The Most Famous Of All Devonshire Ghost Stories

DARTMOOR'S HAIRY HANDS

The most famous of all Devon's ghost stories is probably also her most bizarre. For high upon Dartmoor, amidst the wild and scenic splendour of this desolate place, a peculiar peril exists. It is a danger unique to this haunted corner of the island, a threat unheard of elsewhere. It is claimed that more than one person has been injured as the result of this apparition, some have even lost their lives.

What I speak of, are the notorious hairy hands.

A lonely road winds its way like a stream over the empty moorland above Princetown. Beside this remote turnpike, the ruins of powder mills can be seen, all that remains of an old gunpowder factory. The men behind the venture chose its location well, for they knew the risks involved in manufacturing their deadly product. It was therefore situated far from anyone else, lest it ever fall victim to a stray spark or stroke of ill luck. A wise decision, as it turned out, for there were a number of explosions in the 1850s, which resulted in the deaths of a handful of workers.

We know from newspaper reports that one poor soul left behind a wife and five children; that two others who were killed went by the English names Dodd and Hamlyn.

It is also claimed that an Italian lost his life during one of the accidents. Legend speaks of him as the source of all following troubles.

Moving forward a number of years, and local people have become wary of travelling the road alone or at night. They claim an unseen presence grips the handlebars of their bicycles and forces them off the road. Traps are upturned as leading ponies feel their reins pulled to the side. It is as though some unworldly malevolent force wishes revenge on the living for its own premature death. However, it is with the advent of motor vehicles that matters spiral beyond control.

Winter 1921 and Dr Helby from Princetown travelled by motorbike and side car, his two children passengers in the latter. The motorbike suddenly veered from the road where it crossed the Cherrybrook, a small river spanned by an old stone bridge. The children were thrown from the sidecar but poor Dr Helby was killed on impact. No mechanical faults were found on his vehicle. No explanation ever provided for the crash.

Not long afterwards, an army officer from the nearby Okehampton Camp experience something similar. Riding along the road at night, his motorcycle was suddenly forced from the tarmac. Although injured, he survived the incident. He told police and army superiors alike that as his handlebars were gripped by a pair of large, disembodied hands, that steered it into danger. The hands were described as muscular, and far too strong for him to wrestle off. Muscular, disembodied and hairy.

Modern minds might scoff at such claims, but they made headline news at the time. They were covered in no less a publication than the Daily Mail. The authorities took them seriously enough to send engineers to investigate. Those experts' prosaic conclusions were that the crossing over the Cherrybrook, involving an unusually sharp camber, was to blame.

And yet changes to the road did not prevent further incidents. A charabanc trip to the moor ended in tragedy when the coach swerved inexplicably off the road, resulting in several passengers being thrown from their seats. The driver claimed that a pair of ghostly hands grabbed his wheel and took malicious control of the coach.

A car was also found upturned at the site, with its driver dead at the wheel. No cause for the crash has ever been established.

Perhaps most alarmingly of all, in 1924, a woman holidaying in the area witnessed the hands try to gain access to her caravan. Her name was Theo Brown and she would later write about the experience in a book. In her own words then:

I knew there was some power very seriously menacing us, and I must act very swiftly. As I looked up to the little window at the end of the caravan, I saw something moving, and as I stared, I saw it was the fingers and palm of a very large hand with many hairs on the joints and back of it, clawing up and up to the top of the window, which was a little open.

I knew it wished to do harm to my husband sleeping below. I knew that the owner of the hand hated us and wished harm, and I knew it was no ordinary hand, and that no blow or shot would have any power over it.

Almost unconsciously, I made the Sign of the Cross, and prayed very much that we might be kept safe. At once the hand slowly sank down out of sight, and I knew the danger was gone. I did say a thankful prayer and fell at once into a peaceful sleep.

Most people nowadays laugh off such claims, for it is easy to mock from the safe distance of a centrally heated house, protected from the world by locked doors and double glazing. Yet there are those upon Dartmoor who remain convinced there is truth behind the legend. I was fortunate enough to meet one, an elderly widow who ventured inside my old pub one afternoon.

Her late husband had once farmed both Lydford and Cherrybrook way; when I heard the latter, I asked her jokingly about whether he believed in the Hairy Hands. Needless to say, I only teased her, for I didn't set much store myself by the stories being true. The woman's reply therefore startled me.

"He didn't just believe 'em, bey," she said, "He saw 'em for himself."

She went on to tell me that he'd been working upon the moor late one night, and drove back in his tractor, well after dark, to their Lydford farmhouse. At the Cherrybrook bridge, his tractor wheel was suddenly seized by the hairy hands, which proceeded to drive the vehicle off the road and overturn it.

Being a tractor, it was both heavily-built and driven slowly; he therefore survived the impact. However, he never returned to work that land after dark again.

"He was never frightened of anything in his life," the old woman insisted to me. "Except he was terrified of that place. And whatever evil thing it is that haunts it."