Paranormal Postcard – The Old Ferryboat Inn

Nestled on a bend of the River Great Ouse, sits a whitewashed inn with blackened timbers and a thatched roof. When we visit early one cool autumn morning before the sun has emerged from behind the shadowy treeline, mist rises eerily off the river, lending a white shroud to the gnarled willows that bow their heads at the water’s edge.

Our early start has paid off, and the place is deserted at this hour. The riverbank in front of the inn is empty of cars and we find ourselves almost whispering as we pull up – unwilling to break the silence of the morning. Somewhat unsettlingly, a single dishevelled wooden chair sits in the middle of the otherwise immaculate and empty riverbank, looking out across the water as though placed there for the repose of an unseen watchman. It makes us feel rather like we are intruding on someone’s lonely, silent vigil.

At this hour, with the inn still sleeping, the Holywell riverfront is timeless. The road is sparsely dotted with chocolate-box thatched cottages as it peels away from the line of the river to curve up towards the site of the 13^th Century Church. In fact, the road circles all the way around and back on itself, creating a closed loop that still echos the original plan of the Anglo-Saxon Ring Village that once stood on this land.

We sit on the riverbank clutching flasks in chilly hands and watch the sun rise through wisps of steam from our coffee. The river is still and glassy, the only sound that of unseen birds, heralding the morning from the safety of the bushes. Holywell was once part of Fenland – that most mysterious landscape which many once feared due to its wildness and supposedly untameable inhabitants. In that moment, I could still feel an edge of wildness and mystery to this place, and could easily imagine the stands of swaying reeds that would have once filled this marshy landscape, and the legends of willo-the-wisps and lantern men that were whispered of here.

There has been occupation on this site for a very long time, certainly Roman artefacts have been found here, and even some flint tools. From the 1086 Domesday book record we can see that it’s not only the road layout that remains largely unchanged, but also the name of the village. It is recorded in that Latin tome as the village of Halliwelle, and was a fairly substantial place for the time, with 26 households, 6 smallholders and 1 priest.

The name Holywell comes, not from a well as you might expect, but from a natural spring, the water from which was thought to have magical healing properties and is understood to have been revered long before Christianity came to these Isles; but when come it did, a church was built next to the sacred spring.

Historians tell us this first church was already well established by the year 969, and would have been constructed of wood, wattle and daub. The location of the spring was very fortuitous for the church builders, as the land next to it afforded them a high vantage point with views right across the fens. A prime location also taken advantage of by the Romans who had come before; as there is evidence to suggest they had built a lighthouse where the church now stands – which might seem odd given that Holywell is at least 50 miles from the coast, but the neat fields and meadows that stretch out before us now, would once have been wild, watery marshes, thick with tangling rushes and sedge, and well known for being treacherous to navigate. Nothing is left of the lighthouse or the Saxon building now, but a medieval stone church takes its place, and the Holy Well remains on the site to this day.

From our position, directly in front of the Ferryboat Inn, we look out over the river at a crossing place that was used for centuries, and gave the Inn its name. Right up until the 1930’s a Ferry took people and goods across the Great Ouse from Holywell to the village of Fen Drayton on the other side of the river. It’s thought that this crossing point could have been in place as far back as Roman times, a tradition seemingly supported when archaeologists unearthed the remains of a Roman villa in Fen Drayton in recent years.

This humble Fenland river crossing was first made famous by Charles Kingsley’s 1866 novel Hereward the Wake, in which he wrote of the English folk-hero escaping the pursuit of the William the Conqueror’s men by dashing through the fens, across the Great Ouse by the Holywell ferry, and into the safety of the vast woodland beyond, before finally making it back to his base on the sacred Isle of Ely. The mention of the crossing is brief, but even amidst this chapter of high adventure as the hero flees for freedom, the otherworldly quality of the mysterious fenland manages to wend its way into the prose …

Truly it seems this landscape can pluck at something deep within all of us, something that recognises it as a strange, and maybe even liminal space.

But the story that the Inn became famous for in later years, concerns the ghost of a girl who predates even Hereward, and his exploits rebelling against the Norman Occupiers. A ghost who told paranormal investigators that she perished at Holywell in the year 1050. I found a retelling of the whole story in a newspaper from 1955 – a February edition of the Peterborough Citizen Advertiser. In it they relate the tragic tale of Juliet Tewsley, a lovesick girl who lived in Holywell over 900 years ago.

