Radiant Boys and other ghosts
ALAN MURDIE surveys the spectres of a Devon estate, from a Spanish Lady to a Radiant Boy
Standing in parkland close to the English Riviera seafront of Torquay are the ruins of the once glorious Torre Abbey. All that remains of one of the richest monastic houses in England, where monks worked and worshipped for centuries, lies adjacent to a fine 18th century mansion that incorporates sections of the ancient stonework in its foundations. Since 1930 the mansion has operated as a municipal museum and art gallery, enhanced by extensive restoration in recent years. Naturally, such an antique set of ruins and the accompanying property are said to be haunted.
Each era in the history of Torre Abbey has laid down a fresh stratum of ghostly stories, inspired by the lives and fates of those who once lived and died in the vicinity. Traceable within these traditions are echoes of the clash between the Protestant and Catholic faiths during the 16th and 17th centuries, which saw the monks expelled from their home and the buildings turned to secular usage.
Torre Abbey was originally founded in 1196 by monks from the Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré in France, with the backing of the Lord of the Manor, William Brewer. We may presume that the first monks who dedicated themselves to lives of prayer acted initially from spiritual motives, driven by a sense of piety and the urge for mystical unity with God. However, that they were not entirely removed from the affairs of this world is demonstrated in their canny acquisition of the fishing rights to Torbay. Such early business acumen indicates that the splendid dignity of the Abbey – which can only be guessed at when visited today – stemmed from monastic scheming as much as dreaming.
One line of business in particular proved very lucrative in enriching the Abbey with very little cost to the monks in material terms. This was the selling of masses and prayers for the benefit of wealthy nobles and aristocrats to ensure succour and relief for their souls in the afterlife.
According to the religious dogma of Purgatory that gained currency from the 12th century, those not eternally damned could be imprisoned in a halfway house between Heaven and Hell. Fortunately, this might only be a temporary incarceration, for by way of dedicated prayers it was possible for a kind of early release to be obtained to accelerate entry into Heaven. There was scant scriptural authority for this doctrine, but as the Bible was only available in Latin and few lay people
The boy in shining clothes was identified as Reginald’s own soul, destined for Heaven
were literate, who was qualified to argue with the Church?
An important early subscriber to the doctrines promoted at Torre was Reginald Mohun II of Torre (1206-1258) son of Reginald Mohun the First of Torre and Alice Brewer, the sister of the original founder. To guarantee the avoidance of lengthy terms in Purgatory for himself, his ancestors and descendants, Reginald II even went so far as to found another Devonshire Abbey, at Newenham near Axminster. He was duly rewarded for his generosity when shortly before his death his confessor underwent a vision (or at least claimed to have) of “a venerable person attired in white, conducted by a boy more radiant than the Sun and vested in a robe brighter than crystal, from the baptismal font of the altar”.
From a folkloric perspective such an apparition rather fits the label of a ‘Radiant Boy’, a traditional omen seen by those who rise to great heights of power but suffer drastic falls and reversals and often violent ends (see for example the much later stories of Radiant Boys at Corby Castle in Cumbria and Knebworth House in Hertfordshire). It is difficult to know what to make of such
stories, presuming any foundation in actual experience, but connections between the apparition seen by the confessor and Radiant Boy lore was made by folklorist Theo Brown, influenced by Jungian ideas (Carl Jung identified Radiant Boys as encounters with a child archetype – see ‘The Radiant Boy and Other Child Ghosts in Devonshire Notes & Queries, 29, pp251-52 (1962-64) by Theo Brown; Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious v.9, pt 1 (1969) Carl Jung). But the monks proposed a more favourable interpretation, supplying a palatable spin for the dying Reginald. The boy in shining clothes was identified as Reginald’s own soul, destined for Heaven. Reginald duly expired soon after, doubtless convinced that his investment was worth it. When disinterred 75 years later, his body gave off a sweet fragrance, the odour of sanctity, and remained uncorrupted, a sign of sainthood.
With such luminous vindications, selling prayers proved very lucrative over the next few centuries, receiving endorsement from the Church with the issue of a Papal Bull in 1343 sanctioning the practice of offering indulgences to help fund construction of St Peter’s in Rome.
Torre Abbey did not prove immune from other scandals. Relations with the local people deteriorated in the 14th century when an angry mob broke in during the reign of Prior de Cotelforde and in 1390 the neighbourhood was inflamed by false rumours of Abbot William Norton murdering a reclusive canon named Simon Hastynges by beheading. These allegations reached such an intensity that the Bishop of Exeter
intervened and ordered the canon to appear in public. Hastynges was duly produced and the Bishop issued a pronouncement of excommunication against those spreading rumours. But the accusers and doubters were not placated, it then being suggested that the canon was an imposter disguised as Hastynges. Belief was strengthened by stories the following year of Simon’s headless ghost galloping on a phantom horse along avenues leading up to the Abbey. Tradition avers that his ghost has appeared ever since. A curious detail is the horse on which he rides is blind.
