Beast
The Wherwell Cockatrice
It fought itself to the death, and Green just waited.
Private, don't visit
- What's there
- Private manor house on the priory site
- Legend from
- Local legend
- Tone
- Eerie
A monster hatched in a priory cellar, beaten by its own reflection.
Wherwell, on the River Test, had a great nunnery founded around 986. Legend says a cockatrice hatched in the cellars and terrorised the village until it was shut in the dungeons below the priory. Land was offered to anyone who could kill it. Many failed, until a man named Green lowered a polished metal mirror into its lair. The beast fought its own reflection until it was exhausted, and Green killed it with a spear. Four acres in Harewood Forest are still called Green's Acres. The cockatrice weathervane from Wherwell church is now in Andover Museum.