Apparently, the fair young maiden fell in love with a dashing, broad shouldered, curly haired wood cutter named Thomas Zhoul, and spent her mornings just hoping to catch a glimpse of him as he passed by on his way to work. One day, her passionate feelings for the man grew so strong that she couldn’t bear watching him from the shadows any longer, and had to make her feelings known. She professed her love to him, presenting the woodcutter with a bouquet of flowers alongside her dreams of their happy union. But it seems that Thomas was not interested in courtship at all, and Juliet’s hopes were dashed when he roughly brushed her aside and told her to go home to her mother. Her heart broken and her pride in tatters, the stricken girl saw no further future for herself and, taking a rope to one of the willow trees on the riverbank, she took her own life, on the 17^th March, in the year of 1050.

The villagers mourned, but the nature of her passing meant she was forbidden from being buried on hallowed ground, so she was interred at the crossroads near the Inn, with just a simple, heavy stone slab marking her resting place. Perhaps it was her heartbreak that wouldn’t allow her to rest easily in her simple grave, or perhaps it was the fact that, in following years, the Ferryboat’s trade increased, and so a new wing was built, which extended right over the spot where Juliet was buried. Whether in respect for her resting place, or a more pragmatic approach of not wanting to waste perfectly good stone, the Inn’s owner simply incorporated the grave marker into the floor of the extended inn. But maybe they hadn’t bargained for the spectral visitor this would earn them, because local legend says that every year, on the 17th of March, a ghostly white lady will appear, pointing at the flagstone in the floor of the bar.

Like most such tales, accounts vary slightly, some have her appear directly in the bar near the stone, others have her travel along the riverside towards the pub before reaching the destination of her gravesite. In still others Thomas actually murdered her, and her unquiet spirit rises from the river at midnight on the anniversary of her death. But whichever version is being told, all accounts seem certain of one thing; that the apparition is that of the lovelorn Juliet.

Within the Inn itself her story is emblazoned across the walls; a restaurant chalk board tells of the ghost of the Ferryboat, framed newspaper clippings about the haunting hang on the walls, and on the oak beam above her gravestone near the bar, the words “In memory of Juliet Tewsley who died 17^th March 1050 AD” is painted in tall gold lettering. Her story has become so entrenched in local tradition that it appears on an information board outside on the riverbank, alongside facts about the village name, local wildlife and the route of the nearby long-distance footpath. It appears in local history articles – I even found it included in a conservation statement produced by the Huntingdonshire planning department. In the eyes of the local, as well as the paranormal, community – it seems the legend is as good as fact.

The only problem … is that there never was a Saxon girl named Juliet Tewslie in Holywell, or a Thomas Zhoul for that matter, and for all its pervasiveness throughout the years, the origin story of this famous ghost was accidentally fabricated by a group of enthusiastic and well-intentioned paranormal investigators, and the series of events that followed their investigation in 1953.

That now famous investigation was led by respected parapsychologist Tony Cornell – member of the Society for Psychical Research and the Ghost Club. He was known for being level headed and down to earth, and for taking care to search for logical explanations before jumping to paranormal conclusions. Which makes it an even stranger twist of fate then, that during his career he unwittingly became responsible for at least two accidental hauntings. One occurred during an appearance on Anglian TV, when he was asked to assess a supposedly haunted property for signs of paranormal happenings. He explained on camera that he had found none, but when the program was broadcast, the TV station was flooded with phone calls from viewers reporting that, even as Cornell was presenting his findings, and declaring that he had found no evidence of paranormal activity, they had seen a dark and unexplained apparition appear on screen.

The other, was the ghost of the Ferryboat Inn. In all fairness, Cornell and his companions were following a real lead. Cornell was a Cambridgeshire local himself, and had caught wind of a story in Holywell that a white lady apparition would appear in the pub every year on the 17^th of March to point at a flagstone in the floor, which would then become loose in its foundation and could be rocked, even though it was usually quite stable and motionless.

Come the night of the 17^th March 1953, Cornell, his girlfriend at the time, and 3 other companions took the opportunity to test the claim – although from what Tony related in later years  – despite being curiously hopeful, they were realistic enough to not be expecting to actually see the apparition that night. And they were correct, no white lady appeared for them, although they did find that the big flagstone could indeed be rocked, just as the story said, and they took turns rocking it and inviting the white lady to make her presence known.

But as nothing much else was happening, they decided to try and communicate with the ghost through a Ouija board. For lack of a proper board, they made do with a borrowed a tin tray from the bar, writing letters around the edge and using an upturned wine glass as a planchette. But it just goes to show that you don’t need a fancy board to get results, as the ghost seemed to be in a chatty mood, and answers started coming through thick and fast.

The group continued their questions until closing time, but they weren’t ready to give up their Ouija board session when they were getting such interesting results, so they moved onto other hostelries with later opening hours, and continued their investigation. Over the course of the evening, they gathered the following information from the Ouija board; that the spirit they were speaking to was Juliet Tewsley, that she had been hanged for loving a woodcutter named Thomas Zhoul in the year 1050, and that her grave was under the flagstone in the bar of the Ferryboat Inn.

