Lydney Docks haunted? (General)
by peteressex 
, Sunday, October 24, 2010, 12:20 (5152 days ago)
My great-uncle Arthur "Art" Sterrey and his son Albert Henry Hector "Bert" Sterrey worked at Lydney Docks for decades up to the closure of the docks commercially. It has come to my attention that Bert, at least, believed to his dying day that the docks were haunted by a headless ghost. It is also rumoured that Bert was a valued patron of several Lydney hostelries, which may have contributed to his belief, especially if he claimed to have actually witnessed the apparition, but has anyone else heard of the docks being haunted?
Lydney Docks haunted?
by J Thorne , Sunday, October 24, 2010, 15:19 (5152 days ago) @ peteressex
I heard it was Nass lane leading to the docks,have not heard the story for ages though.
Lydney Docks haunted?
by peteressex , Sunday, October 24, 2010, 20:18 (5151 days ago) @ J Thorne
Thanks for that. I have been looking into it further today (not wanting to leave it till any closer to Hallowe'en!) and found two traces of the story.
1. On www.paranormaldatabase.com there are three entries about Lydney ghosts. One of them, far from reporting a headless spectre, includes "Man without legs - Lydney, Docks area - 1934: one of the witnesses to this ghost reported that the misty figure wore a long raincoat and hat, but his legs were not there. The phantom would dissolve away if anyone moved too close. Many believed the entity was a man hanged on the docks after being found guilty murdering a girl on nearby marshland." With reference to the Naas Lane aspect now recalled, I suppose the river end of Naas Lane comes reasonably within "docks area", and of course the land down gets marshy. The other two entries on that website refer to the appearance of a child's footprints overnight in some bonding resin on an industrial unit (Pine End, possibly?)from which kids were banned, and to muffled heartbeats at Paisley House.
2. BBC Gloucestershire has a midday series fronted by Pete Wilson who on 09/05/2010 apparently interviewed an old Lydney skipper, Mike Meredith-Edwards, and the contents included "the Lydney Ghost". Unfortunately the programme only remained available for listening on line for 7 days after the broadcast, but I suppose we might be able to get more detail from BBC archives.
It also occurs to me that there was a fatal crash between a train and a skip lorry at Naas Lane crossing (often then used as a short cut to the docks from the Tutnalls direction) on 01/03/1979 in which the lorry driver was decapitated and the locomotive driver and secondman also died. Bert Sterrey was born in 1908 and died in 1991. I speculate that any idea of a headless ghost in or near Naas Lane could, in Bert's latter years, have stemmed from that. However, now that I see a story of leglessness, I also think that if Bert had reported such a spook it would have given rise to enduring mirth and recital in the family, given his reputed fondness for the sauce.
Watch this space - something might fill it!
Lydney Docks haunted?
by barbarajane , Wednesday, October 27, 2010, 22:38 (5148 days ago) @ peteressex
My father, Bob Vine, used to work at the docks & repeated the story Mr Sterry had told him of the ghost disappearing into the mist. This may be connected to another story about a sword fight in Naas House with Cavaliers & Roundheads, I don't know if there was a house there during this period. It may have just been a story to scare us.
I remember him helping out with some barges of logs during a walk to the docks & having a cup of tea in the little hut, so strong you could stand the spoon up. We used to camp at the top of the steps leading up to the field. There is a level area at the top which is over grown now. I remember my Dad repairing those steps in about 1970, but they may have been there much earlier.
Lydney Docks haunted?
by peteressex , Wednesday, November 03, 2010, 09:42 (5142 days ago) @ barbarajane
Yes, there was a skirmish or two around Naas House in the Civil War, and I've dug out a murder victim who might help explain the ghost.
A report for the owners of Naas House by the Gloucestershire Gardens and Landscape Trust in the 1990s says that in 1644 the house became used as a garrison for Parliamentarians under a Lt Massey. Sir John Wynter, the leading Lydney landowner, was a prominent royalist of the time and had fortified his manor house at White Cross. If you go to british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=23251 and highlight "civil war" you'll land on a paragraph mentioning "minor actions" and "considerable destruction and plundering" around Lydney. It includes a specific reference to skirmishes at Nass (as it was then spelt) in 1644 and early 1645, substantially occasioned, no doubt, by the Roundheads having been briefed to keep Wynter out of mischief.
The same Gardens and Landscape Trust report says that in the 1700s a daughter of Naas House, Mary Jones, was murdered on her way home from dining at the vicarage. It's possible that she was the woman cited as per my earlier post on this thread as having been murdered on marshland near the docks, but I haven't been able to discover whether her killer was apprehended or, therefore, hanged at the docks so as to contribute to the story of the local headless or legless ghost handed down by my "second uncle" Bert Sterrey and others.
Lydney Docks haunted?
by peteressex , Wednesday, November 24, 2010, 08:39 (5121 days ago) @ peteressex
The forest history e-book newly posted on this site reveals, on page 209, that the murderer of Mary Jones of Naas House was a young labourer named Morgan. In the course of the murder, Mary was robbed of her jewels. When the crime was discovered, everyone turned out on a hue and cry except for one man, Morgan. He, by contrast, was found at home in bed, with bloodstains about him and the jewels in the thatch. Unsurprisingly, he was convicted and executed. Perhaps 'tis Morgan's ghost still stalking the neighbourhood, unable to rest for his folly of failing to dispose of the evidence. Or perhaps 'tis Mary Jones, for her folly of flaunting the bling.