A Tale of Two Cranfords

Yesterday I was dispatched to take some photos just outside Woolsery for an article that Jon has written for Paranormal magazine. Just as you are coming into the village, you pass a white house on a bend in the road after crossing a bridge that spans a small stream. The location is known as Cranford and the house used to be a mushroom farm. However, I was there to take photos of the bridge, stream and surrounding wooded areas where there have been a few ghostly goings on and odd activities in the past. I shall be going back there tonight at dusk to take some more pictures. Intrepid eh?

Mind you, this is not the only Cranford I know, and whilst I am sure there are many places in this country called Cranford, the other with which I am familiar is in Middlesex, near Hayes. My first husband used to live in Hayes when I first knew him, which is a few miles from where I used to live in Uxbridge. Tony Hancock is buried in St Dunstan’s churchyard, Cranford I believe, but that is all by the by. There is a story about Cranford, Hayes that jingles a few dull bells in my head though. Something to do with the ghost of Dick Turpin – I think he may have prowled the Heath at nearby Hounslow at some point, but I do remember hearing something about him being seen in Cranford Woods (Cranford Park). However, the only reference I can find to any ghostly sightings around that area is of a grey lady.

Anyway, I will not be looking for our Mr Turpin tonight, but will be relying on my sixth sense just in case something else occurs.

A few months back Shosh, Gav and I were out with the Biggles at Powler’s Piece, a couple of miles from Woolsery. We were walking down one of the wide rides – all was quiet; there was not even much birdsong. At one point, I had the strangest sensation that something or someone was walking behind me and I turned around quickly expecting to see perhaps another dog walker, or a creature running across the path. But there was nothing there. The oddest thing, though, was that just as I turned, Shosh (who was walking to my right - Gav was between us) turned around too. When I asked her why, she said she had felt as if someone was walking behind her. Hmmm – neither of us had heard anything and neither of us had seen anything either as we turned, but both of us had had that unnerving sensation of being approached silently from behind. Yes it could well have been an animal running across the path and it may have gone from sight before we turned, but that sort of thing goes on all the time – things go on behind you as you walk along - but you don’t get that eerie sense of foreboding.