Minster Lovell Village Strange Tales

St. Kenelm is called the Cotswold Saint and there are only seven churches dedicated to him, including our own at Minster Lovell. Kenelm was the son of Kenulph, King of Mercia, who died in A.D. 820. Kenelm was only seven years old when he came to the throne. He was disliked for his piety by his sister, Quendred, who would have liked more money for her riotous life-style. Having failed to poison her brother, she bribed Askebard, Kenelm's tutor, to murder him. Meanwhile, Kenelm dreamed that a fair tree, bearing leaves, blossom, fruit and shining lights, sprang up at his bedside. He climbed into the tree and Askebard came and chopped it down. As Kenelm fell to the ground he saw a white bird fly heavenward. His nurse thought that the dream foretold Kenelm's fate and that the white bird symbolized his soul's flight to Paradise.

When Kenelm made a journey with Askebard to the Clent Hills, near Halesowen, Askebard took his chance and murdered Kenelm while he was at prayer. After burying the body, Askebard returned to Winchcombe to tell Quendred that his dreadful task was accomplished. Now it happened that as the Pope said mass in St. Peter's, Rome, a white dove dropped a scroll upon the altar which contained these words:

The Pope and those with him, gave thanks for the miracle, and the day, 17th July, was set apart as St. Kenelm's Day. Then the Pope sent messengers to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who in turn passed an order to the Abbots of Worcester and Winchcombe, to say that the body of Kenelm should be recovered. Where the body was disinterred a clear spring bubbled up. The Winchcombe monks brought Kenelm's remains back to their abbey.

The mistletoe hung in the castle hall, The holly branch shone on the old oak wall,

And the baron's retainers were blithe and gay And keeping their Christmas holiday.

The Baron beheld with a father's pride His beautiful child, young Lovel's bride, While she, with her bright eyes, seem'd to be The star of the goodly company. 0! The mistletoe Bough!

This anonymous poem goes on to tell how, tired of dancing, the young bride suggested she hide for young Lovel to find her. Unfortunately she hid too well in a self-locking chest in the remotest part of the castle, and the chest became her tomb for she was not found until she had been long dead. Oh! The mistletoe bough!

This story actually originated in Italy. Ginevra, only daughter of the Orsini family of Medina, married Francesco Doria at the age of fifteen. The same series of event took place and the broken-hearted bridegroom took service and died fighting the Turks. Fifty years later an ancient chest in a garret fell to pieces when being moved. Jewelry, including a ring engraved with 'Ginevra', established the identity of the remains. In 1828, T. H. Bayly published his version with the names changed and entitled [i]7^-he Mistletoe Bough. Chests under the designation of the 'Mistletoe Bough Chest' have frequently come up for sale in auction rooms. The Lovels had several grand houses which could have been the scene of these events, if by coincidence, similar events happene I in Italy and England. But, in any case why should it have happened at the groom's home? Gray's Court, near Henley, claims the events and the Lovels did marry with the Grays. But to the people of West Oxfordshire the legend is based on events which happened here at Minster Lovell.

Francis, created Viscount Lovel by Richard III in 1482, was the most powerful of all the Lovels. A fervant Yorkist in the Wars of the Roses, he escaped to the continent after the defeat of the Yorkist troops at the Battle of Bosworth but returned to Ireland where the Pretender, Lambert Simnel, was crowned king. Francis then accompanied Lambert Simnel to England and to Yorkshire to raise an army. They met Henry VII's army at the Battle of Stoke where they were defeated. Francis is variously reported killed in action, drowned swimming his horse across the river Trent to escape, and to have escaped to the continent. But there is a famous legend that he returned to Minster Lovell Hall. Fearful of discovery, he had himself locked up in an underground room known only to an old servant. The servant fed him and he had his faithful dog for company. One day the old servant died suddenly, or turned treacherous, and Francis remained incarcerated and helpless. The story goes that a certain William Cowper, Clerk of Parliament, made the following memorandum in 1737:

'On the 6th May 1728, the present Duke of Rutland related in my hearing that about twenty years before, upon the occasion of the laying a new chimney at Minster Lovel, there was discovered a large vault underground, in which there was the entire skeleton of a man, as having been sitting at a table which was before him, with a book, paper and pen, etc. In another part of the room lay a cap, all much mouldered and decayed, which the family and others judged to be the Lord Lovel whose exit has hitherto been so uncertain.' It is said that the paper crumbled to dust when air entered the vault!

