Skulferatu #111 - Crampton Tower, Broadstairs, Kent

Crampton Tower in Broadstairs sits just across from the railway station.  Looking like the remains of a tower castle, this flint building was originally built in 1859 as part of Broadstairs public water supply. Water was pumped to the Tower from a well at its base, and this was supplemented from a small reservoir housed in a small dome shaped building close by. 

 

Crampton Tower, Broadstairs

 

Crampton Tower, Broadstairs

 

The Tower was designed by Thomas Crampton, a Victorian engineer who mainly designed railways and locomotives, but was also responsible for the laying of the first effective telegraph cable under the English Channel.

 

In 1901 the District Council took over the supply of water to Broadstairs.  Due to increased demand, water was pumped from elsewhere and the water supply from the Tower was used only in emergencies. 

 

The Tower was eventually closed and now houses a museum in which are exhibited the working drawings and models of Thomas Crampton’s train designs, as well as various model railways.

 

Crampton Tower, Broadstairs

The reservoir building and Crampton Tower

 

Unfortunately, having not paid attention to the visiting times, the Tower and museum were closed when I arrived.  So, rather than relay you with details of my wanderings there, I’ll tell the story of a rather explosive, unsolved murder than happened just down the street from the Tower.

 

Richard Richards was a ‘property owner and man of means’ who lived with his family in Broadstairs.  In 1893 he was having a coffee house built near to the railway station and would often pop up to chat with the builder to see how work was progressing.

 

Richard had a brother, William, who lived in Somerset, but also resided on occasions in London.  The two brothers had a fiery relationship and every so often they’d fall out over something, make up for a bit and then fall out again.  Their relationship with each other disintegrated into acrimony in 1893, when William sued Richard over a property deal that had gone sour.  William won the case and was awarded the princely sum of £1,200 (around £127,000 in today’s money).  Richard then sued William in a counter claim and was also proposing to sue him for libel.  William was not happy about this and wrote several angry letters to Richard telling him that he’d have him found guilty of fraud and get him sent to a penal colony for seven years.  Not having Richard’s address in Broadstairs, he sent his letters to Richard’s solicitor in London, so they could be forwarded on. They were, and Richard complained bitterly to his wife about them and about his brother.

 

Sometime in July 1893, Richard was up in London when he bumped into the clerk from his solicitor’s office, Frederick Colverd.  Frederick told him that a parcel had arrived that morning addressed to him and asked if he wanted to attend at the office to collect it.  Richard told him that he wouldn’t have time and asked him just to forward it on to his home in Broadstairs.  Frederick agreed to this and duly posted the parcel on, however not before noting that ‘it was addressed in a shaky hand, apparently the writing of a female…’ and that ‘the writing seemed to be disguised.’

 

On the morning of 22^nd July 1893, Richard Richards was having breakfast with his wife Katherine, when the postman delivered the parcel forwarded on from London.  Katherine immediately stated to Richard that she didn’t like the look of it and thought he should not open it.  Richard, on examining it, stated that he thought the writing looked like that of his brother William.  Not quite sure what to do with the parcel, Richard decided to seek out a second opinion, so off he marched, accompanied by Katherine and their children, to the property he was having built.  There he called on the builder, Charles Martin and handed him the parcel joking that it was a present for him.  Charles laughed at this, but then agreed with Katherine that it looked quite suspicious.  But what to do about it?  Both Richard and Charles then stood examining the parcel and chatting about it.  After a while they agreed that the only thing to do was to open it and see just what it was.  Katherine begged Richard not to open it, but he shooed her away and cut the string around it with his penknife.  Charles moved closer to see what the parcel contained just as Richard pulled the string away.  BOOM!  There was a huge explosion that knocked Katherine and the children to the ground and blew both Richard and Charles across the road.  Katherine rose to her feet screaming – ‘My God!  It’s an infernal machine.’  Distraught, she and her children were led away as passersby ran to help her husband and Charles.  Charles who was bleeding heavily from lacerations to his face and shaking with shock, was helped back to his home.  However, Richard was in a terrible state.  Half his face and his left hand had been blown away and his chest was torn open.  He was quickly taken to the Seamen’s Infirmary at Ramsgate, where it was realised there was little they could do for him.  There he made a deposition to a local magistrate telling him about the suspicious package and that he suspected that his brother William had sent it.  He then lapsed into unconsciousness and died the next day.

