‘ORRIBLE ‘ISTORIES: Peggy investigates The Stanfield Hall Murders

Iactually walked back to the car and looked at the clock in the car as I thought this night porter was on something. Amazingly the clock said 10pm. I just couldn’t conceive what was happening. How could all of our watches including the car clock be out by two hours? Had us and the car been taken to an unknown location on an alien vessel? In the end, after much begging and pleading, the night porter took us to our rooms and even let us have a glass of wine. None of us could fathom how we had lost two hours. I immediately came to the conclusion along with the suspicious van, that some sort of abduction had taken place. I don’t know why I thought it, but I certainly wasn’t going to share that with the other sceptical bunch. I didn’t feel any different, I didn’t feel violated in any way, I just couldn’t offer my own rational thinking to any other option. It wasn’t until I got home that my mouth gaped open, and I am sure us, along with the van driver, had definitely been abducted even though I had no memory of what happened in those two hours.I researched ‘Scotland UFO sightings’ and amazingly many articles came up concerning UFO sightings and reported alien abductions. The area that we had found ourselves in was literally a hot bed of alien encounters. Strangely enough I was telling someone this story a few years ago and decided to Google Scotland UFO’s again in that area to see how many incidents had taken place.

I found this and it made me go cold…

In 2010, the MoD released a series of files which documented a strange encounter at the Glasgow Prestwick airport in February 1999.The traffic controller there tracked a fast-moving and unexplained UFO on the airport radar, sparking a flurry of activity. The RAF air defence staff launched an urgent investigation and impounded radar tapes. But the report concluded that ‘no additional evidence’ could be found to corroborate the socalled ‘Prestwick incident’.

No evidence? How about there was evidence and yet again it was put under wraps? That is exactly the same date that we were in the Highlands. So, it begs the question is it a coincidence that this incident happened, or did we get abducted by the same vessel that was spotted and investigated just South of where we were? It is certainly one for discussion, but I know where I stand with this one.

I firmly believe that we are not alone in the Universe, there are far too many sightings and reports of alien abduction. We cannot keep ignoring these reports and keep having them kept under wraps by the government. The thing I always ask myself however is why have an alien species not initiated any contact with the public? If they have landed in the past, have they been scooped up and placed in the likes of hanger 18? Have the witnesses been hushed and whipped away to protect the rest of the public? It is certainly one for a long debate.

However, I challenge any sceptic to provide a normal explanation for the events that happened to us that cold, snowy February night, because no matter how hard I try to find a rational solution, I’m left with nothing. Nicky x

Psychic Medium,

Tutor & Magazine Columnist

Author of M.E Myself & I:

Diary of a Psychic

Twitter @NickyAlan07

Instagram @nickyalan333

NOT SO ‘ORRIBLE ‘ISTORIES* THE STANFIELD HALL MURDERS

By Peggy Griffiths-Morgan

When you are a child (and I am talking around five or six

here) you are naturally naïve, you hopefully still think the best of people, adults are there to help and not hurt, you can be deliriously happy playing for hours with a cardboard box and you should not have to worry about anything.

I know that not everyone’s formative years are like that, but luckily mine were, which was why I never understood the sense of fear and foreboding that gripped me when I stepped inside Stanfield Hall near Wymondham, Norfolk on a lovely sunny day back in the 1970’s. I have vivid memories of the beautiful dark wood staircase and panelling, the smile of the then owner Mrs Hudson, but also a very weird sense of “this is not safe, get out”. I know I upset my mother that day by begging to go and sit in the car, and that I could not get out fast enough, unusual for me as normally when it came to places like that I would be chatting to the adults and asking a million and one questions, precocious maybe, inquisitive definitely.

Whilst I never forgot the feeling, I put it down to an overactive imagination, and ignored it, after all, I still believed back then that if my foot was out of my bed at night, Jack Frost would come and steal my toes…

Fast forward a few decades and I am sat in my garden reading a book by my friend and fellow historian, Neil Storey, about Norfolk murders through the ages and blow me down, Stanfield Hall makes an appearance (bit of a plug here for another author, check out Neil’s work, you will not be disappointed)

Back in the 1840’s, the hall – which had existed in some shape or form since at least the 13th Century and has a beautiful moat, through which is the boundary of Wymondham and Ketteringham - was lived in by the Jermy family, although originally Preston, Isaac Jermy had changed the family name to be more in keeping with the heritage of the hall and to abide by the wishes of the late owners last will and testament to adopt the Jermy name and coat of arms.