There is a legend that a tunnel ran from The Old Manor House in Little Minster through to the quarry behind the old school. It is said that men working on the house discovered an iron door behind the hall chimney and this opened into a tunnel. The legend continues that there was a further tunnel from the quarry across to the Lovel's hall. The present owner of The Old Manor House believes that it was once a French priory. If this was where the monks of Ivry lived, why did they need such a tunnel? Where did they acquire the money to have it built? Or was the tunnel made by the Lovels when they owned both manors, and did the Lovels 'banish' the French monks to Little Minster when relationships between France and England declined.

The most likely explanation is that it was made by Henry Heylyn so that he could escape to the river should Oliver Cromwell suddenly appear.

'Is it William, Seventh Baron Lovel, whose shade revisits on Christmas Eve, the mansion he built five hundred years ago? Whose is the phantom coach that is driven to the ruins when the moon shines clear? And the quite amiable lady whose appearance, in garments of a long outmoded cut, caused a parlour maid to drop a tray of crockery and incontinently leave her place. And the other coach that dashes across the highway at Ting Tang Lane; the ghostly child; the indefinite shape near the bridge. Who or what are they? Black Stockings, the dwarfish figure who leaps to clutch your horse's bridle, we do know. He was a highwayman from Swinbrook. But the mounted man in armour who challenged a home- returning lover to race to the bridge? Perhaps the best of this kind are but shadows, moonshine and mist, imagination and old wives' tales.'

Tom, Dick and Harry had 5 other brothers. Tom & Harry were convicted of murder and their bodies hung on a gibbet in Fulbrook. There are rumours of a secret tunnel from the house to the church and although no evidence of this has ever been found there is a shaft leading to a tiny cave at the front of the house.

I have actually been down there and it appears they may have been a tunnel but it is now blocked by tons of rubble.

In the 1970's to the early 80's the house was owned by the same family that owned and restored the conference centre and they also owned other land/property in the village.

The White Hart. The oldest part of the house stood formerly at Fulbrook and was dismantled and rebuilt here. In the coaching era it was the home of three brothers Tom, Dick and Harry. Although they came from a respectable family, they went flamboyantly to the bad, and were thought to have connections with a larger gang involved in crime in various counties. Locally they robbed farmers of stock and money as they went to market. They were said to have shod their horses backwards to confuse the trail. Dick suffered a major setback when, in attacking Tangley Hall, near Burford, his arm was trapped and secured through a shutter in the door, and rather than be captured he persuaded his brother to cut his arm off at the elbow. It is thought that he died later. Tom and Harry were finally caught at Capps Lodge, Burford, where, after a night of gambling and drinking, they were overcome by local men. In the fight they killed a man and for this they were hanged and later their bodies were encased in iron bands and hung from an oak tree, as a warning to others.

There is a legend that the Lovels buried their treasure somewhere at Minster Hall. This comes into John Buchan's story of West Oxfordshire in Tudor times, [i]The Blanket of the Dark. Around 1628, Mr. Duckett the saltpetre man, presumably at a time when the hall was not occupied, with the help of his servants, dug up the floor of the pigeon house, pulled up floor boards and dug under the floor of the great chamber, set and placed their tubs with the water that made the saltpetre in the great chamber and in consequence came before the courts. But was it saltpetre or treasure that Mr. Duckett was looking for?

There is another legend that the fishpond west of Minster Lovell Hall has a coloured glass pavement traversing the bottom of it. It was hoped that the Office of Works would have drained the pond and emptied it of mud and rubbish when they took over responsibility for the Ruin in 1935, but they did not because the pond is below river level and so the legend has not [i]been disproved. One must suppose that the Office of Works encounter all sorts of legends and superstitions in taking over ancient buildings. In any case what would have been the use of such a pavement, except that there is a theory that it was part of a Roman villa.

