Patrick Comerford
Tomorrow is Hallowe’en, and in previous years I have entertained myself be retelling ghost stories associated with the Comberford family.
Frankly, I am a sceptic when it comes to ghost stories. I am much more in fear of the real spectres that haunt our world today, including wars and mass killings in the Middle East, Ukraine, Russia, Sudan and Yemen, the rise of the far-right across Europe and racism and antisemitism around the world, and the consequences of Donald Trump’s return to office as President in the US, or the run-down and neglect of the NHS, the institutional lack of compassion for refugees and asylum seekers, and the rise of an ugly far-right nationalism in both Britain and Ireland.
These are the real, living ghosts in my world today.
In previous years I have recounted three ‘ghost stories’ that remain with me from childhood: two from family stories – the three knocks at the door at Comberford Hall, and the ghost of Emily in the Moat House, Tamworth; and one from school days – the foxes baying at night on the lawn in front of Gormanston Castle.
In recent months, I have heard what has the semblance of a ghost story – should I say, I have heard the skeleton or bones of what may be another ghost story – that may have links with another Comberford family home.
Since moving to Stony Stratford, on the borders of Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire over 3½ years ago, I have visited a number of places in Northamptonshire that have associations with the Comberford family, including Watford, Yelvertoft, Stoke Bruerne, Shutlanger and Wappenham. The shadow of a ghost story I heard in recent days comes from the small village of Shutlanger in Northamptonshire, which has a Comberford family connection dating from the 15th and 16th centuries.
William Comberford was entrusted with the Northamptonshire estates of Margaret Catesby, the widow of John Parles (1419-1452), when she died in 1459. Those estates included lands in Watford, Stoke Bruerne, Shutlanger and Wappenham, and her daughter Johanna Parles became William Comberford’s ward. Johanna was a wealthy heiress, and in time she married William’s son and heir, John Comberford (1440-1508).
This marriage added more land and wealth to the Comberford family estates. Their son, Thomas Comberford, sold much of the former Parles estates, including almost 400 acres in Stoke Bruerne, Shutlanger, Alderton and Wappenham, to Richard Empson of Easton Neston. But the Parles family had a lasting influence on the fortunes of the Comberford family, reflected even in the changes made to the Comberford family coat of arms over the generations.
The small village of Shutlanger is a mile west of Stoke Bruerne, half-way between Northampton and Stony Stratford. Shutlanger was neither a parish nor a lordship in its own right, and in the Middle Ages it had neither a church nor a manor house.
Two houses in the village became part of the story of the Parles and Comberford families and the history of the manor in Shutlanger: the Monastery on Water Lane has been identified as the home of the Parles family in the early 15th century, although it was first built in the 14th century; and the Manor House on Showsley Road has been a guest house until recently.
Robert Parles of Watford, Northamptonshire, bought the estate in 1364 and their family continued to live in Shutlanger for almost a century, until John Parles died in 1452. The Manor of Watford and the Parles estates in Shutlanger and Stoke Bruene descended to his daughter Joan Parles, who married William Comberford.
The Comberford family continued to own these estates, including Shutlanger for over half a century until most them were sold in 1504, although the Comberford family held some its other interests in Northamptonshire for another 60 years, including the Comberford Manor in Watford and the advosom of Yelvertoft. When Thomas Comberford sold the Comberford Manor in Watford to Sir John Spencer in 1563, the Comberford family interest in Yelvertoft parish came to an end.
Sir Richard Empson’s purchase of the former Parles and Comberford estate from the Comberford family in 1504 was one of a number of purchases he made in Shutlanger as he built up a large estate centred on his mansion at Easton Neston.
The estate passed with Easton Neston to Richard Fermor, and Sir John Fermor of Easton Neston held a court for what was described as his Manor of Shutlanger in 1554. After his death in 1571, however, the family’s estate in Shutlanger ceased to be regarded as a manor. The ‘Manor of Shutlanger’ remained for generations in the hands of the Fermor family – later the Fermor-Hesketh family and Earls of Pomfret.
The 14th century house in Shutlanger later known as the Monastery is on Water Lane on the south-east edge of the village. It became known as the Monastery through a supposed association with the Cistercian nunnery of Sewardsley in Easton Neston.
The house become the capital messuage, the principal house or equivalent of a manor house, of the Parles estate, and was the home of the Parles family by the early 15th century.
The house has an almost complete medieval roof structure and a two-storey entrance porch. This seems to have been added to the main building, which appears to date from the first half of the 14th century, although the windows in the south elevation of the main range, and also the porch, perhaps date from the late 15th century or the beginning of the 16th century. The house was modernised in the 17th century by inserting a staircase in the cross-passage and a fireplace in the service bay.
A chapel licensed in 1411 occupied the upper floor of the two-storey entrance porch to the Monastery that appears to be a later addition to the main structure.
The house was surrounded by extensive grounds, with fishponds and a dovecote, while an adjoining close formed a small park, described in the 1540s as 20 acres of coppice known as Parles Park. The family name was still recalled in the 18th and 19th centuries in a field known as Parles Park.
The Monastery later became a farmhouse on the Fermor estate. It was included in an exchange between the trustees of the 5th Earl of Pomfret and the 5th Duke of Grafton in 1844. When the Grafton estate in Shutlanger was sold off in 1919, the Monastery was bought by the sitting tenant and remodelled as a private house.
The Monastery extended to 3½ bays, including a two-bay hall, with a half-bay below the spere truss containing the cross-passage and a service bay beyond. An east solar or parlour bay was demolished.
The Monastery was first listed Grade I in 1951 and was restored in 1965. In recent years, it was the premises of Monastery Stained Glass, dealers in antique stained glass and panels of glass from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. But when I visited it recently it seemed to have returned to use as a family home.
Whether the house was every a monastic house or the residence of nuns and linked with the Cistercian nunnery of Sewardsley in Easton Neston is a matter of conjecture or even speculation. But it has given rise to this evening’s Hallowe’en story.
Norman Barford Ridge and his wife Lilla (nee Underwood) inherited the Monastery and the surrounding lands from his aunts in the 1950-1960s. Before Norman and Lilla moved in, a fire had ruined the roof and they set about renovating the house.
Their youngest son, who was away at school at the time, stayed with his parents at the Monastery during school holidays, and later when he was working he would stay with his parents in the Monastery on family visits. His bedroom was at the top of the staircase in the former chapel above the front entrance. Later he would describe how he had heard steps on the broad stone stairs in the middle of the night.
There were other stories too about the hauntings in the Monastery, from an underground tunnel that supposedly ran between the nuns’ residence and the main house, to a ‘Grey Lady’ who appeared before and often wreaked havoc with a number of people who visited.
After Lilla died, Norman moved to Bury St Edmunds, and the Monastery was bought by Charles Henry Wigley and his wife. Charles Wigley was a Dan Air pilot who flew out of Luton. His hobby was working with stained glass, and when he retired he worked full-time with stained glass, selling his works all over the world.
Norman Ridge’s daughter and sons continued to visit the Wigleys regularly and all three returned to the Monastery in association when their father’s funeral about 30 years ago. The Wigleys generously showed the Ridge children and grandchildren around the Monastery and the stained glass studio.
Hallowe’en is the eve of All Hallows or All Saints Day (1 November) and two nights before All Souls’ Day (2 November). They both celebrate the lives of holy people and faithful Christians. There is nothing spooky and shiver-inducing about either feastday or its commemorations.
But it is good to remember family members from the past, to give thanks for them and to remember the Comberford family links with some of the villages near here 500 years ago.
