A Halloween History Blog – Cheddar Caves and gloriously ghoulish entertainment – The Witch of Wookey Hole

The Witch of Wookey Hole

I thought I would write a special blog for Halloween this year, and picked the caves in Cheddar Gorge for the topic as there’s a ghoulish story and some details of 18^th/19^th Century fascination with the caves.

Shall we do the ghoulish story first about the petrified Witch of Wookey Hole.

There is a very witch-like stalagmite figure which stands in the corner of Wookey Hole caves, and this figure, so the legend of the caves goes, is the petrified remains of a local witch who once lived in the caves.

The Witch had had her heartbroken and in revenge, with a bitter heart, it is said she destroyed any budding romance in the village of Cheddar.

So when a girl from Cheddar village fell in love with a man from Glastonbury and planned to marry the Witch cursed their love and destroyed it.

But the disappointed, heartbroken, man became a monk and sought revenge blaming the Witch not the local maid. He came back to Cheddar. The Witch hid in the corner of the cave while the monk blessed the water on the floor of cave and then cupped his hand and splashed it into the corner where the Witch hid. She turned to stone and she stands there until this very day to greet you as you enter Wookey Hole caves.

Thousands of tourists now explore the caves and I’m sure there will be massive numbers today.

So the history bit I thought I would share with you is how visitors explored the caves in the 18^th and 19^th Century.

Man has occupied and explored the caves for hundreds of centuries proven by the skeleton of the Cheddar Man found in Gough’s Cave. His remains are believed to date back to 7150 BC. But over the years the caves had silted up and become unexplored and unknown to a large extent. But then fascination for such places grew again when the English wars were over and people’s minds turned to entertainment and exploration. This was in the era of Grand Tours, and then when the Peninsular and Napoleonic wars raged men who had gone on Grand Tour previously had to find more local forms of exploration.

The history of tourism is recorded for one of the caves along Cheddar Gorge, Cox Cave .

It was named after the family who rediscovered and opened it up for public viewing in 1838. The caves were viewed then without electric light of course. There’s an image on the above link of a man holding a brace of candles up on a long pole to enable visitors to see the caves. If you have ever explored caves you can imagine it would have been very dark and candles would have given you a flickering orange light which would have shimmered back from the damp walls, probably only revealing individual areas of the cave at a time, not all of it, leaving your imagination to roam over what was hidden in the darkness behind you.

The way tourism operated then was very much the same as it did with large houses. People worked like stewards and would have a sign out for people to knock on their house if they wished to view so they would be taken into the caves in small groups. Perhaps it was on an outing from a local house, or a party touring the local area. Of course lower classes had very little leisure time then so it was mainly the upper and middle classes who came.

Sometimes it was a child of the family or the wife who led tours, depending upon who was available.

Sometimes a party might book a visit to the caves so they could be prepared with candles, which were then dramatically placed to reflect light from the pools which sat amongst the out crops of worn rock and acted like mirrors as clear as glass, not stirred by a single ripple. Sometimes a wealthy man might plan a dinner in the caves to impress his friends with the gothic horror of the caves.

Of course as per Jane Austen’s novel Northhanger Abbey, romance, horror and spooky tales were highly popular in the era, and men considered they needed to be romantic. Think of the poets Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, who knew how to romance women of the time and had numerous lovers, and the trip where they shut themselves away on the shore of Lake Geneva and entertained each other by telling Gothic horror stories which lead to Mary Shelley (then Mary Godwin) who was with them, conjuring up the tale of Frankenstein in her imagination. It was Shelley who encouraged her to then write the story as a novel. I am sure they would have loved to have dined in Cheddar caves.

Jane Lark is a writer of authentic, passionate and emotional love stories.

