By Geoff Milburn
The headless horsewoman that was in years gone by seen galloping over the dreary summit of Stainmoor (Stainmore) at midnight takes one back to when wolves and wild boar roamed over this lonely moor.
There is in our records the oft-repeated spine-chilling tale of evil Teesdale rogues (or more likely travelling passers-by) who were thwarted by local cunning in what became the most scary ‘Hand of Glory’ affair.
This took place in 1797 at the Spital Inn, on Stainmore, where the innkeeper was George Alderson helped by his wife. Originally in the 12th century it had been a hospital run by a religious order of Sisters set up by the Abbot of Marrick Abbey in Swaledale.
One of the strangest occurrences on Stainmoor, however, was that of Michael Hobson (1825-1912) who was born in Boldron and later became an ostler at the Rose and Crown, in Barnard Castle, where the Darlington to Penrith coach stopped. He was said to have driven one of the last coaches to make that run after the railways began to operate locally in the 1850s.
One dark night, with rain from the west lashing down, the coach pulled by four horses was bucking about in the mud and water pools as it approached Stainmoor summit.
The oil lamps gave only a few sparks of light as rolling mist swirled round the coach. Suddenly without warning the lead traces to the horses snapped and the spirited animals began to speed up out of control, as the coach rocked about wildly, causing great shrieks of alarm from the passengers.
Suddenly a strange human figure emerged from the misted moorland and raced alongside the coach. Ducking under the traces the figure grabbed the reins of the lead horses and hauled back on them. Just as the coach was about to plunge to its destruction down the steep hillside at a bend, the horses were finally brought back under control and came to a halt. As the coachman and his terrified partner came to their senses and jumped down from their perch they saw their saviour pause briefly then vanish again just as quickly up into the blanket of thick mist.
Scared out of their wits the two coachmen repaired the damage and continued their journey to their next stop at Brough, utterly baffled as to why the stranger was out on the moor on such a wild night and how he could have instantly known that direct action was urgently needed to prevent an imminent disaster from taking place.
The Victorian author Edmund Bogg wrote about how the Norman adventurers who spread up into the North began to build such immense stone strongholds in both the Eden and Tees valleys. In his own words:
“A Saxon chieftain dwelt in a rude fortress on the edge of Stainmoor acknowledging no king as his master, and between him and Fitz-Barnard, the Norman – whose stronghold was by the rushing Tees, near to where the immense castle, whose ruins we now can see, was reared. In after years there was a bitter hatred and deadly feud; perhaps from the natural antipathy the two races had to each other, or it may have been over the right to chase over the wide moor, which both claimed as their own. Be this as it may, the two parties had more than once come to blows, while hunting.”
(Note: despite waves of invaders into England the in vogue woke multi-cultural society apparently had not yet caught on.)
While out hunting the Saxons met the beautiful daughter of Fitz-Barnard, with a party of her retainers. The chieftain who lusted after the young lady, took her captive then courteously and kindly tried to woo her for his wife. A cunning rescue party from Barnard Castle secretly freed her and set off wildly galloping across the moor aiming for home. The Saxons charged after them and a bloody affray took place, in which the Saxon chief angrily observed that his prize was about to escape his clutches.
Frustrated in the extreme, and rather than lose her, with one sweeping blow of his sword he promptly sliced off her head.
As to the beautiful headless young lady rider her appearances on moonlit nights are thankfully less frequent nowadays. In any case few car and lorry drivers on the busy A66 tend to stop and stretch their legs at a lay-by in such a remote location.
Would you?