Ultimately, the accumulation of scandals within the Catholic Church and disgust at the exploitation of the religious sentiment of the faithful drove the Reformation. Henry VIII launched the Dissolution of the Monasteries, which meant the downfall not only of Torre Abbey but all such institutions across England, in the greatest single exercise in state-backed asset stripping in 500 years, unparalleled until the privatisation of the nationalised industries in the UK after 1979. Much resistance occurred across the West Country to the forced imposition of Protestantism (including the new prayer book which was incomprehensible to those who could only understand the Cornish language or local dialects), but the looting at Torre Abbey proceeded swiftly, leaving it denuded and in ruins for half a century. One building spared the onslaught was the great tithe barn and store that survived intact, and still stands south-west of the original Abbey complex.
This barn was later to become notorious for its infamous role as an internment centre in 1588 for prisoners from a captured Spanish warship, generating the best known of Torre’s ghosts. Tensions between Catholicism and Protestantism had escalated on the international level, with Philip II of Spain launching the Armada. An early casualty was the prize Spanish flagship Neustra Senora del Rosario, laden with treasure, which floundered after losing its mast in a collision. Surrendering to Sir Francis Drake, the vessel was towed into Torbay and its 397 mariners and soldiers taken ashore and crammed into the barn. No human rights applied and crewmembers died in droves from sickness and starvation within its thick grey walls.
A poignant and romantic story claims that really there were only 396 men aboard, for one crewmember was secretly a woman who concealed her sex to join the fateful voyage. She was the devoted wife of a lieutenant and, unwilling to be separated from her husband, she followed him to the wars in disguise. Accounts differ as to whether she passed herself off as a nun being transported to aid in the re-conversion of England, or was simply disguised as a common sailor. Captured alongside her husband and the crew, she was stricken with grief when he predeceased her, before succumbing herself. On moonlit nights her ghost wanders outside along King’s Drive, wearing a mantilla or hood; Peter Underwood records motorists glimpsing her shrouded figure in their headlights in nearby avenues in his The A-Z of British Ghosts (1992). But local historian Deryck Seymour, author of Torre Abbey (1977) and The Ghosts of Torbay (1990), admits never tracing any actual witnesses.
The portrait of an unknown Spanish lady from the 15th century today displayed in the art collection at Torre Abbey has possibly contributed to her legend. The Spanish Lady of Torre Abbey fits the motif of the hooded female phantom (typically a White or Grey Lady) who has suffered trauma or wrong. Her apparition is a rare example of a ghost with Spanish origins in the British Isles; another is the Green Lady of Thorpe Hall, Lincolnshire, seen by occult writer Paul Huson as a child during World War II (see his 1977 book, How To Test and Develop Your ESP). Her proximity to the sea and distraught wandering is reminiscent of the Hispanic ‘Llorona’ much feared in coastal districts across Latin America (see FT351:30-31, 373:49, 377:77).
In the 19th century, locals believed that the spirits of sailors who starved returned on certain unspecified but auspicious nights (presumably the anniversary of their capture, Hallowe’en and Christmas Eve). Memory of the slow massacre within the barn endures in its name, the building being known ever afterwards as ‘the Spanish Barn’. It is now used for weddings and concerts.
Ten years afterwards, in 1598, the politician Thomas Ridgeway (1566-1631) began a conversion of the Abbey for domestic usage and “re-edified those almost decayed cells to a newer and better form”. Ridgeway served as vice-treasurer to Parliament, but was to be financially ruined himself when he was surcharged for deficits in official funds under his control. The next purchaser of Torre Abbey also met with disaster. This was Sir John Stawell who, like many West Country landowners in the Civil War, backed the losing side in staying loyal to Charles I. Stawell remained obstinate throughout the Commonwealth with the result that he was imprisoned and his lands forfeited. Eventually released at the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, he sought to regain his wealth and influence.
He became MP for Somerset but died early the following year. However, his shade does not haunt Torre but Avebury Manor House in Wiltshire, seen looking out from a window and weeping.
The fates of Ridgeway and Stawell might be taken as bolstering the longstanding belief that those who turned religious buildings seized at the Reformation into private houses were doomed to decline. But the third person to acquire the Abbey was Sir George Cary, whose family and descendants managed to hold the property for nearly 300 years, despite great risk to themselves in their early years. Whilst outwardly loyal to the Protestant crown, they remained secret Catholics, or recusants, concealing their faith in the face of harsh penalties and civil disqualifications. Laws enacted from 1593 laid the basis for persecution lasting for decades, times chillingly depicted in the novel Havoc, in its Third Year (2004) by Ronan Bennett. During the 1670s, the intensity of antiCatholic sentiment increased owing to the pro-French policies of Charles II’s government and belief in Popish plots against the throne. This forced the priests ministering to the Cary family to disguise and conceal themselves. It is easy to imagine how feelings of fear and tension within the household, together with fleeting glimpses of mysterious and furtive robed figures within the building, might build stories of a haunting; as Roger Clarke says in The Natural History of Ghosts (2012): “By vanishing into the wainscots, these clerics were, in a sense, well on the way to becoming ghosts”.
