Woodhorn Church
Visited 17 October 2004
St Marys Church, more commonly known as Woodhorn Church, is the oldest church in Northumberland and is over 1200 years old. Eerie churchyards surrounded by ancient, and more recent, graves, are spooky places during the day so you can imagine how terrifying they can be in the dead of night. You’d expect graveyards, with hundreds of dead bodies buried just below the ground, to have plenty of ghost stories, you may even expect almost every graveyard to be haunted. Surprisingly though there are very few stories relating to haunted graveyards, there are even fewer sightings. Thankfully, Woodhorn Cemetery has two ghost stories and has also had plenty of sightings in recent years.
The Church of St Mary the Virgin is in Woodhorn Village in Ashington, Northumberland. The architecture of the building includes Norman, Saxon and Gothic. The building is no longer used as a church and is instead used as a museum by the local authorities.
The graveyard is said to be haunted by a soldier killed in World War 1, Tom Chalkley. In recent times there has often been a black, man shaped, shadow seen moving swiftly around the graveyard after dark. This is the ghost of Tom, he was laid to rest in this churchyard but to this very day doesn’t seem too keen on resting. If you’re ever passing the graveyard and see a dark shadow out of the corner of your eye, this will be Tom wandering the place that has been his home now for over a hundred years.
The lane that runs outside the church is haunted by a phantom cyclist, the identity of this spirit is unknown but if you were to see it, it's certainly not something you'd forget in a hurry. Riding a black bicycle, with flat handlebars, the cyclist is encountered at dusk and wears pitman’s clothes with large, heavy boots and a cap. He has a skeletal face with gaping eye sockets, and a gaping lower jaw puncturing his grey, dried up skin. His rotten teeth rattle inside the skull and he pedals along the road. No one knows who he is or how he died, but he has been seen on dozens of occasions, often accompanied by the squeaking of his rusty bicycle wheels.
The graveyard is said to be haunted by a soldier killed in World War 1, Tom Chalkley. In recent times there has often been a black, man shaped, shadow seen moving swiftly around the graveyard after dark. This is the ghost of Tom, he was laid to rest in this churchyard but to this very day doesn’t seem too keen on resting. If you’re ever passing the graveyard and see a dark shadow out of the corner of your eye, this will be Tom wandering the place that has been his home now for over a hundred years.
The lane that runs outside the church is haunted by a phantom cyclist, the identity of this spirit is unknown but if you were to see it, it's certainly not something you'd forget in a hurry. Riding a black bicycle, with flat handlebars, the cyclist is encountered at dusk and wears pitman’s clothes with large, heavy boots and a cap. He has a skeletal face with gaping eye sockets, and a gaping lower jaw puncturing his grey, dried up skin. His rotten teeth rattle inside the skull and he pedals along the road. No one knows who he is or how he died, but he has been seen on dozens of occasions, often accompanied by the squeaking of his rusty bicycle wheels.
Before I begin my report I want to explain that I was in two minds about whether to carry out this investigation or not. A lot of people might find it disrespectful to carry out a ghost hunt in a churchyard and I don't want to offend anyone. We conducted this with the utmost of respect for the area, and the departed who were laid to rest here, may they forever rest in peace.
I was joined tonight by Ryan (sceptic), Harry (believer) and Tom (sceptic). I don't live very far from Ashington, so after a short drive we arrived at Woodhorn Church at about 10pm. As we got out of the car I looked ahead of me at the churchyard in total darkness, illuminated only by the moonlight. I glanced over to my companions and they all seemed fairly relaxed, hopefully this wouldn’t last long. It was a very cold night, so we all wrapped up warm and decided to just take one torch with us as we didn't want to draw too much attention to ourselves in case people mistakenly thought we were up to no good. The church is very impressive, especially after dark, as we entered the churchyard I stopped and looked over to the road outside the church where the skeletal cyclist is seen, I'd love to see that with my own eyes tonight.
As we walked through the churchyard, graves passing us by on all sides, I was at the back, without a torch, in total darkness. However I didn't feel scared, I felt safe and welcome. We explored the entire churchyard and without warning Harry said "We're being watched, I have this feeling that someone or something is following us". In recent weeks Harry has seemed to be more and more 'in tune' with unseen forces around us, I suggested that maybe he could be a medium, "I'm not a medium, I'm an extra large" came the, somewhat predictable, reply.
