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A page dedicated to the Parishes and Villages used by Ashford Ramblers
Biddenden; A Wealden Parish
Chilham; Castle & Viilage Square
Doddington; A Downland Parish
Eastling; A Downland Parish
Elham; A Downland Parish
Faversham; An Ancient Market Town
Lyminge; A Downland Parish
Otterden; A High Downs Parish
Pluckley; Most haunted village in England
At the last count there were over a dozen spectral inhabitants in Pluckley, and there is always someone who knows of one who the other hadn't heard about.
Some of the ghosts belong to the Dering family who lived at Surrenden Dering manor house, now a burnt out shell with only the stable block remaining.
The Dering family are remembered by the black horse family emblem which can still be seen on the cowls of local oasts, and by the famous "lucky" Dering windows. During the civil war one of the Royalist members of the Dering family escaped through one of these small rounded, arched, windows which have a white brick surround. Thinking these windows were lucky, at the end of the 19th centuary, Sir Edward Cholmeley Dering had all the windows on the estate replaced with ones of the same pattern so that nearly all the house in the village have these Dering windows.
Some of the ghosts in the village belong to the Dering family. The White Lady Dering haunts the ruins of the manor house while the Red Lady Dering roams the churchyard, searching among the gravestones for her un-baptised child. Another Dering woman wanders around wearing the red rose her husband dropped onto her coffin. A Cavalier, who failed to exit via one of the famous windows was captured and killed by the Roundheads still roams around.
A highwayman who was pinned to a tree when his victim refused to stand and deliver, still rides up and down the road near Fright Corner. On a grass verge a gypsy watercress woman was burned to death when she fell asleep and her clay pipe fell into the straw bedding and ignited it. The "screaming man" who fell into a mixing trough at the local brickworks can still be heard on nights of a full moon.
The fourteenth centuary Black Horse Inn has been said to have furniture that has re-arranged itself. A phantom coach and horses still ride around the village looking for highwaymen to nail up to trees and there are reports that a fife and drum band has been seen marching through one of the houses.
Spooky or what! Yet the people who live in the village of Pluckley manage to co-exist with these spectres of the past.
Rhodes Minnis; A Downland Parish
Wye; College & Crown
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