I am hunting a phantom through the ages.
Throughout the dark and bloody history of Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire I keep finding one name connected to so many sordid and even otherworldly events. Rose. I see this name over and over again during my research for the local Historical Society. This Phantom never ages, never repents, never meets with justice. Perhaps you think this is far-fetched. Well, I have prepared some of the evidence for your consideration.
What follows are two newspaper clippings from the Sentinel newspaper.
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October 27th, 1849
Saxilby Man ‘Attacked by Ghost’
A TWENTY-YEAR-old resident of Saxilby, Lincolnshire, is warning travellers to avoid nearby Coombe Wood after being ‘savagely attacked by a ghost’ there.
Mr Ambrose Kinnear, a well-regarded parishioner and son of former beadle, Edwin Kinnear, claims to have been assaulted by a ghost whilst walking through the wood late Saturday last. ‘I often come home that way,’ Mr Kinnear told the Sentinel, ‘but this was to be a night like no other.’ Mr Kinnear said that, in the deepest part of the wood, he was set upon by a spectre. ‘The phantom’ Mr Kinnear explained, ‘was a girl calling herself Rose, a ghostly, sickly youth. She goaded and then attacked me with her vaporous blade.
Mr Kinnear certainly bears the marks of an assault; a deep gash to his right wrist which required five stitches. He is now warning others to ‘avoid Coombe Wood at all costs’ and claims that he only escaped because he was ‘young, fleet and without sin.’
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May 10th, 1891
My accursed stay at Roseroot Rectory
THIS REPORTER WAS surprised to discover a peculiar postcard following Easter Sunday’s edition of the Sentinel. The postcard read: ‘Mr and Mrs Dovecot cordially invite Michael Banks, chief reporter of the Sentinel, to stay one night at Roseroot Rectory, the most haunted rectory in England.’
With ‘Roseroot Rectory’ a faintly familiar term, a trip to the archives was the next line of enquiry. Indeed, reported in these pages, June 6th, 1881, a murder (fatal blow to the head) committed on Roseroot Rectory’s grounds. The female victim in question was never identified, the killer never apprehended. My curiosity roused, I arranged a stay at the rectory one week later.
I was greeted at Roseroot by the charming Mrs Dovecot. Whilst showing me around the grounds, Mrs Dovecot explained that Roseroot hadn’t actually housed a clergyman for some fifteen years. Mrs Dovecot and her husband now run Roseroot as an inn, its proximity to the River Trent, fishing rights and notoriety as a place of supernatural wonder ensuring ample custom.
‘Poor Rose still haunts the house and gardens,’ Mrs Dovecot explained, when talk turned to the murder, ‘waiting for her killer to return.’ A tall-tale designed to amuse Roseroot’s guests? I couldn’t help but wonder. And how could the good lady know the name of an identified body?
After a fine trout supper taken with the other patrons, I retired to my room. Sometime around twelve o’clock, an unidentified voice disturbed me: ‘They took it from a servant of the Lord,’ the strained voice seemed whisper, ‘silenced the daughter who knew …’
I must admit, dear readers, that I fled in fear before I could deduce the source of the words. ‘Unless you saw the vengeful lady herself,’ Mr Dovecot said, upon my rousing him, ‘no telling whether or not what you heard was her doing.’
As I sit writing this days later, I am still uncertain of what to think.
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One of the Phantom’s alleged victims
Rose is not confined to the archives, however. There are stories right up to the present day from Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire and even further afield. Urban myths passed around social media and campfires alike concerning another unsolved murder and an infamous University scandal.
I am becoming obsessed with my research. I don’t sleep, I don’t eat, I don’t think of anything else but Rose. Where is she now? Where will she strike next?
Even worse, the obsession is like a contagion, when I share these stories the obsession spreads. Others become fixated and deteriorate as I have. It’s like a seed that slowly takes root, choking you with its tendrils until there is nothing left.
Rose is within you now, the phantom’s next victim. Good luck.
