The Ghosts of St James, Husborne Crawley

A church in Herefordshire is trying out glamping champing - a new idea where you can stay in abandoned churches overnight, in utter comfort with a wood burning stove and a loo.

Now St James's Husborne Crawley (the parish church of St Mary Mag's for reasons I can't even face) is not quite redundant. Albeit its "A Church Near You" page focuses heavily on architecture and doesn't waste its time on minor details like whether they have any services.

But it ain't exactly overburdened with ecclesiastical life. Which might make the dedicated champer from, as it may be, London or Luton, think it's a good place to stay.

But I'd be careful. There's a lot of ghosts in Husborne Crawley Church. And I'm pretty sure, should you stay the night, you'll encounter a couple.

Flattened Jake

Poor Flattened Jake. A parishioner during the Victorian period who told them they'd make changes to the structure "over my dead body". And was accidentally hit with a box pew.

Wally the Wallaby

When the Revd Stephen Trott killed a wallaby on the M1 at J13 in 2005, he thought he'd hit a "large white" kangaroo. Our suspicion is that he was confused by the appearance of the demised marsupial's ghost, as Wally the Wallaby hops around the church yard in the dusk of summer evenings, before heading across the fields to the motorway to re-create his sad end.

Mary Driscoll

Died of boredom during a two-hour sermon in 1694. Mary's spirit sleeps on the back pew, waking every ten minutes through the night to cry out, "Is he still going?"

William Slingsby

The minister during whose sermon Mary died.  After 323 years, he has reached point number 47,983 although he has had to start repeating words starting with "R" in his sermon point headings.

Old Shuck, the Black Dog

Notorious denizen of Bedfordshire lanes. Don't shout at it. Don't look at it. Do not, under any circumstances, offer it a biscuit.

Raine Later 

In 1927, said she wasn't leaving the church book stall until somebody bought something. 

She's still waiting.

Gabriel Elm

In protest at the old string quire being replaced with an organist in 1894, chained himself to the organ. Those early electric organs weren't as safe as later models. If you hear a hiss and a spooky smell of singeing hair in the wee small hours, that will be old Gab.

Jumbley Jane

Nobody remembers her real name. She gave her entire life to sorting jumble for endless jumble sales. In death, apparently she just couldn't leave it alone. On quiet nights of a full moon, Jane can be seen at the back of the nave, sorting through piles of second-hand underpants. It's not a great way to spend eternity.

The Phantom PCC

In 1936, an entire PCC died of exhaustion three days into an argument about what colour to paint the gate in the church hatch. They're still going, every 3rd Monday at 8pm. We're still waiting to find out what colour the gate's going to be. 

Still awaiting a lick of paint

The Duelling Curates

During the Oxford Movement revival, two curates argued over the precise distance they should place the candles from the edge of the altar. The argument was resolved with a duel in the churchyard. Being upper class types, after loosing 30 or 40 bullets at each other they had hit nothing apart from a few passing peasants. At which point the villagers got bored and clubbed them both to death. They continue their deadly encounter, firing wildly across the churchyard, on the Sunday after Michaelmas every year at 10pm.

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