Local history

Sandford Orcas Manor near Sherborne has, since the 1960s, had a reputation as one of the UK’s most haunted buildings

In this month’s Looking Back column, Roger Guttridge questions the spooky stories that have long been associated with Sandford Orcas Manor

As Dorset manor houses go, mid-16th century Sandford Orcas Manor near Sherborne is among the most exquisite in the county. Google it, however, and it’s not its fine Tudor architecture that makes the headlines but its reputation as a haven for ghosts and poltergeists. Top hit from my search took me to the Haunted Britain and Ireland website, which describes Sandford Orcas as ‘an eerie-looking building, the grey stone walls of which give the appearance of being every inch the haunted house of tradition’. ‘Indeed,’ the site adds, ‘so many ghostly tales swirl around it that many people consider it the most haunted house in England. Intrepid ghosthunters really have their work cut out with the 14 ghosts that are said to reside there.’ Around 40 years ago, I was privileged to attend committee meetings of the Somerset and Dorset Family History Society at Sandford Orcas Manor, whose future owner, Sir Mervyn Medlycott, happened to be our founder and chairman.

A modern history

It was from him that I learned that there was a rather more down-to-Earth story behind the house’s reputation as ‘the most haunted house in Britain’. The tale dates back to the period from 1965 to 1978, when Mervyn’s uncle Sir Christopher Medlycott, the eighth baronet, leased the house to Colonel and Mrs Francis Claridge. From the start, the Claridges claimed to have heard the

sounds of ‘beautiful music’ from a spinet or harpsichord and the noise of footsteps, voices and moving furniture. They described various ghostly figures, including one lady in red and another in white, a young woman in black, a farmer in a white smock, a young man looking at a stained-glass window, a screaming sea cadet, an Elizabethan walker ... and a fox terrier! As time went on, the spooky sightings became ever more bizarre. There was the story of the ghostly priest who tried to ... a lanky Georgian smother guests with his cloak. footman who had Even more sinister was the tale of preyed on serving a lanky Georgian footman, who had allegedly preyed on serving wenches and in wenches when alive but in death death smelt of smelt of decaying flesh and decaying flesh ... would not appear to any woman who was not a virgin. To support these stories, Colonel Claridge produced a succession of witnesses and back-up stories. The man in the smock was said

to be the ghost of James Davidge, a tenant farmer, who allegedly hanged himself under the gatehouse arch. The young screaming sea cadet was said to have been confined to his room for life after killing a fellow cadet while at Dartmouth Naval College. Former owner Sir Hubert Medlycott was also said to return to haunt his one-time abode.

Sandford Orcas Manor as it was in the 60s, the time of Colonel Claridge. Image: Barry Cuff colection.

Paying guests

The Claridges’ claims attracted national headlines, which in turn lured an ever-growing stream of paying visitors to Sandford Orcas. The tenants said they were raising money to build a cancer research laboratory. The visitors included Britain’s most famous ghost-hunter, Peter Underwood, founder of the Ghost Club, who led a coach party to Dorset in 1975. ‘Colonel Claridge and his wife entertained the party with some fantastic stories,’ Underwood reported. ‘The huge gargoyles on each gable laughed in the moonlight; there was the sound of rattling chains every night; there was a room in which it was impossible to take a photograph; there was a phantom that appeared regularly seven nights running each year; a room that screamed; a room where “every night a man parades up and down, his footsteps heavy and clear…”’ In his next sentence, Underwood got to the point. ‘Unfortunately,’ he wrote, ‘the ghosts multiplied to such an extent that credulity was stretched beyond breaking point; erroneous dates and “facts” were paraded; dubious photographs were exhibited; publicity was welcomed …’ The Ghost Club’s president was one of a growing army of sceptics, among whom were the Medlycotts themselves.

