18/12/2025
“Sometime in the mid-1800s there stood upon the town’s outskirts a small and weather-worn cottage. Its walls were of moorstone, its roof bowed with age, and its garden long untended, and the garden gate hanging off its hinges. There dwelt alone an aged widow woman born and bred in Ashburton, whose life had never strayed far beyond the sound of its church bells. She was known to all as a quiet soul, spare of speech and steadfast in habit. Each morning she walked the same lanes, each Sunday sat in the same pew, and she spoke often of where she wished to rest when God called her home. “I was born of Ashburton,” she would say, “and Ashburton shall have me again.” Her husband lay in the churchyard there, as did her parents, and she desired no other ground.
In her seventy-sixth year she travelled to Plymouth to visit family, her first such journey in many months. The sea air did not suit her; she was taken with a fever, and within a fortnight she died far from the Dartmoor hills she loved. Grief-stricken though they were, her relations found it easier to lay her to rest in Plymouth soil, beneath a sod already prepared. Thus was her final wish set aside, and her body committed to alien ground. When word of this reached Ashburton, it stirred unease rather than anger. The townsfolk shook their heads and spoke of it softly, for such matters were not lightly discussed. Within a week of her burial, the disturbances began. At first it was but a whisper of unease: a solitary figure seen upon the road at twilight, bent and shrouded, moving with the slow certainty of age. Then came sounds at night — a sudden chill in the air, the sigh of wind where none blew, the measured tread of feet upon the cottage path. Soon the hauntings grew bolder. Each night, as the town slept, a pale light glimmered in the widow’s empty cottage where a figure might be seen seated by the hearth, rocking gently. Though the house was empty by day dogs whined and refused to pass the place, and horses shied as if sensing an unseen hand. More than one sober man swore he heard a woman’s voice, sorrowful yet stern, murmuring of home and earth denied. No harm came of these visitations, yet fear spread swiftly. None would walk the outskirts after dusk, and prayers were said with renewed fervour. The wiser heads among the townsfolk spoke gravely, believing the spirit of the old widow woman could not rest while her bones lay far from Ashburton ground. It was her retribution, they said—not born of malice, but of a longing so strong it had outlived the flesh. The hauntings continued until, it was later whispered, steps were taken to right the wrong, though no record tells how. What is certain is this: after one bleak autumn night, the lights ceased, the footsteps fell silent, and the cottage returned to stillness.
Long after the disturbances had waned, the tale took firm root in Ashburton’s memory, growing richer with each retelling by hearth and alehouse fire. Old men would lower their voices and swear that the final night was unlike all the others, for a bell had tolled once — only once — though no hand had touched the rope. Others claimed they saw a small procession moving through the moorland mist toward the churchyard, led by a single lantern that burned with a wan and steady flame. By morning, the cottage stood unchanged, yet the air about it no longer pressed upon the chest, nor did the path bear phantom footfalls. The town breathed easier, as though some quiet balance had been restored. Still, none dared dwell there again. Ivy crept over the stones, and seasons passed, leaving the house to birds and weather.”
Truman's Post, September, 1895.
