaming the nearby hills and few but the bravest of folk would venture past the pond after dark.
“I went there once and sat down to do a drawing and nearly caught my death of cold,” says Tad. “There is a nasty chill there you cannot explain.”
He also told me how he once took his cousin – who happens to be an art critic for a national newspaper – out to look at the sepulchral pond.
“He is very much a man of the world and doesn’t believe in ghosts – but I happened to see a walker strolling along with a black Labrador in the distance. So I carried on with the story, but gradually manoeuvred my way around so that the dog was in my cousin’s view. The look of horror on his face was a picture…”
My father, who was a journalist all his working life, visited Bardon Manor in 1957 when there were rumours that Sir Anthony Eden, the recently retired Prime Minister, was intending to buy the place.
“Rumour was wrong once again,” wrote my father, “and Bardon remains in the possession of Mr and Mrs Edward Collier who have shared this mellow old house with a throng of ghosts and phantom noises for the past 30 years.”
“They never trouble us and they add to the excitement of living here,” Mrs Collier told my father as they “traced our intricate way through the ground floor rooms with their enormous open hearths, constantly varying floor levels and friendly old beams”.
“If ever there was a convincing teller of ghost stories, that one is Mrs Collier,” wrote my father. “As a keen rider to hounds with a matter-of-fact, almost blunt way of speaking, she gives the impression of being the last person in the world to be taken in by any poppycock superstitions. It is apparent that she would have to experience ghosts herself before she would believe in them – and yet she talks about people walking through walls as if they were an everyday occurrence.”
Only once in 30 years did the formidable Mrs Collier “freeze with horror”. It happened in the gloaming one night as she passed the 600-year-old chestnut tree which used to dominate the end of the house closes to Hillhead Pond. Mrs Collier couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell my father what form the apparition took – but after hearing Tad’s story I can’t help wonder if it wasn’t that dreadful dusky hound.
My own brush with a black dog earlier was, by the way, far more mundane. It was a harmless black Labrador being taken for a walk by two local ladies who were enjoying the slight easing of the lockdown requirements..
