A Cornish Ghost Story: Halloween at Eden House
A Spooky Tale from the Depths of St Ives
The clocks have been wound back and the dying leaves of autumn are rustling in the trees. As we hunker down for another Halloween, we’re reminded of those spooky tales and chilling stories that have lingered down the centuries.
Hailing from the historic coastal town of St Ives, one such storyteller is here to share an eerie chapter from his sinister corpus. Shanty Baba is a familiar sight along the narrow, winding streets of St Ives at night, lantern in hand and his spellbound audience in tow. His stories of dark deeds and ghostly happenings continue to entertain all those plucky enough to join his ghost walks and be lead through the dimly-lit quarters of old St Ives.
Imagine our delight, and trepidation, when Shanty agreed to recount a spooky St Ives ghost story for this year’s Halloween blog, a tale sure to have you on the edge of your seat.
It’s time to hear from the storyteller himself. Be warned, those of you who are already feeling weak at the knees should continue no further as things are about to get seriously creepy…
‘HALLOWEEN AT EDEN HOUSE’
written & told by Shanty Baba
The Stennack in St Ives. It translates from Cornish as the place of tin. And in those days it was very, very different to how it appears today. A steeply wooded valley with a rough road going up the middle, a few miners’ cottages and one large house, Eden House. It was here that former tin mine owner, Captain Thomas Treweeke lived, with his young housekeeper…
It was night. It was the 31st of October. It was Halloween. A night when the veil between our world and the shadow lands beyond is very thin and easily crossed by spirits of the night.
In St Ives, it was also known as Allantide, a night where the young girls of the town went to sleep with an apple under their pillows to dream of future loves. And that is precisely what Treweeke’s young housekeeper was doing up in her attic room, while he was sitting alone in the parlour, pipe in hand, puffing away, watching the flames dance in the fireplace was Thomas Treweeke.
As the grandfather clock struck the midnight hour, Treweeke heard a noise outside. It was the approach of horses’ hooves and the rumbling of wheels coming up the Stennack. A wry smile passed his lips. There would be only one group of people out at this time of night. Smugglers. And hadn’t he himself enjoyed plenty of French smuggled brandy over the years.
But the smile changed to a confused frown when he heard the hoof beats slow and come to a standstill on the Stennack right outside his house. Strange he thought to himself…who can it be? He was in half a mind to ring the servants bell to get his housekeeper to investigate, but due to the lateness of the hour, he decided to do it himself.
And yet… as he hauled himself out of his chair, this strange sense of unease passes over him, which only heightens as he walks across the parlour, into the hall and up to the front door. He opens it a few inches.
“Who’s there?” he calls out. Only darkness and silence. “Who’s there?”
Some strange power draws him outside, it makes him leave the sanctuary of his house, it makes him walk across the porch and onto his drive towards the Stennack. But with each step, he can feel this cold seeping into his bones, the like of which, in all his long years, he had never known before.
He stops at the end of his drive. His ears had not deceived him, but his eyes…he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
Two black horses pulling a hearse, and by the guttering lantern on its side he could see it was carrying a coffin…with the lid removed. His heart started to pound, a voice in his head said: Go back! Go back inside!
And yet… he moved one step closer. He knew now. He knew…there was a body inside the coffin.
And yet… he moved another step closer. He knew. Somehow, he knew whose body it would be…
And yet…he inched forward until he was standing right next to the hearse, and slowly going up on his tiptoes to look inside.
“Ughhh!” he screamed out in horror.
He fell to the ground, his heart hammering, his body quivering with fear, his eyes shut against the sight he had just seen. No! No! And yet he could still see it through his closed eyes. A pallid white face. Lying there. Sunken cheeks. Stiff. Eyes covered with coins. A face he had known all his life. His own.
Time seems to implode in on itself…seconds…a minute…an hour? Eventually when he opens his eyes, he is alone, lying on the Stennack outside his house. No horses, no hearse, no coffin…no…no…corpse.
He staggers back to Eden House, his body exhausted, his heart still beating like a drum. He rings the servants bell and collapses back into his chair.
After several minutes the housekeeper comes downstairs, thereupon Treweeke spouts forth like one who is possessed about what he has just seen, “my body…in a coffin…outside…”. The housekeeper is scarcely able to make sense of his words until he is calm enough to sip a large glass of brandy before seeming to fall asleep in his chair, where the housekeeper leaves him, returning back to her bed. Back to her own dreams.
The next morning, the housekeeper finds him still there, slumped in the chair. His lifeless body. His open eyes staring blankly into space. A look of horror etched over his face, a look that those who saw would never forget.
He was buried a few days later in Barnoon cemetery in St Ives, the gravestone still visible to this day, etched with the date of his death, the 1st November 1879.
So be warned, for if a black hearse comes for you in the night…as it will…remember…remember… it does not return empty.
-The End-
For more information about Shanty Baba, the St Ives storyteller, and his lantern ghost walks, visit his website where you can also book you places online.