The Ancient Capital of Cornwall

Travelling from the East, the first Cornish town visitors come across is Launceston. It is a small place, with very little happening, but was once the capital of the Duchy. An important town indeed, with a church founded by the legendary Black Prince, and a castle overlooking the roads to Cornwall. Once upon a time, Launceston also boasted a priory dedicated to St Augustine, whose possessions included vast estates on both sides of the Tamar. As with other rich religious houses, the priory was forced to close by King Henry VIII.

Needless to say, a town with such a long and turbulent history is home to more than one spectral tale.

Dockacre House

The most famous ghost story involves Dockacre House, an Elizabethan mansion on the old road into town. Just over three hundred years ago, Sir Nicholas Herle bought the house to reside in finery with his wife Elizabeth. However, before the year ended, she was dead. A memorial plaque in the town church claims she was killed by starvation or other unlawful means. Which wasn't enough to prevent her widower going on to become mayor of Launceston and the High Sherriff of Cornwall.

When he died, his own obituary included this startling statement. Nicholas had apparently endured “The misfortune to accidentally shoot his lady.”

Interestingly enough, another variant on the couple’s unhappy life has her suffering from madness and thus being boarded up in a locked room. A further tale reverses the roles quite unexpectedly. In this retelling, Sir Nicholas is the victim of her violent cruelty.

Whatever happened at Dockacre House (indeed, if anything tragic ever did) the historic residence is known to be haunted. The ghost of Nicholas Herle has been spotted playing a wooden flute. His tune is recognised as an Elizabethan song containing the following words:

Since that I saw your face I resolved,

To honour and renown you.

If I be now disdained I wish,

My heart had never known you.

As in life, so in death, the stories surrounding this mysterious house remain confused and contradictory. For a recent occupant told me it was actually a lady who haunted it. She told me the local postman was so sure he’d seen a ghostly woman in one of the upstairs bedroom windows, he now refused to deliver mail there.

That was during 2010 and Dockacre House has since changed hands. Whether the ill-fated Elizabeth Herle or her possibly murderous husband remain, I cannot say. Nor can I confirm whether the present owners still have to pick up their letters from the local post office!

The patron saint of Launceston is one Cuthbert Mayne, former priest and Catholic martyr. The town’s Catholic church is named after him and a stone on the old market square commemorates the spot where he lost his life. For Britain in the 16^th century was no place for the tolerance of other men’s faiths and Mayne, having secretly trained at a seminary in France, found saying Mass reason enough to be arrested for treason. His trial at Launceston was a sham, which even the notorious ‘Hanging Judge Jeffries’ called a miscarriage of justice.

Sentenced to being hung, drawn and quartered, Mayne suffered horribly at the hands of an especially sadistic executioner. Fixing the hangman with a stare, he claimed that he would himself be dead before the year was out. Sure enough, the curse was effective because he did indeed die shortly afterwards, having first gone insane.

When people talk about ghosts, they almost always refer to tales from days gone by. I wonder why this is, when there are still plenty of hauntings taking place now.

Merryn Turner's Haunted House

Remaining in Launceston, an interesting claim reached the ears of the local press in the August of last year. One Merryn Tuner, who’d recently moved into a 1950s house on the council estate of Lanstephan, said her new home was haunted.

Merryn and her partner noticed unusual sounds within a few weeks of living there. To begin with, they took the form of mumbling voices and people talking upstairs. It soon progressed to the sound of children singing, yet when they checked on their own little ones, they found them fast asleep. Lights started flickering, doors were rapped by invisible hands, and objects fell noisily of their own accord.

“I thought I heard my daughter getting out of bed,” Merryn told a reporter. “I expected her to knock at my bedroom door. There was a knock at my door and I opened it, but she wasn’t there. I went to check on her in her room and she was out cold asleep...Then I heard someone call ‘Mummy’.”

Of course, such a new building boasts little history, so who are these childhood spirits? Lanstephan is a modern estate; it was fields until recently, verdant Cornish countryside. One can therefore only speculate on their origin.

I like to think they are merely the innocent reminders of kids who once played in the fields the estate buried beneath concrete. Enjoying, as they did in life, games of chase or hide and seek. Spirits that perhaps play the timeless mischief of Nickanan Night, now that a modern house stands in their path.