I've been dipping again into the real ghost stories Bob Mann has included in his great little book The Ghosts of Totnes. One that stands out concerns Bowden House, the history of which dates back to 1154 when it was owned by the De Broase family, who rebuilt Totnes Castle.
By 1704 it belonged to the Trists, who gave the house its Queen Anne facade, and now it is owned by the Petersen family. With its rich and colorful past it's hardly surprising that it has so many ghosts it's hard to know where to start! Dogs, cats, children, monks, Elizabethans and Regency Dandies have all made their presences felt here.
People have reached out and found unseen entities taking their hands, while there's a common feeling prevailing among family, friends and visitors of being watched. I gather that the Petersen's maintenance man for many years had so many psychic inspirations and warnings that he eventually accepted them as a fact of life.
Monks have frequently been seen - and their chanting heard in the main house and courtyards - while a New Zealand visitor who once stayed in one of the cottages woke up one night to see a monk leaning over the bottom of his bed, peering directly at him. The monk wore a black habit with a knotted cord round the waist and his cowl gave off a darkish blue light. And another monk has been seen in the main house's nursery, this time wearing a brown habit and walking slowly about the room. His cowl shone with such a bright light that the whole large room was illuminated.
Often, when the Petersens have been showing visitors around the house, things have been seen, felt and heard by people who had no prior idea that it was haunted. In 1986 during a tour, a middle-aged lady started shaking and repeatedly saying: "It's coming towards me; what am I going to do?" Nobody else saw or felt anything alarming. On another occasion the guide entered a room full of visitors awaiting him and saw a woman brushing angrily at her skirt, saying: "Get down dog! Who let this dog in?" She was the only person to see the dog.
In 1988 on August Bank Holiday, people in several groups saw the ghost of a little girl in a long blue dress. Another woman on the same day asked Mrs Petersen whether the house was haunted as she had seen the girl sitting on a chair in the Pink Room.
Bob Mann writes: "These sightings seemed to confirm something said by a clairvoyant who had visited the house the year before, and claimed to pick up the spirit of a little girl of the pre-Victorian period (presumably he meant the early 19th century) who had died in the Pink Room. She had not been a member of the family, but had been much loved. The girl was also seen during the 1950s, when Bowden was used as a children's home. One of the 'old girls' turned up for a visit and saw the child at an upstairs window.
Mr Petersen's most unnerving experience occurred when he was working with some medieval stone, dug up in the grounds. Suddenly he saw the whole of his arm and hand outlined with light. It was several days before he could bring himself to tell his wife what had happened.
Lest I put you off going there, I hasten to point out that most visitors to Bowden thoroughly enjoy the experience, and even of those who pick up something strange, the majority find it startling but not terrifying! It just appears that, for some reason, Bowden is one of those places where the energy of past ages is somehow accessible. Hauntings continue, so this is definitely a place to be psychically on your toes."
I do hope you're enjoying these real ghost stories!?
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