In 2009, when I interviewed Sir Mervyn for my book Paranormal Dorset, he made it clear he was tired of the whole business and I promised to try and put the record straight. ... sounds of ‘beautiful ‘People keep asking if they music’ from a can hold allharpsichord and of night vigils footsteps, voices and moving furniture ... here but the whole thing was made up,’ the ninth baronet told me. ‘I think some apparitions are genuine and I wrote in my history of the village about the figure of a woman seen at the Mitre Inn. ‘But the stories of the Manor started and finished with the Claridges, and there have been further stories made up by journalists since to keep the ball rolling. ‘Claridge needed to get more visitors to the house and this was a nice, cheap way of doing it.’ Sir Mervyn humorously added that Colonel Claridge, who died more than 30 years ago, was ‘six feet under in the churchyard and hasn’t appeared himself yet’. Sir Mervyn himself sadly died in 2021, aged 74.

• Roger Guttridge’s book Paranormal Dorset includes a chapter on Sandford Orcas Manor.

Granddad George’s Gillingham hotels

A trip to Gillingham for this month’s Then And Now, where Roger Guttridge discovers an Olympic champion’s unlikely connection with North Dorset hostelries

The Royal Hotel in Newbury c. 1920. The garden to the left is now part of Bracher Brothers, the funeral directors. Picture from Around Gillingham by David Lloyd

Sports fans in their late 60s or older will remember Mary Rand as one of Britain’s greatest female athletes. But how many know of her connection to a couple of North Dorset hotels? Mary (née Bignal) was born and brought up at Wells, Somerset, won an athletics scholarship to Millfield School and at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics became the first British woman to win Olympic gold in a track and field event. She actually won three medals – gold with a world record in the long jump, silver in the pentathlon and bronze in the 4x100m relay.

The Royal Hotel in about 1900. Note the two lions on the portico. Picture from the Barry Cuff Collection

Flats now stand on the site of the old Royal Hotel. Picture by Roger Guttridge

Her (admittedly tenuous!) connection with the Blackmore Vale is that her grandfather George Bignal owned two of Gillingham’s leading hotels – the Royal and the South Western. Both hotels were spawned by the coming of the railway, which arrived in 1859. In fact, the Royal was originally called the Railway Hotel, despite being in the area of Newbury, a tidy stroll from the station. In 1889, it was owned by Frank Ford, who made a point of stressing that it was ‘within three minutes’ walk of the London & South Western Railway’ (L&SWR). It was also a posting house and offered billiards and pool. By 1895, it had become the Royal Hotel and George Bignal was the owner. It did not close until 2005 but was subsequently demolished and the site redeveloped as flats. The developers and local planners deserve credit for making an effort to build the flats in a similar style. It is a shame they couldn’t find a spot for the two lions that once graced the portico. Locals will already be familiar with Bignal’s other hotel which was, ironically, barely a stone’s throw from the station, built on land bought from the L&SWR. The South Western’s prime site made it eminently accessible to train passengers, especially commercial travellers. They were able to hire carriages and traps from the hotel to take them to neighbouring towns and villages. The South Western also cashed in on its proximity to Gillingham’s market yards. On market days it would be crowded with farmers and livestock dealers, who could rely on the hotel staff to look after their horses. The building to the right in the c. 1900 picture above was the Market Hall, which was also used for public meetings and was the town’s first cinema, the Electric Palace. George Bignal owned the hotel around this time and issued his own public house tokens, a form of inhouse currency. Unlike the Royal, the South Western is still standing by the station, but has long since been converted to flats.

The South Western survives today as flats. Picture by Roger Guttridge

Postcards from a Dorset Collection

The BV first featured Barry Cuff’s collection in The Gardener with 10,000 postcards in April 2022. In the first of a new series, the local postcard collector – and The BV’s allotment columnist – shares a selection of images from his archive. This month Barry has picked the French photography and publishing firm Levy & Sons LL.

Portland Harbour

French company Levy and Sons first produced postcards for the Paris Exhibition of 1900, and by 1901 they were selling postcard views of Paris, Boulogne and other French channel ports. In 1904 the company sent photographers to England, where they photographed views of the South Coast and London. In Dorset they covered Swanage, Corfe Castle, Wareham, Wimborne, Weymouth and Portland. All the cards were numbered, and the postcards were ready for sale in 1905.