LOUNT’S
POOL, KINLET
Highley Unlikely!
Strange goings on in and around Highley
LOUNT’S
POOL, KINLET
If you visit Kinlet Church you will find the tomb of Kinlet’s last squire, Sir George Blount, who died in 1581.At the base of the monument is said to be a small bottle containing the ghost of Sir George Blount. If the bottle is ever broken, his spirit will come back to haunt Kinlet Hall.
The story goes that the squire had a son and daughter. The son died when he was quite young but his daughter Dorothy survived. She fell in love with their page-boy and this greatly angered her father. The squire refused to let her marry the page and Dorothy refused to choose any other husband.
When the squire died, Dorothy inherited all his money and property but most importantly she was free to marry the page whom she had always loved. However, they were not allowed to live happily ever after.
Just after their wedding, the squire’s spirit returned and was furious that his daughter had disobeyed him. When the family were seated for dinner, his ghost would appear, driving his coach and four white horses across the dinner table. The lady was so upset she called in the priest to reduce his spirit and ‘bottle it’. The bottle was then placed in his tomb in the church and she was troubled no more.
Taken from ‘Witches and Warriors’ by Karen Lowe.
The village of Chelmarsh is about 3 miles from Highley and is full of strange happenings. Legend has it that a monk’s heart is buried high in the East wall of St. Peter’s Church.
By the River Severn is Stern’s Cottage, a haunted house that stands on the site of an older building. I t was once used to stable horses that hauled the barges along the river. It was later lived in by a worker on the Severn Valley Railway. Ghostly figures show themselves here as well as strange voices. Machinery has stopped working for no apparent reason. Ghostly miners have been seen at the old mine shaft and engine house which collapsed in 1984, on Chelmarsh Common.
The first thing you notice about the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Cleobury Mortimer is the crooked spire set upon a square tower. It’s not only the tower which is askew! If you go inside the church apparently the walls lean at peculiar angles too. Not a place to visit if you have had one too many to drink!