It was all fascinating of course, but Cornell was a Cambridge educated man; he was fully aware of the ideomotor movement, and he knew that prior knowledge of the legend, combined with their eagerness and the group’s well-practiced use of Ouija boards in the past, all could have contributed to them finding a story where there was none. But, he did his due diligence and looked for records of any family names in the area matching that of Tewsley or Zhoul through history; he found none, and he also found that neither the name Juliet or Thomas were in use during the 11^th century. He probably also wondered – as many others did later – how it could be that the ghost of a Saxon girl whose native tongue would have likely been Old English, could have been conversing with them so fluently using modern English scribbled on a bar tray.

In short, Cornell didn’t put too much stock in their findings, and didn’t pretend otherwise.

And that might have been an end to it, The Ferryboat would have retained its nameless white lady ghost, whose annual appearance pointing at the bar’s flagstone could have – as author Joan Foreman posits in Ghosts of East Anglia – just as easily been meant to indicate treasure buried under the great slab, as the ghost’s own grave. But the landlord of the Ferryboat at the time, obviously saw an opportunity to increase business. By this time, the famous ferry that had given the Inn its name was long gone, and in such a tiny village it’s likely that trade wasn’t exactly thriving, so you can hardly blame him for being shrewd, he just might have taken it a little too far.

He invited the investigators back for a repeat performance on the next year’s anniversary, apparently throwing the offer of a free meal into the mix. Who knows whether the investigators suspected the publican to be using them to draw trade – maybe they had already decided to go back anyway and thought they may as well get a free dinner out of it. But I imagine they may not have realised quite how much trade it would draw.

The forthcoming event was leaked to the newspapers, along with the information that had come through the Ouija board at the first investigation, about Juliet and her tragic demise. The press quickly latched onto the story, and news that the Cambridgeshire investigators planned to return to the Inn for a repeat performance – supposedly bringing all kinds of whizzy instruments along with them to help them make contact with the resident ghost – spread like wildfire around the area.

Of course, the press weren’t interested in Cornell’s findings that there was no such girl – Juliet was the tragic heroine in a story of heartbreak and sentience beyond death – that alone was too delicious for the papers to pass up, and the fact that it provided a neatly tied up backstory to the odd flagstone in the pub, and its tradition of a female apparition, was just the icing on the cake. The pub landlord went before the local magistrates to apply for the inn to be granted a special late opening licence, so they could hold their vigil to wait the ghost’s appearance, and – astonishingly – the magistrates granted it.

On the night itself, the Ferryboat Inn was heaving, fit to burst, every room at the inn was booked up, people were peering in at the windows and police were turning cars away from the village a mile off, but for all the excitement and expectation – just as last time, Juliet did not appear.

So, the investigators brought out their not-so-secret secret weapon – a Ouija board – and not a tin tray this time, but a purpose made wooden affair. Apparently the planchette flew around the board, but Juliet was not as forthcoming as before. They had a couple of messages that raised everyone’s hopes, the first; I am Juliet, and the second; I am trying to materialise.

Materialise she did not, but then I can’t say I blame her; I think that clamouring audience would have been enough to give any spirit stage fright.

Of course, the papers were just as vocal about the ghost’s non-appearance as they were previously eager in predicting her materialisation; although by their tone they had apparently all become much greater sceptics overnight. Headlines appeared such as “Ferry Boat Inn’s ghost Vanishes” and “The Ghost That Never Was”, alongside quotes from the local Reverend stating that the whole story was ‘Bunkum’.

On paper, you’d think that between the ghost’s non-appearance, the local vicar’s claim of the legend being nonsense and the suddenly sceptical tone adopted by the newspapers, as well as Cornell’s findings that there was indeed no Juliet Tewsley in the historical record, the flash-in-the-pan story would have been relegated to the local paper archives, and quickly forgotten. But as we can see, that’s not what happened at all. Why did this accidental ghost story not only survive, but flourish, making its way into countless paranormal guides from that day to the present? Well, it was partly down to that very same Reverend who was so keen to call it all ‘Bunkum’.

Reverend Alexander George McLennan Pearce Higgins was quite vocal in telling the newspapers that there never was a girl named Juliet Tewsley in Holywell – and he was right of course – only then, he did a very peculiar thing indeed. According to an article by Robert Halliday in the July 2016 issue of Fortean Times, Reverend Higgins wrote a short story using the details from Cornell’s Ouija board session, but adding in all sorts of details that fleshed it out into a fully-fledged local legend. His story was printed a couple of times; in the first publication, the Reverend revealed at the end that it was all made up, but in the second, he omitted that rather crucial part.