 

Outrage at Broadstairs – A terrible explosion took place

 

Scene of Outrage

 

A few weeks after Richard’s death an inquest was held.  During this, both Katherine and Richard’s solicitor gave evidence about the ill will between the brothers.  Katherine stated that the writing on the parcel looked like William’s and that her husband had no other enemies in life other than his brother. Richard’s solicitor told of receiving the parcel for Richard and noting the postmark on it.  When asked about the letters William had sent to his brother, the solicitor acknowledged that they bore the postmark of the district next to the one that the parcel had been posted from.  An explosives expert then gave evidence that on examining the remains of the device it appeared to have been gunpowder that had been used.  He commented that it was a simple device and would be easy to construct.  William, Richard’s brother was then called to give evidence.  He was cautioned by the coroner and asked if he had been responsible for sending the parcel to his brother.  To this he replied – ‘I have never made an infernal machine, or employed anyone to do so.’  He then went on to state that he would have gained no benefit if his brother was to die, as the judgement against his brother for the £1,200 had been made void by his death.

 

At the end of the inquest the coroner summed up the evidence and stated that though there had been much ill will between the brothers there was not enough evidence to show that William had in anyway been involved in Richard’s death.  He also ruled out suicide saying that there was ‘not a semblance of evidence to support it.’  The jury then returned a verdict of ‘wilful murder by the explosion of a parcel received by the deceased, but by whom sent there was no evidence to show.’

 

To this day the case is unsolved.  Was it an elaborate suicide by a man who had taken on too much debt?  Probably not.  Maybe a spurned lover, what with the feminine handwriting on the parcel?  Again, probably not.  So, most likely it was William.  So much for brotherly love.  Just as well I’m not writing this in 1893 though, as several newspapers named William as the main suspect for his brother’s murder, and he sued them all.  They all then hurriedly printed retractions.

 

Getting back to Crampton Tower, which must have witnessed the explosive events of 1893, I wandered round to the dome shaped building that once housed the reservoir and left a Skulferatu resting on a flint ledge there.

 

Skulferatu #111

 

Skulferatu #111 resting on the flint stone of the reservoir building

 

Skulferatu #111 resting on the flint stone of the reservoir building

 

Map showing the location of Skulferatu #111

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 51.359921

Longitude 1.433225

 

what3words: sling.pitch.lion

 

I used the following sources for information on Crampton Tower and on the murder of Richard Richards –

 

Crampton Tower Museum

Crampton Tower Museum

 

Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health for the Year 1954 - Broadstairs and St Peter's

 

The Illustrated Police News – July 24^th, 1893

 

Lloyds Weekly London Newspaper – Aug 6^th, 1893

 

The People, Sunday Aug 6^th, 1893

 

The Paddington, Kensington and Bayswater Chronicle – Saturday 29 July 1893

 

Thanet Advertiser - Saturday 29 July 1893

 

 

Skulferatu #110 - Bastion 14, London City Wall, Barbican, London

Travelling down to Kent, I found I had an unexpected day out and overnight stay in central London due to a train strike. So, what to do? Well, I did what I always do and went for a walk. After a foray around the banks of the Thames I cut up past Saint Paul’s and towards the Barbican. There, amongst an array of buildings from Brutalist concrete to glass and steel I spotted a ruin, sitting in a little oasis of green, just by the entrance to an underground carpark.

 

The ruins of Bastion 14 sitting by the 1970s Bastion House

 

Bastion 14 with concrete and glass buildings towering above it

 

Making my way down to it, I found that it was the remains of a fort that formed part of the old City Wall of London. This Medieval wall was built on the foundations of the old Roman wall around the city, and the fort, or Bastion 14 to give it its official title, was one of the 21 bastions built along it. 

 

Bastion 14

 

The original city wall was built by the Romans around 200AD as a defensive wall around Londinium. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, it fell into decay. In medieval times the need for a defensive wall was once again called for, and large sections of the wall were repaired and rebuilt. Then, in the 17^th century London expanded rapidly and the wall was seen as no longer necessary, so much of it was demolished.

 

Tourist Info Map at site, showing the course of the City Wall

 

When the city wall fell out of use, many of the bastions were incorporated into other buildings, with Bastion 14 at one time being used as part of a warehouse.

 

During the Second World War the area around Bastion 14 was flattened by bombing and the buildings encasing it were destroyed. The Bastion was then identified as a historic structure and was saved from demolition. However, the 1970s office block towering above it, Bastion House, doesn’t appear to be so lucky, as it is now earmarked for demolition. Shame, as it’s so ugly that I quite like it.

