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Ghost Stories
The Ghost of Bradley Woods
It has been said by two ladies who lived near the woods,at Chercombe Bridge, that they heard, if not seen, a galloping horse on the road close to where they lived.
Always at night, usually at a time when a storm is brewing. the galloping would cease as suddenly as it started.
This had happenened too many times, that it could not be discounted. What was even more strange was that it wasn`t until later they found out it, that it ties up with a ghost at Bradley Manor House,at the other end of the woods.
Around 1750 the western wing, consisting of stables was demolished.
Two hundred years later an elderly lady was to have said that her grandmother had been in service at the manor and had told her these stables had been so badly haunted, that they had been allowed to fall into ruin.
The ghost was the young man on horseback, the son of the house, who had been killed in a riding accident. At the time his horse, in the flesh, had returned to the stables without its mount.
Now only its shadow still returns to that spot.
THE HAIRY HANDS
Shortly after 1910 a series of strange incidents were reported along the road between Postbridge and Two Bridges. Most occurred near a farm called Archerton, near Postbridge. Cyclists felt their handlebars wrenched out of their hands, pitching them into the ditch and even ponytraps were put out of control and ended up in the ditch beside the road. Later, cars suffered similar fates, sometimes with fatal results. One account by an Army officer, who was injured on his motorcycle but survived, revealed that a pair of large, musclosed over his own and forced him off the road.
In the mid 1920s, a lady in a caravan parked on this stretch of the road, saw a large hairy hand clawing its way up the outside of the window.
Between 1910 and 1930 there was a spate of serious incidents, but since those times the strange occurrences, which have undoubtedly happened along that road, have not been as dramatic. There was at least one fatal accident involving an overturned car but as the young occupant was found dead at the scene, we will never know whether the Hairy Hands played out their murderous role or whether, indeed, it was simply an accident. Nevertheless, many folk will always feel a sense of unease, particularly between the Cherry Brook bridge and Postbridge and keep a wary eye out for any hairy intruders hairy hands