Perhaps it was echoes of this clandestine worship that lay behind the manifestations reported in 1968 by Mr Lee, the then Curator of Torre Abbey, and his wife, who heard unexplained footsteps around the Abbot’s Tower.
The harsh sanctions relaxed in later decades, and in the mid-18th century the Cary family flourished. One particular Lady Cary (c.1770) was a great socialite, often seen out in her carriage. After her death she continued her social rounds in a glowing spectral coach, and in the 1870s two young women spotted a brilliantly lit coach containing Lady Cary crossing the park. As they approached the breathtaking apparition, it vanished away. By the mid19th century, Torre Abbey was considered a haunted place and phantom coaches enjoyed a vogue in the late 19th century. Many are recorded in the West Country and whilst most stories are folkloric, a handful of potentially credible accounts of phantom carriages were logged by early psychical researchers (see Collective cases in Phantasms of the Living (1886) vol.II, Edmund Gurney et al) so it is possible this may have been a genuine sighting.
But in turn the fortunes of the Cary family dwindled, their collapse accelerated by World War I, which claimed the lives of heirs to the estate and crippled the surviving family with death duties. This led to the house being acquired by Torbay Council in 1930, since when it has been transformed into an exemplary art gallery and museum. Among the 600 items held and exhibited, the spiritual element is well represented with work by William Blake and examples of mystical art by Edward Burne-Jones, who left the Church to take up painting, specialising in depicting pallid and ethereal angels, reminiscent of divine beings portrayed in mediaeval illuminated manuscripts.
Now in the 21st century the religious passions and upheavals that shaped the history of Torre Abbey have cooled. But belief in ghosts persists, the Abbey being seen as the most haunted house in Torquay, helping earn the town the accolade of ‘the most haunted place in Britain’ in 2015 (see ‘Revealed: The towns where things really go bump in the night’ Daily Mail, 15 Mar 2015).
Concerning the evolution of ghost belief in Devon, Theo Brown wrote: “The sudden cessation of requiem Masses and of a belief in purgatory left a terrifying void in men’s minds. Where were their dead?” (‘Some Examples of Post-Reformation Folklore in Devon, Folklore (1961) vol.72, no.2 pp.388-399). Vivid and glowing as the accumulated spectres of Torre may be in tradition, the only first-hand reports concern much lower-level activity such as footsteps. Currently, many of the staff at Torre do not seem enthusiastic about discussing even
these, though perhaps understandably since they are the ones working in the rambling building and who have to walk the ancient cloisters and corridors after hours, including during the darkness of winter.
Some enquirers may consider tradition indicates a host of invisible ghosts should walk at Torre, whilst others may take the view that ghostly manifestations arising from different epochs combine through time, coalescing into a single haunting (an idea advanced by parapsychologist Alex Tanous (see his posthumous Conversations with Ghosts (2013) edited by Callum Cooper). Either way, Theo Brown’s question remains a valid one.
Perhaps there is something in the belief that manifestations wind down in time, awaiting a suitable trigger to revive them. An account by Deryck Seymour, who steeped himself in the history of the building, might suggest this. On finishing a discussion on ghosts with the then curator at the top of the stairway in the Abbot’s Tower on 6 May 1968, “We saw the latch of the heavy door lifted up, whilst the door swung violently open and as suddenly slammed itself in our faces. This was about dusk on a calm, still evening with not a breath of wind. No one could have come up the flight of stairs and then got away again… Yet we distinctly saw the latch move”. Seymour had just been speaking of Prior de Cotelforde and expressing his wish of being able to see the Abbey in former times.
Interestingly, similar strange door-opening incidents were reported in York seven years later on 8 February 1974, when Peter Underwood was presenting a lecture entitled a ‘Talk and Discussion on Ghosts’ in a room known as ‘the House of Laymen’ at St William’s College, devoted to the ghosts of the city (see Ghostwatch, FT364:18).
Such minor incidents, trivial in themselves, are frequently reported in haunted properties, often leading to the reaction of “Was it something I said?” But could simply by speaking sympathetically of a historic personality, “Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath” (to quote from Thomas Gray’s Elegy in a Country Churchyard).
The apparent insignificance of such moments leads them typically to be dismissed, forgotten or simply labelled as ‘Just One of Those Things’. Yet it is these curious minor happenings that occur seemingly on cue when discussions turn to ghosts that have helped foster and sustain ghost beliefs in modern times. Who knows, perhaps blowing on the embers of the ghostlore of Torre Abbey may yet achieve the return of some of its shades…