 

The walls of Bastion 14 with Bastion House towering above

 

Bastion House

 

I had the whole garden area to myself as I wandered the old wall and Bastion 14. As the sun warmed my old bones, insects buzzed around me, and two crows kept an eye on me as they skipped and hopped around the grass lawn looking for insects.

 

The old City Wall and Bastion 14

 

Dried husks and seed heads

 

Bastion 14 with glass and concrete buildings all around

 

Bastion 14

 

While walking along a path through a small garden area of dried husks and seed heads, I saw a gap in the old brickwork by the wall beside the Bastion. There I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me.

 

Skulferatu #110

 

Old wall beside Bastion 14

 

Skulferatu #110 in a gap in the wall beside Bastion 14

 

Skulferatu #110 in a gap in the wall beside Bastion 14

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #110

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 51.517828

Longitude -0.095148

 

what3words: bars.wider.teach

 

I used the following sources for information on Bastion 14 –

 

Tourist Information boards at the site

 

Museum of London Archaeology

A standing building survey of Bastion 14, City of London | MOLA

 

 

Skulferatu #109 - Site of the Battle of Roslin, Roslin, Midlothian

I don’t usually write about battle sites, or even tend to visit them, because they tend to be pretty f*cking boring places.  Yet, having said that, on a walk along the old railway path that runs from Roslin to Loanhead, I came across a memorial to the Battle of Roslin and found that lurking in the background of events leading up to the battle, there was a story of thwarted love, jealousy and one man’s desire for revenge.  How true the story is I don’t know, but hey, as they say, why let the truth get in the way of a good yarn!

 

Memorial to the Battle of Roslin

 

Way back in time, in 1303, when the world was a wild violent place with various factions and power-hungry men spilling blood everywhere in their fight for power (nothing changes much), Scotland was in political turmoil.  It had been occupied by the English since 1298, after the defeat of the Scots army at the battle of Falkirk, and was governed by Sir John de Segrave, a knight of the English king, Edward I.

 

While he was in Scotland, Sir John based himself in Edinburgh Castle, where he frequently held functions and official gatherings for the local aristocracy, warlords, people of influence and such like.  One of those who regularly attended at the castle was Lady Margaret Ramsey of Dalhousie.  Sir John was soon besotted with her and hoped to take her as his wife.  Unfortunately, for poor Sir John, his feelings were not reciprocated, and he was spurned by Lady Margaret who instead accepted a proposal of marriage from Henry St Clair, the Lord of Rosslyn.   

 

Sir John was not a happy chap when he learnt of this and flew into a bit of a rage.  So, off he stormed to King Edward to ask permission to raise an army to eliminate the ‘threat’ that the marriage between Margaret and Henry would represent.  Edward, who was a bit of a bloodthirsty old sod and always liked an excuse for a bit of killing and maiming, granted Sir John his wish and he was soon on his way back to Scotland with an army of 30,000 troops.  I do have to point out here that the number of troops may actually have been grossly exaggerated in the tales told after the battle, but that’s the figure I’ll run with in my telling of this little bit of history.

 

On arriving in Scotland, Sir John split his army into three separate divisions.  Ten thousand troops marched off to attack Borthwick Castle near Gorebridge, another ten thousand marched off to seize Dalhousie Castle, the home of Lady Margaret, and the last ten thousand, led by Sir John himself, marched towards Roslin and the home of Henry St Clair.

 

On the evening of the 23 February 1303, Sir John and his troops set up camp near Roslin for the night, with the intention of giving Henry St Clair a good thrashing the next day. However, word of the movement of the English forces had reached the Scots and an army led by John Comyn and Sir Simon Fraser marched through the night from Biggar down towards Roslin, where they hid until just before dawn in the nearby woods at Bilston.  Then, early in the morning of the 24 February, as Sir John and his army still slept, the Scots attacked them.  The English troops were slaughtered, with no mercy being shown to anyone.  Well, that was unless you were of noble birth, in which case you could be held and ransomed for a tidy sum of cash which is what happened to Sir John and a group of his knights, who were captured and held prisoner. 