'Rebekah Smith, the servant maid of one Thomas White of Minster Lovell, who being of a robust constitution, though she seldom eat flesh (it scarce agreeing with her) and above fifty years of age, after she came from the communion on Palm Sunday, April 16th. Anno 1671, was taken with such a dryness in her throat that she could not swallow her spittle, nor anything else to supply the decays of nature, and in this case she continued without eating or drinking, to the amazement of all, for about ten weeks, viz. to the 29th of June, being both St. Peter's and Witney Fair Day: by time being brought very low, her master enquired and found out a person who gave him an Amulet (for it was thought she was bewitched) against this evil, after one application whereof, within two or three day's time (though I dare not suppose there was any dependence between the medicine and the disease) she first drank a little water, then warm broth in small quantities at a time, and nothing else till Palm Sunday again twelve months after, when she began to eat bread and any other food again as formerly she had done, and is now about sixty and still living at the same place ready to testify to the truth of the thing, as well as Thomas White and his wife, who were all that lived in the house with her and will confidently assert (for they carefully observed) that they do not believe she ever took anthing in those ten weeks, nor anything more all the year following but what was above mentioned: wherein I think they may be the more credited because there was never any advantage made of this wonder, which argues it clear of all juggle or design.'

The Coke manuscripts tell of the life of this village in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There are extracts from the Courts Baron, the assembly of the freehold tenants under the presidency of the Lord or his steward.

1611. Bob Barratt and Rob Rushe fined for not making the Green Gate at Little Minster according to an order: and in the following year, William Maye and Bob Hyet for that they had not made their part of the Green Gate - 2s. (What the Green Gate was. is not known but it must have been a structure of some significance to merit special mention.)

1621. Fined Henry Barratt for keeping a mangy horse on the common of Minstre Lovel to great damage of his neighbours - 2s.

1625. Fined Dr. Claye, for receiving into his house at Minstre Lovel, Hugh Dunkley as an under-tennant - [i]5s. (No tenant could sub-let to another, wholly or partly, without the consent of the Lord of the Manor or his steward.)

There are records of bad winters. In January 1881 a blizzard set in. Children had difficulty in reaching home at lunch- time and could not return to school in the afternoon. The baker was caught on his round and was forced to take shelter for the night in a neighbouring village. All next day the blizzard continued; the roof of a thatched cottage was ripped off; the driver of the Witney-Swindon Mail was frozen to death, stiff on the driving seat. A Minster Lovell man, who had been threshing at Brize Norton trudged home in the teeth of the icy wind, with lowered head and hands deep in his overcoat pockets. Safely arrived home he found himself unable to free his hands or lift his head and he had to stand by the fire until his little beard came unstuck from his overcoat breast and his pockets thawed.

Moat Williams writing about the Charterville bungalows said: `The first three bungalows were built by day work and are said to be superior to those put up by contract, though it may be an exaggeration to say that the latter are so draughty that if it is not nailed down, the table-cloth will fly up the chimney!'

He also records a story about the village band, which used to practise in the clubroom of The Olde Swan which in the updating of the place before the war was made into two bedrooms. The story goes that this band, practising with the windows open, was told how well they sounded in the street, upon which all the bandsmen went outside to listen.

Tradition has it that a watercress gatherer, who found that crayfish interfered with his vegetarian pursuits, put a curse on the crayfish, decreeing that when he died, so would their number certainly decrease. Attempts were made to introduce new stock, but it proved to be of inferior quality and the present generation seem to have lost their taste for this particular delicacy.

Alexander Moat Williams tells two more ghost stories with a lovely touch of his abundant humour at the end:

'Judd was a suicide and they buried him at four crossroads. Thereafter horses must be coaxed past Judd's grave; they trembled and shied. The place is near enough to this parish for the legend to be recited at our firesides when the wind whistles cold of a night. Here is another uncanny story. The son of a very respectable family emigrated to America and letters from him were rare though he was not a prodigal. Then one day a clock, that had been dumb for years, struck-one! The lad's mother exclaimed, "Our Tom's dead! " Indeed it was so. Need it be added that it was an American clock! Betty! For goodness sake - bring the candles!'