On the other side of the story, we have James Blomfield (JB) Rush, born illegitimately to Mary, he was adopted by his stepfather John Rush at only a few years old when his mother married, and was destined to become a farmer like the family members had done before him. He married a local girl from Aylsham, Susannah Soames and over the next sixteen years they went on to have nine children who survived infancy – actually, in the 1841 census they had 9 children all between the ages of 10 to 1, either she just had to sneeze

to get pregnant or he did not let her rest – and by early 1844, JB was renting a farm from Isaac Jermy, as was his step-father. This was when the first suspicious death occurred, on 24th October 1844, Rush senior had supposedly been out shooting with his step son, and whilst the two of them were alone in the kitchen, Rush Juniors new shotgun was reported to have gone off accidentally whilst being admired by John, killing him instantly.

Whether JB was expecting a financial windfall at this point cannot be proven, but John left all of his estate to his wife Mary, JB received nothing. Tragically, a month later his wife Susannah died, with an apparently incredibly devoted Rush by her side the whole time, but again, he did not appear to inherit anything, and an annuity was left for the children instead.

So here we have a man who has illusions of grandeur in being a country squire and affluent farmer, but without the ability to put in a hard day’s work or manage money, so far there are two slightly suspicious deaths…but I digress.

Next JB advertises for a Governess to help with his young children and appoints a young gullible girl from London called Emily Sandford, and soon this man, with a seemingly insatiable appetite for the opposite sex, has seduced this poor woman into being more than just home help. An account which shows how manipulative and controlling (and obnoxious) JB Rush was, is evidenced when he visited Emily’s parents in London some time after she had moved to Norfolk, he told them that she had run away with some stranger and that he did not know how to contact her.

“Not something you as a parent would want to hear.”

When he returned to Norfolk, he told Emily however that he had asked their permission for her hand in marriage to which they most obviously agreed without hesitation. By 1848, JB is heavily in debt trying to live a lifestyle of an affluent country squire, and owes money to Isaac Jermy for his residence, Potash farm. In August 1848 his dear mother died, remember Mary had inherited the entire estate from her late husband John, and nothing had been left to her son JB. Perhaps another example of doubt as to the reason for her death is that yet again, Rush was incredibly attentive to his ailing mother, and a servant recalls him feeding her “soaked bread”, shortly after she was discovered deceased.

If his plan had been to take her money – I hope you would agree, there is a trail of coincidences starting to follow here – then yet again, he was scuppered as she had left all of it to her grandchildren, perhaps Mary knew the kind of man her son really was. Not that it stopped him, the conniving toerag was happy to steal from anyone and forged a codicil to her legal instructions giving him absolute power over the money.

It is now November, he seems to have blown all the funds that he had come by, and on 30th of the month he was due to pay Jermy for the farm, which there was no chance he would be able to do.

A plan is hatched, not only does he get Emily to forge some documents, on the evening of 28th November, he dons a form of disguise and walks up to the front steps of Stanfield Hall, greeted by Isaac Jermy he shoots him at point blank range with a shotgun. He then marches into the hall – remember, the one with the dark wood and beautiful panelling? – and shoots Jermy’s son, Jermy Jermy (no, that is not a typing error, he was originally Jermy Preston, but when Dad changed the family surname, he became Jermy Jermy) leaving his lifeless body between the stairs and hallway. Servants hear the report of a gun and come running, poor Eliza Chestney (sometimes spelled Chastney) is shot in the leg and her mistress, the wife of Jermy junior is shot in the arm.

Quite quickly, another servant rides fast to nearby Wymondham to alert the police force of the time, and an awful scene is found with the two dead men at the hall. Bravely, the hall cook, Margaret Reed asserts that even thought he in was in disguise, she would confirm that the killer was Rush from nearby Potash Farm.

Fast forward some months and 21st April 1849, Rush is waiting to be hanged at Norwich Castle by the infamous William Calcraft, an audience of tens of thousands have travelled to watch the execution of this notorious killer – Norwich’s police force being out in droves due to the appearance of many of London’s pick pockets and thieves, looking to capitalise on this public spectacle.

What happened to the other people in this tale? Well Eliza – the servant shot in the leg – was carried to court in a litter, the most suitable way of being transported as she was still seriously injured even months later and bravely gave evidence against the bombastic Rush. The woman who fell for his charms, Emily Sandford, was being held at Wymondham Bridewell and also had a young baby with her, Emily Martha Vavasour Sandford, but she was able to start a new life by marrying a German, Moses Edler and emigrating to Australia (where records show she had at least two more children).

The saddest thing is that in 1851, the census records indicate that Rush’s daughter Mary was looking after the five youngest children in Felmingham, where his late mother’s farm had been, but his daughter Eleanor died at only 17 years old in 1852.

At five years old, I would not have known about this, nor the fear that would have been felt knowing that a rogue gun man was on the loose, but I wonder if somehow, that juvenile mind had picked up on a stray emotion that was still lingering in that beautiful but tragic building.

Penny X