 

Over the next couple of days bloody skirmishes, slaughters and attacks took place between the Scots and the other two divisions of Sir John’s army.  During one of these, Sir John was freed by his troops, and deciding to cut his losses, marched the remains of his army back to England.  According to the legends that grew up around the Battle of Roslin, only two thousand of the thirty thousand English troops who marched into Scotland with Sir John survived.  The rest lay dead and buried in mass graves in the fields and woods around Roslin.  As the Ballad of the Battle of Roslin recounts, their bones would occasionally be dragged up when the fields they lay in were ploughed -

 

An farmers tae this very day,

When they’re at the ploo-in,

Still find shinbanes in the clay,

At the place they call ‘The Hewin…

 

Site of the Battle of Roslin

 

Memorial to the Battle of Roslin

 

Pylons at the site of the Battle of Roslin

 

So, what, you may ask, happened to all the main players after the battle.  Well, the hero of the hour, John Comyn, was murdered a few years later by Robert the Bruce when the two of them fell out.  Bruce stabbed him to death by the high altar at Greyfriars Church in Dumfries. 

 

Sir Simon Fraser also died a few years after the battle when he was captured and taken prisoner by the English army.  On King Edward’s orders, he was taken to London and there was hung, drawn, and quartered, with his head stuck on a spike on London Bridge.

 

Sir John de Segrave lived a long and eventful life, he took William Wallace prisoner and escorted him down to London to be executed, he was then himself a prisoner in Scotland for a couple of years after the Battle of Bannockburn, was freed after a ransom was paid, acquired various lands around England, was appointed as the Seneschal of Gascony, and died an old man while looking after the King’s interests there.

 

As for Lady Margaret Ramsey of Dalhousie, well her story is either lost in the mists of time, which given the lack of records relating to women’s lives in that era is quite possible, or she never existed and was purely made up as a love interest to add a bit of oomph to the tale of the Battle of Roslin.

 

While out on my walk through the once bloodstained lands where so many men died, I left a Skulferatu in a gap in the wall around the monument to this now almost forgotten battle.

 

Skulferatu #109

 

Skulferatu #109 in a gap in the monument wall

 

Skulferatu #109 in a gap in the monument wall

 

Map showing the location of Skulferatu #109

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.862858

Longitude -3.154724

 

what3words: inferior.unheated.dolls

 

I used the following sources for information on the Battle of Roslin –

 

Canmore - Battle Site, Roslin

 

Historic Scotland

The Inventory of Historic Battlefields – Battle of Roslin

 

The Scotsman - Roslin 1303: Scotland's forgotten battle

24 February 2017

 

 

Skulferatu #108 - Spott Parish Church, Spott, Dunbar, East Lothian

In the tiny village of Spott, near Dunbar, there sits a small, picturesque church.  Though very little, if anything, of the original building remains, a church has stood on that spot in Spott since the early 14^th century. 

 

Spott Parish Church

 

I wandered up there on a warm and blustery day to have a look around.  It was a very peaceful place of old gravestones, trees and birds singing away merrily.  While inside the church a few members of the local community had met up for a bit of a get together.  Of course, I wasn’t there for socialising, I was there to leave a Skulferatu in a place with an unexpected dark history…especially if you were one of the early clergymen who preached there.

 

Gravestone at Spott

 

Detail of gravestone at Spott

 

Gravestone at Spott

 

Spott Church didn’t have a great deal of luck with several of its early clerics.  Around 1530, Robert Galbraith became the Rector of the church.  He was also a judge in the High Court and Court of Session at Edinburgh.  In 1544 he made a judgement on a case that did not go down well with the defendant.  So, unfortunately for Galbraith, while he was about his business in Edinburgh, the disgruntled defendant spotted him and murdered him.

 

View of Spott Parish Church and graveyard

 

In 1559, John Hamilton, the brother of the Earl of Arran, was appointed as the Parson of Spott.  He later went on to rise up the ranks of the church and became the Archbishop of St Andrews.   However, in 1571 he was tried and found guilty of aiding and abetting in the murders of the Earl of Moray and also Lord Darnley, the late husband of Mary, Queen of Scots.  He was hanged by the Mercat Cross in Stirling a few days after his trial. 

 

Gravestone at Spott

 

Gravestone at Spott

 

View from Spott Parish Church Graveyard

 

In 1567, John Kello became the first protestant Minister of Spott Church.  He is also the most notorious.  John Kello was born in Linlithgow and as a young man married a local girl, Margaret Thomson.  John, who was an ambitious and eloquent man, decided to enter the Presbyterian Church and was ordained as a Presbyterian Minister while attending the first General Assembly in Edinburgh in1560.  He soon required a reputation as a powerful and stirring preacher and in 1567 was appointed to the Parish of Spott.  So, there he moved with Margaret and their three children.

