Bygrave
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General
Bygrave is a true hamlet, no public house, no shops and no post office. Bygrave predates the Roman occupation and is mentioned in the Domesday Book as Bigrave. Within the village are earthworks of a castle which may date to the fourteenth century. The origins of the name are Old English but there are at least two possibilities as to what it means. The name derives from the words byge and graef, graf or grafa meaning ‘by the trench’, referring to a nearby earthwork, or perhaps ‘by the grove’.
Bygrave lies very close to the Great North Road and has traceable paths which connect it to the old Icknield Way path.
The Church in Bygrave is not the original building but is one of a succession of buildings on this site. This has been revealed by the different floor levels which have been excavated. There was once a market on the old road which runs through the Manor Farm.
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Bygrave Farm
In 1739 a peddler returning from Baldock Fair sought shelter from the appalling weather at Bygrave Farm. He had had a successful day at the fair and his purse was bulging which was probably why the farm owner, Thomas Fossey, allowed him to stay. Fossey was heavily in debt due to a poor harvest and his own mismanagement. To him the peddler must have seemed like a Godsend. The following morning the peddler’s horse was found wandering the lanes around Ashwell but there was no sign of the peddler himself. Coincidentally at the same time farmer Fossey’s debts seemed to have suddenly vanished.
A number of years later a labourer met with a pale headless ghost who was wandering along an area called ‘The Warren’ in front of the farm. The spectre was seen to be carrying its head under its arm. Sightings continued and were still reported in 1870 though the ghost was sometimes accompanied by a woman and child.
Eventually the farm came into the possession of John Smyth who started major rebuilding work on the property. It was during this rebuilding that a headless skeleton was discovered beneath the lawn. The skull was also found but not at the farm, instead it was found near the churchyard at Wallington. Oddly enough farmer Fossey had moved to Wallington after he had sold the farm.
The headless skeleton was not the only find. Underneath the drawing room floor were found the remains of a woman and child. These must have been the other spirits sometimes seen with the peddler’s ghost but no one knows who they were or how they met their end.
To view a map of the area click on the button below
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