Amy Robsart and the pond that never froze

She fell down the stairs, or was pushed. Nine parsons were needed to lay her ghost.

On 8 September 1560 Amy Robsart, wife of Queen Elizabeth's favourite Robert Dudley, was found dead at the foot of the stairs at Cumnor Place. A jury cleared Dudley, but gossip never did. Afterwards, the Victoria County History says, her ghost was said to haunt the house, especially the staircase where she died. Local superstition adds that nine parsons came from Oxford to lay her restless ghost in a nearby pond, which never froze again. The house was pulled down in 1810, and the church next door still stands.