 

At Spott, John’s reputation grew as a preacher, preachers being the rock stars of those days.  However, unlike rock stars, preachers weren’t paid very well. John had soon come to realise this and looked for ways to better himself as he wanted the finer things in life, he wanted land, prestige, and wealth.  When he had married Margaret, she had brought a small dowry with her.  John thought he could maybe use her dowry to make some money and so he used it to buy and sell land.  Unfortunately, a couple of his land deals went wrong, and he ended up in debt.

 

While he fretted about his debts and ways to make more money, John’s sermons still attracted a good crowd to the church.  One of his congregation was a rich young woman who had recently been widowed.  Being a very pious type, she would often seek John out for spiritual advice.  John found that he enjoyed her company and soon his thoughts turned to how his life would be if he was married to her and had her fortune as his own.  She would make him a rich man of some social standing.  If he were married to her, he could achieve his ambitions.  The more he thought like this, the more he began to despise his own wife, Margaret.  He became bitter and began to blame her for his failings.    

 

Margaret, who by all accounts was a cheerful and likeable person, and a loving wife, soon bore the brunt of John’s anger at his thwarted ambitions. She, however carried on in her sunny and loyal way assuming that John’s moods would soon pass, and he would be her loving husband once again.  This annoyed John even more and he began to wish she would just die.  If she were dead, then he could marry again and marry well.  He then began to think about ways to kill her and decided that he could achieve his ambitions in life if he murdered her.

 

Once he had made the decision to murder Margaret, John acquired some poison and used that in an attempt to kill her.  It didn’t work.  She was a fit, healthy woman with a strong constitution and the poison had no noticeable effect on her.   On the Sunday morning after his first attempt at killing his wife, John tried again.  Knowing that she would pray in their bedroom in the morning, he sneaked in behind her with a length of rope in his hands.  As she prayed, he pounced, pulled the rope around her neck, and strangled her.  He then hung her lifeless body from a beam in the room, locked the door from inside, leaving the key in the lock and then slipped out of the bedroom window, shutting it behind him.  As the church bells rang, he walked through the graveyard greeting members of his congregation as they arrived. In the church he stood in the pulpit and gave a passionate sermon.

 

After the sermon was over, John invited several members of the congregation to come over to his house to eat there.  He told them that lately his wife had been very depressed, and it would cheer her up to have some company.  Off they went to the house where John called out to his wife, but there was no answer.  He then went to their bedroom and called out to his guests that the door was locked.  Then in front of them, he kicked the door open, and all saw poor Margaret hanging dead from the beam.  John collapsed to the ground sobbing as they cut Margaret down.  His tears of anguish seemed so real to those guests he’d invited in, that no one suspected anything other than Margaret had taken her own life.

 

For the first few days after Margaret’s death, John was a happy man.  He was free to marry again, maybe in a few months’ time he could propose to his widowed parishioner and then settle down to the life he deserved.  A life with money and property and status.  But then the gnarly issue came up of Margaret’s burial, as a suicide she could not be buried on consecrated ground and so she was instead buried in an unmarked grave in a nearby field.  Her reputation ruined and her soul damned forever, people no longer spoke of her, and her and John’s children were told to forget her.  The guilt of it all began to weigh heavy on John’s mind.  What had he done?  He began to remember the Margaret who he had loved and had loved him.  He remembered her terrified and disbelieving eyes looking up at him as he had killed her.  She had always trusted him, looked after him, believed in him and he had betrayed it all.  He had betrayed her, and he had betrayed his God.  After a few weeks John could take the guilt no more and so he set off to Edinburgh where he called on a judge and made a full confession to him.  John was then taken to the Tolbooth in Edinburgh to await trial.

 

John’s trial was a quick affair where he again made a full confession, was found guilty of the murder of his wife, and was sentenced to death.  On the 4^th of October 1570, John was taken to Gallow Lee on the outskirts of old Edinburgh.  There he preached his final sermon where he basically blamed Satan for making him do it, and then he was hanged.  Once dead, his body was cut down and burnt to ash.

 

After John Kello, Spott Church had many more Ministers, though no more who were murderers, murdered or executed.

 

I left the Skulferatu that accompanied me on my walk in a gap in a wall outside the church.

 

Skulferatu #108

 

Skulferatu #108 in a gap in the wall outside the church

 

Skulferatu #108 in a gap in the wall outside the church

 

Map showing the location of Skulferatu #108

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.9722

Longitude -2.524426

 

what3words: masses.flags.settle

 

I used the following sources for information on Spott Parish Church –

 

The Examiner

No.843, Sunday, March 28, 1894

 

Twelve Scots Trials

by William Roughead

1913

 

Spott Church Website

https://spottchurch.org.uk/