What his reasoning for writing this short story was, we can only imagine, especially bearing in mind how he was otherwise so forthright in trying to disprove the legend. Maybe he meant it as a joke, but if so, I think it’s safe to say that the joke was on him, because the existence of the legend in the form of a short story only added more fuel to the fire. The press lapped it up, and Juliet’s story started being picked up and retold all across the country, with seemingly more and more details added every time.

Suddenly Juliet wasn’t just a name coming through on a makeshift Ouija board, but a happy, fair girl; who had a favourite pink dress, was much beloved by village folk, and was always crowned May Queen. Thomas became a broad-shouldered lad with dark curly hair, and more of an appetite for a game of nine-pins than courting women. Juliet went from ‘being hanged for loving Thomas’, to taking her own life, and consequently being buried at a crossroads, rather than in a graveyard – a particularly odd detail, and something which I would have thought would set alarm bells ringing for any locals, as I certainly can’t find any evidence the Inn was ever near a crossroads. The village is famous for retaining its circular Saxon design, so surely it couldn’t have been near a crossroads in 1050 either.

It seems that everyone who retold the story took their own liberties with it, which resulted in some very confusing details, such as Juliet being Norman, and Thomas being William the Conqueror’s head Woodcutter – both of which would have been quite some feat bearing in mind the Normans didn’t invade until 16 years after Juliet’s supposed demise.

In 2003 Tony Cornell took part in a 50^th anniversary commemoration of that first investigation at the Ferryboat, which was organised by the ghost club. In Cornell’s obituary in the summer 2010 Ghost Club Journal, his friend and colleague Alan Murdie writes about how, at the event, Cornell explained the whole mishap to a packed bar made up of ghost club members as well as locals. Cornell also wrote about the incident in his 2002 book Investigating the Paranormal, and yet despite all this, Juliet’s story is still printed in compendiums and gazetteers even to this day. I think my biggest surprise though, and possibly the reason that so many authors have confidently used the story in their own books, is that Peter Underwood – the Godfather of the British ghost gazetteer – published it himself, which is very odd, bearing in mind that he and Cornell were contemporaries; they were both members of the Society of Psychical Research and of the Ghost Club. Underwood has often been called the Sherlock Holmes of the paranormal, and many researchers take his work almost as gospel, so this in itself may have contributed to how the story proliferated so readily over the years.

But of course, none of this means that the Ferryboat Inn isn’t haunted. After all, Cornell and friends only went there in the first place chasing a local tradition of a white lady ghost, and many witnesses over the years have related strange happenings in the pub that they can’t quite explain.

Common reports include doors opening and closing by themselves, disembodied footsteps and banging sounds, items go missing then are found in places they shouldn’t be, and menus mysteriously appear in the middle of the floor. Two different inn managers have remarked that dogs dislike the flagstone in the bar; that they will growl at it – hackles raised – before backing away from the area.

For her 1974 book Ghosts of East Anglia, Joan Forman interviewed a life-long resident of Holywell named Tom Arnold, who related that he had heard the story of the female apparition from his grandparents, and that it was an old legend even in their day. He also had his own strange experience at the Inn, although he definitely couldn’t blame it on Juliet.

One night at the Inn, whilst playing cards with the landlord, Tom noticed a door suddenly open behind him and clearly heard a man’s cough for attention. He thought it must be the village policeman, who often called in at this hour but, upon looking in the direction of the cough and open door, was surprised to see that there was nobody there at all. He wasn’t alone in his experience, as the landlord had also heard the man’s cough, but neither of them ever found any explanation for the odd event.

There definitely seemed to be paranormal activity of some kind at the Ferryboat, but it troubled us that we couldn’t find any record of a single witness having actually seen the female apparition that the inn is so famous for, and it added to our wonder at why Juliet’s tale had cast such a strange hold over Holywell. That is, until we visited ourselves.

We first started visiting Holywell a couple of years ago, but of course during that time, the world has been a rather changed place; we’ve been in and out of lockdowns, and gone are those halcyon days of just nipping, carefree, to the pub for a drink without a second thought, so we didn’t actually go in the Old Ferryboat itself for a long time.

I didn’t need to go inside the building though, to get the sense that there was something different about the Inn – or maybe about the river that ran alongside it, or even Holywell itself. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it but, even though I knew that there was no Juliet, I was convinced there was … something, something we were missing. Something that Cornell’s accidental ghost story didn’t explain. Even now I can’t tell you why, it was just a deep feeling that there was more to this story, and I just knew that there had to be somebody who had seen the female apparition.

But after hours of trawling through decades worth of increasingly convoluted stories about Juliet, I didn’t feel like I was getting any closer to the real ghost of the Ferryboat Inn, and despite all the work and research I had put into this story, I had all but decided to not tell it after all.

And then, we decided to visit one last time.