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General
Akeley is a small, attractive village built around a square with a population of 479.
The village is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Achelei but its history dates back further than that as Ake was an Anglo-Saxon word meaning oak and Ley means a field. In 1164 Akeley had its own church but this was replaced by a new one in 1854. Unfortunately this new church was so badly built that the stonework only lasted just over one hundred years and it was pulled down in 1979.
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Greyhound Inn
For several years the sounds of footsteps could be heard in the Greyhound Inn at Akeley. The then owner, Mrs. Violet Cowley, distinctly recalled the time she was ironing, just after closing time, when she heard the sound of footsteps coming from the bedroom overhead. It was 1953 and the start of something that would last for the nine years that the Cowley’s lived at the inn.
When she first heard the noises Mrs. Cowley thought she had left an outside door unlocked and someone had got in, but all of the upstairs doors were closed and everything downstairs was secure. She returned to her ironing but the footsteps continued. When she checked on the route the footsteps were taking she realised that they followed an ellipse, passing across two bedrooms and through two walls. It was at this point she realised it must have been a ghost.
The footsteps were only ever heard in the afternoon and never during opening times. Mrs. Cowley was not the only one to hear them. A few months after the first incidence, her elder daughter was off school and was sitting with her mother when the footsteps started again. The daughter went to investigate but could find nothing.
The Greyhound is an old building which acted as a coaching inn during the reign of Elizabeth I. It is a timber-framed building which has been heavily modified over the centuries. At one end of the building was the loft and bake house and at the other end a bedroom that could only be reached by its own staircase. The bedrooms where the ghost paced were in the middle of the building. One of the smaller bedrooms could only be assessed through the middle bedroom and contained a priest-hole that was entered from the chimney in the tap room. The two owners who followed Mrs. Cowley heard nothing unusual.
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See also - Buckinghamshire - Akeley -
Local House
See also - Buckinghamshire - Akeley -
St James the Apostle
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Local House
Some fifteen years after her ghostly experiences as the owner of the Greyhound Inn Mrs. Violet Cowley was still living in Akeley. At night she would lie in bed waiting for her husband to come up and several times she distinctly felt as if he had sat down on the bed, but he wasn’t there. One time she was talking to him, or at least she thought she was until he appeared at the door, he had been downstairs all the time. From the sensation Mrs. Cowley felt that it was a fairly well-built person and that they had sat down heavily as if they were tired.
To view a map of the area click on the button below
See also - Buckinghamshire - Akeley -
The Greyhound Inn
See also - Buckinghamshire - Akeley -
St James the Apostle
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St James the Apostle
In 1978 Mrs. Violet Cowley was a Churchwarden and ‘general dogsbody’. She was in the church of St James the Apostle doing some cleaning as the roof had had some plastering work done to it and there were bits and dust everywhere. She had been sweeping, dusting and scrubbing all day and was thoroughly exhausted, so she decided to have a rest and sat down in one of the pews. As she sat there she saw a white cowled figure which had its hand outstretched towards her. The figure was standing by the font and its hand, which appeared to be that of a woman, was clearly visible, but she could not see its face. Next thing she noticed was that the church was now clean, which was odd as she had reckoned that she still had at least an hours work left to do. At no time did she recall getting up from the pew, yet the work had been completed. Unfortunately the church was demolished in 1982.
To view a map of the area click on the button below
See also - Buckinghamshire - Akeley -
The Greyhound Inn
See also - Buckinghamshire - Akeley -
Local House
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