‘Gappergennies?’ You say, ‘Whatever are they?’ That’s exactly what I was thinking when I first came across this little-known folklorish tale from the somewhat rural area of Ashmore. Now, I know Ashmore is not quite in Wiltshire; it’s just across the border in Dorset and it happens to be the highest village in the county.
What attracted me to this story was not just the tale of the Gappergennies (also called Gappergammies, depending on the source) but also a couple of other stories involving ladies in white, which we will come to shortly.
‘Oooo,’ said I, ‘this is an opportunity to do some weird exploring’ (plus get the dogs out for a leg stretch), so I announced to the long-suffering kids we were heading off on this very grey and bone-chillingly damp, January Sunday morning to find out more.
After spending my Saturday evening poring over old maps, books of archaeological sites and various Google entries (my life here is very rock ‘n’ roll, I admit), I managed to figure out where Washer’s Pit is, plus the area where the plundered and flattened barrow may be located.
Armed with OS maps, and a rucksack full of snacks and flask of tea, we headed off in the Weird-mobile. Up and over the downs we travelled, into the misty clouds. There aren’t many places left in England that you could truly describe as rural and remote but the rolling hills and patches of woodland on the south Wiltshire/ Dorset borders do retain elements of those times. Using my imagination, if we go back just 100 years, I’d imagine it was really quite isolated. It was described as a ‘lonely place’ by E W Watson in 1890, in A History of the Parish. David Aneurin Morgan, my research compadre, thinks the story dates from around 1760.
As we rolled into Ashmore to look for the dew pond in the centre of the village, all was quiet. I took photos (mainly because there will be a blog on dew ponds at some point) and headed to the churchyard.
The Grade II listed St Nicholas was built in 1874 on the site of an earlier 13th-century church. But it was not the church building I was looking at today. In the graveyard are said to be buried a set of bones, unmarked. This leads us to the first story of the day: the tale of the Gappergennies. It was E W Watson who said, ‘it is curious that in a parish full of dark and lonely places, no other neighbourhood than these few yards on the road to Fontmel should have its story’.
So, as you leave the village on the road to Fontmel, you head across the sheep fields and down into a hollow in a chalk valley (called a ‘bottom’ locally). At the bottom, known as Washer’s Pit, there was once a barrow, either a Neolithic or Bronze Age round burial mound. It was said the Gappergennies haunted this spot, making strange noises in the air, scaring the locals. E W Watson said, ‘Of the nature of these sounds I have not been able to learn anything, except that they could be successfully imitated by human lips.’ It clearly freaked out the locals as a cross was maintained, cut into the down facing the barrow to protect anyone travelling this lonely lane.
As we head into the mid-19th century, the old cart track was replaced with a metalled lane. The new lane cut through the barrow and so it was opened up before being flattened. Inside were found a set of bones. These were taken off to St Nicholas Churchyard and buried somewhere in an unmarked grave. Once the bones were in the ground, the Gappergennies ceased their strange noises and all was peaceful. The cross was neglected and there is no sign of it or the barrow now. I heard no strange noises when I was there today but then I was pretty busy shouting at the kids to stop hitting each other with fallen tree branches.
Around the area where this round barrow would have stood is Washer’s Pit. This is another old dew pond, somewhere to water sheep and, according to other sources, somewhere for local women to come and wash their clothes, although I’m not sure how true that may be. It was probably man-made. There are a lot of old dew ponds on the chalk downs as water sources for livestock were sparse. Water runs straight through chalk!
I found Washer’s Pit easily enough. It’s just off the side of the road but is really not so impressive these days. It obviously has contained water at some point as there are a lot of bull reeds growing up in the middle. Presently, it is more of a mud pit. I’ve also pulled another image off the good old interweb to illustrate it in summer (when it was filled with water).
There’s definitely a bit of an atmosphere there and it’s not a particularly welcome one. I am very aware though, and I know I have mentioned it a couple of times already, it was probably more down to the dreary bone-chillingly cold weather. However, once you know there is an odd story associated with an area, you do tend to head to it with certain expectations.
So, the story of Washer’s Pit, told by E W Watson:
‘With the hollow below the Folly, where the road to Fontmel crosses the bottom, a legend is connected, well known in Ashmore, into which the name of the Barbers has been introduced, though the story must be far older than their time. It runs that a Squire Barber, or perhaps his daughter, for the tale is variously told, was warned in a dream on three successive nights, or else three times on the same night, that someone was in distress at Washer’s Pit.
The person warned woke the household and asked for a volunteer to go down to the place. No one would venture, except the cook. Her master gave her his best hunter for the ride, and she went forth to find a lady in white hanging by her hair from an ash tree over the well, now closed, at Washer’s Pit. She released the victim and carried her back on the horse to Ashmore.’
There is also an account I have been told of which said, as the lady was carried back to Ashmore, the screaming of the Gappergennies was heard and they tried to prevent the women from returning to the village, causing the duo to jump ‘Spinney Gate’ in order to get back to the house safely. What happened after that is not recorded but I do hope the lady in white recovered.
Talking of Spinney, our final story takes place on the track from Washer’s Pit to Spinney Pond. A woman in white was seen and felt, brushing past people travelling through, in the second half of the 19th century.
After climbing the fence to take my photos of Washer’s Pit, we all headed off up the track in search of Spinney Pond although I had no real clues as to where it may be. I can find no further mention on old maps, presumably it’s another watering hole. It may be in the area now called Spinney Pits Coppice. Or it could be something like the depression we found in the woods. You can’t see the depth of it too well from the photo but I can imagine it being once filled with water. Or it could just be something to do with this being a Forestry Commission woodland and their commercial logging activities.
We did intend to go further but then a lady came running along the path towards us. One of her dogs had gone missing so we promised to keep our eyes open. Just ten minutes on, the missing dog ‘Molly’ came trotting towards us. We gently called her over, nearly grabbed her collar but she ducked out at the last moment and disappeared back from the direction in which she had come. Being huge dog lovers we were worried for her so we decided it best to head back to the carpark to see if we could find the owner and let her know where we had spotted Molly. That pretty much signalled the end of the walk. We all climbed into the van, mud and all, for a cup of tea and to share out the jaffa cakes. Then we headed out of this ‘dark and lonely spot’ and said goodbye to the Gappergennies of Ashmore, for now at least.
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