Ghost
Black Vaughan
Shrunk into a snuff box and sunk in the pool. For now.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Hilltop church with alabaster Vaughan tomb
- Legend from
- Local tradition, perhaps 1700s
- Tone
- Eerie
A black bull walked into the church. Twelve clergymen were needed to make it small.
In the Vaughan chapel of St Mary's, Kington, lies the alabaster tomb of Thomas Vaughan of Hergest Court, killed in 1469 after the Battle of Banbury, and his wife Ellen. Local legend calls him Black Vaughan, a restless spirit who plagued the townsfolk after his headless body was buried here. He appeared as a fly tormenting horses, as a dog, and as a huge black bull that walked into the church. Twelve clergymen were summoned to lay him. They shrank his spirit, sealed it in a snuff box and buried it under a stone in Hergest Pool. The Kington History Society doubts the tale's age.