See the side bar for details of Jane’s books, and Jane’s website www.janelark.co.uk to learn more about Jane. Or click ‘like’ on Jane’s Facebook page to see photo’s and learn historical facts from the Georgian, Regency and Victorian eras, which Jane publishes there. You can also follow Jane on twitter at @janelark

Fascinating Historic Graffiti at Fountains Abbey, Helmsley Castle and Sudeley Castle

People who have read my blogs for a while know I have two slightly eccentric passions for history. One’s old trees – definitely a bit of a mad obsession – and the other is graffiti.

Fountains Abbey Leisure Gardens

I think it’s my imagination which gets me going over these things because when I see trees I am thinking who walked past this, when, or leant against it or – I mean hundreds of people for hundreds of years could have had something happen in their lives near the tree and my head tries to get into their lives and picture what they were thinking, feeling and doing at the time. It’s very odd because of course it’s the same with houses, even more so, but my imagination is more intoxicated by trees and my other passion graffiti, than houses – odd I know.

The Tudor Mansion at Helmsley

But today anyway this little cheeky blog is on my other passion – for graffiti – I mean just think who was it who stood there and carved it out, what was going on in their lives, in their head? Were they laughing? Were they with a partner, or a friend, joking? Had they just had a tryst? Were they serious and thoughtful and seeking solitude? Angry? Contemplative? Afraid?

Sudeley Tudor Castle

I’ve said before the graffiti in The Tower of London is my favourite. Most of it dates from King Henry VIII or Queen Elizabeth I’s time when they would shut noblemen and women away for months in the tower rooms rather than in the dungeons. But I discovered loads more on holiday in Yorkshire this year (where some of the scene’s from my debut novel, Illicit Love are set)

Fountains Abbey Medieval Mill

So first there was this which I discovered at Fountains Abbey in the medieval mill – although the graffiti dates to the 1700 and 1800s not medieval times. A lot of 18th and 19th century graffiti is by tourists as it was fashionable for the more wealthy middle classes and the senior classes to idle away a day by riding out and exploring ruins. But on this door in the mill which the National Trust have preserved, are carved names they believe were workers. The fabulous leisure gardens which did bring many visitors at the time are beyond a gate from here so it’s believed it was not tourists.

Fountains Abbey graffiti from the 1800s

Fountains Abbey graffiti from the 1700s

There is also another area of graffiti in the mill on a window frame.

Helmsley Castle Gatehouse

Then I found this even more exciting graffiti at Helmsley Castle. I love the town of Helmsley. The medieval castle, which was updated with a Tudor mansion in Queen Elizabeth I’s reign, is on the edge of the town it’s owned by English Heritage and like many castles is only a ruin thanks to the Civil War. In 1644 Helmsley Castle was besieged by 700 men on foot and 300 men on horseback and the siege lasted for 3 months. However at the end of the siege the Parliamentarian army let the 200 strong Royalist Garrison encamped at Helmsley leave peaceable through the gatehouse in a procession. They had been starved out and their defence of the castle had earned the respect of the Parliamentarians. So interesting then to see this graffiti dating to the 1600’s on the walls of the gatehouse.

Helmsley Castle graffiti from the 1600s

Helmsley Castle Graffiti from the 1600s

There are some 19^th century tourist’s marks too. They were probably cut by friends of the family from Duncombe Park who owned the land Helmsley Castle was on then and who’d made the castle ruins a folly for them to view in the garden of their fashionable early 18^th century mansion, or perhaps they were just people from the nearby town – some land owners allowed locals in their parks and one of the Duncombe family married a lower class woman he saw while out riding, having then spoken to her parents and sent her to school to learn how to be a lady.

Helmsley Castle graffiti from 1800s

Perhaps – perhaps – perhaps – it’s all imagination engendered by a few marks on a wall.

Oh and I might as well slip these in while I’m talking of graffiti – not from Yorkshire but from Sudeley Castle which was also ruined in the Civil War. Sudeley Castle was partly restored though and while half the castle is a ruin the other half is lived in. Actually Sudelely is another place I’ve drawn inspiration from for scenes in my debut novel – Mmm there’s a pattern forming here.