| Stories of hauntings at the magnificent old moated manor here were rife before the building was pulled down in the 1920s, though they seem to have been somewhat confused. Some say it was the ghost of a previous occupant, perhaps Sir George Cobb who drowned in the moat in 1762. In one version, the phantom is a headless wraith who walks at night. In another, the ghost is that of a friar. The most elaborate tale tells of a lady on a white horse crossing the drawbridge over the moat every night at midnight. The spirit actually appears to have been that of the Sir John Blagrave, the house's builder. He died at Southcote in 1611 and his apparition was being seen there only fifty years later. |
