Unperturbed by their grisly result the thieves quickly robbed the body of its fine clothes, gold rings and brooches and, over the centuries, Lady Snagge`s ghost rode her powerful horse along the lane in search of her murderers.
Picture the scene ... A moonless and yet clear night along a lonely country lane over the Christmas holiday and not a soul stirring except for one local family returning home from an evening with relatives. Picture again that lane as it sweeps down past the wooded enclosure of Cranfield Court ... Hear the hushed whispers of the sleepy revellers ... And, what was the unexplained rattling of a five bar gate which increased their pace? Was it just a startled Muntjac or, and heaven forbid, something more sinister? Whatever it was that disturbed their patter on that Christmas night the response was unanimously voiced in two words, "Lady Snagge!"
When I first heard of Lady Snagge she was the subject of a story which was told to a group of us much quivering boy's back in the misty 50's by our scoutmaster. At the time the tale, which reeked of violence, decapitation and haunting around the lanes and bridle-ways of Cranfield was regarded as a special story time treat and told in a hushed tone around the evening campfire.
| The tale tells of one Lady Snagge who was galloping along the Wood End
Road to meet her lover (I added `lover` to the script after my voice deepened) when she
fell victim to a group of thieves. The motley lot had stretched a cord across the lane at
a place called Wood End Road at Cranfield. The resulting decapitation was caused by the
speed of her steed and her failure to spot the strop. Unperturbed by their grisly result the thieves quickly robbed the body of its fine clothes, gold rings and brooches and, over the centuries, Lady Snagge`s ghost rode her powerful horse along the lane in search of her murderers. |
|
Believe it?
Well I did, but, there were questions to be answered and like all good ghost stories their is a fine line drawn between fact and fiction ...
First of all - did the Lady Snagge exist at all?
The answer to this can be found in the church of St Mary the Virgin in the village of Marston Moreteyne. There, the intrepid ghost buster can see the red veined alabaster tomb monument to the memory of Thomas Snagge and his wife Elizabeth.
Nothing too outstanding about this Lady Snagge except perhaps that her husband was a barrister, an elected Member of Parliament for Bedfordshire, Attorney General for Ireland and finally the elected Speaker to the House of Commons in the late 16th century. There wasn`t much to read about Elizabeth except she was the mother of five sons and two daughters and outlived her husband by some 43 years and possibly spent the last years of her life in Cranfield. These facts come to light in Thomas Snagge`s last will and testimony of 1591 where it states ...
"I bequeath also to my said wyfe during the saide term if she liveth so long, my conduitt and hoppe yarde (conduit and hop yard) in Cranfield in the County of Bedfordshire and my lane called Venison Lane in Cranfield."
Venison Lane eh? Oh deer I wonder where Venison Lane could be?
So, Lady Elizabeth Snagge was a Cranfield girl when she died and would have been in her eighties so hardly party to some wild galloping along the Wood End Road to meet a lover.
So, which of the Snagge wives could the spectre be?
After the death of Elizabeth there followed Anne (or Anna) whose husband Thomas (they were nearly all Thomases) died in 1675. Then there was Dorothy whose husband died in 1687 and Mary who married an Edward Snagge in the late 17th century. Any one of these could have had lovers at Brogborough Park and set out on that ill-fated ride.
Mary Street wrote in her book of Cranfield that the ghost materialised along the Wood End Road where there used to be an avenue of trees running from the road that was known as Lady Snagge`s Walk. Lady Snagge was said to ride along it on a headless horse and in the mid nineteenth century the Rector exorcised the ghost with "bell, book, and candle" ... Doris Malsher suggested that Lady Snagge rode a powerful horse at dark, and was invisible but those affected by her presence could feel the swish of the animal as it galloped past and on to the Round House at Brogborough Park.
| I don`t suppose that the modern thinker has time for the ways and
wherefore of hauntings. Nowadays folk are analysers and not easily spooked ... unlike
Terry Bush and his unidentified mate who were cycling back to Flitwick after some of
Newton Blossomville`s finest ale ... "It was very late and we`d had a few and it was one of those clear moonless nights. We were at the bottom of Marston Hill when we suddenly ceased our chatter and accelerated our bikes to the junction of Horsepool Lane. There we stopped to catch our breath and both said simultaneously ... "Did you see it too?" |
|
At the bottom of the hill they had suddenly became aware of a figure moving towards them and up the hill. The figure was dressed in black with a white front and appeared to be without a head. On reflection and some thirty years later, Terry, had several explanations for what they had seen.
"It could have been a man with his coat over his head `cos it was so cold that night, or a giant penguin and for a more realistic guess, a Friesian cow ... we just spooked and accelerated away."
Whatever it was that they saw, the legend will linger. Lady Snagge, for all her scariness, is part of the community of Cranfield.
Peter Hinson
Thank you to ...
Mr Faulkner, churchwarden to St Mary`s the Virgin at Marston Moreteyne, for his warm reception and hospitality to the `scruff` with a digital camera and to Bernice Maynard, local historian, for her much detailed research and her astonishing ability to get to the roots and truths of it all.
Page created by The Primex Internet group Ltd ©2004