We left Woodhorn churchyard and walked to another nearby cemetery, again we did this with nothing but respect. Tom and Ryan sat silently on a bench while Harry and I walked slowly past the gravestones, stopping to read some of them. I was unexpectedly overcome with emotion, I felt a deep sadness and wanted to cry, this may have caused by reading some of the headstones or maybe it was something else. Maybe I was picking up on the emotions of the people who have passed over. After around twenty minutes We left and returned to Woodhorn, our primary location tonight.
We reached an area of the graveyard about two metres in from the main entrance and Harry suddenly stopped "There's something here" he said. No sooner did those words leave his mouth that the bulb on our single torch started flickering then dimmed. We exchanged terrified looks, I felt every single hair on my body stand on end, and the atmosphere suddenly seemed to become charged with electricity, you could feel it. The torch dimming couldn't have been caused by the batteries as they were brand new and had only just been put it on our journey here. Harry pointed the torch towards three graves to the left of where we stood, the torch went out. He pointed it away and it came back on, he could point it anywhere except at these graves and it worked perfectly, I paid careful attention and his hand was nowhere near the on/off button. I took some photos of the graves and what was on one of the photos chilled me to the bone. On the furthest grave was a large glowing area which looked like a face on the small screen on my camera, there was a beam of light going from the 'face' into the ground in front of the headstone. Ryan is quite possibly the most sceptical person I know, and after looking at the photo he exclaimed in total disbelief “I’ve just seen my first ghost”. I walked closer to the grave and took some more photos. I didn't feel scared, I still felt comfortable, as if whatever, or whomever, was here welcomed us.
As soon as we left this spot the torch was working fine. Harry was convinced we were still being followed and being watched from all angles. We were all on edge, constantly looking around us. I walked off ahead to take some photos around the back of the church and spend a few minutes alone, I crouched down and I immediately realised how silent it was, there was no traffic passing by, no animal noises, just silence. I spent around ten minutes before catching up with the others.
We returned to the location of the amazing happenings an hour earlier and after a few minutes the torch, which had worked fine since we were last here, started to flicker again. I felt sick to my stomach, the sickening feeling of panic you get when you suddenly get the news something terrible has happened to someone close, you feel sick then you feel your heart racing, pounding to the point where it seems it’s going to burst out of your chest. The torch dimmed, then got brighter then flickered again. This was beyond coincidence, for the first time on any investigation to date, I was now 100% sure that we were not alone. By the open mouthed look of astonishment on everyone else’s face it seemed that I wasn’t the only one who knew it. “Is there anyone there?” I asked. “If there is and you want to let us know, can you make a noise, touch one of us, make the torch go out completely?” it flickered rapidly some more then the torch went back to normal, we watched, expecting, hoping, the torch would flicker again or go out completely. No one said anything, everyone stared at the torch, but, unfortunately, it seemed that whatever had been trying to let us know it was around, didn’t want to play anymore. Perhaps the spirit had made its point and decided to leave us, safe in the knowledge that it had made its presence known.
We returned to the location of the amazing happenings an hour earlier and after a few minutes the torch, which had worked fine since we were last here, started to flicker again. I felt sick to my stomach, the sickening feeling of panic you get when you suddenly get the news something terrible has happened to someone close, you feel sick then you feel your heart racing, pounding to the point where it seems it’s going to burst out of your chest. The torch dimmed, then got brighter then flickered again. This was beyond coincidence, for the first time on any investigation to date, I was now 100% sure that we were not alone. By the open mouthed look of astonishment on everyone else’s face it seemed that I wasn’t the only one who knew it. “Is there anyone there?” I asked. “If there is and you want to let us know, can you make a noise, touch one of us, make the torch go out completely?” it flickered rapidly some more then the torch went back to normal, we watched, expecting, hoping, the torch would flicker again or go out completely. No one said anything, everyone stared at the torch, but, unfortunately, it seemed that whatever had been trying to let us know it was around, didn’t want to play anymore. Perhaps the spirit had made its point and decided to leave us, safe in the knowledge that it had made its presence known.
We left the churchyard and after a bit of time out in the lane where the ghost cyclist is seen, and nothing happening, we decided to head home after a fantastic night, and one that none of us will forget. Ever.
Conclusion
What a night! Graveyards are incredibly eerie places but it’s very uncommon for someone to report seeing a ghost in one. This is possibly because by the time someone is laid to rest here the soul has left the body, and it is essentially an empty shell that is put into the ground. The truth is that since no one knows for sure what a ghost is, or if they even exist for definite, we can’t be sure of why they haunt certain places. Perhaps we will never know
