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Mrs. Alice Godfrey
In the early 30s, the favourite Sunday evening walk in the summer for
the people of Alcester, both young and old, was along the Arrow Road, past the 'Elephant'
tree, through Arrow, and as far as the Spring between Ragley Hall gates and Kingley
corner. We were always told that the Spring was haunted by a white lady who was reputed to
be an ancestor of the Hertford family. The spring still runs into the horse trough but is
rather overgrown by moss and weeds.
However, in her book "Ghosts of Warwickshire" chapter 11, Betty Smith tells of two ghosts, although she says they may be one and the same, their stories being distorted and embroidered with each re-telling. The stories she tells are as follow:-
1. In 1833 an excavation near the spring revealed a skeleton of an Anglo-Saxon lady of the Manor, buried with her jewellery and a small dagger. Whether the dagger was the cause of her death is not known, but the shadowy figure of the white lady has been seen bending down to drink deeply at the spring.
2. The next one was a young Italian girl, lady's maid to the wife of the
3rd Marquess of Hertford (1777-1842) who came to Ragley Hall with her mistress Maria Fagniani. She was attached to a very jealous man-servant but one morning they were found to have disappeared and were never seen again. The ladies' maid, if it is she, lingers in the park wandering towards the spring, her silk gown brushing the grass but making no noise.
There is also a story of a third ghost, told by Anne Bradford in her book "Haunted";-
The ghost of an old lady, clad in bonnet and shawl, stood by the spring and asked for lifts from passing carriages to Dunnington but when drivers got down to assist, the old lady was not there.
After complaints that the old lady was alarming people, somebody dug round the spring and found the bones of a little old lady. These bones were laid to rest in Arrow church in the early years of this century and the old lady was never seen again.