 |
11] The White
Lady
No collection of Ghost Stories
would be complete without a 'White Lady' and in Pluckley we
have two of them. Or have we? Their stories are very similar,
but they have been seen in two different settings, a mile
apart! And who is our White Lady? The most popular theme is
that she was another of the Dering Ladies; but it is also
said that it is from the medieval period. |
| Needless
to say, there are no written records to back up either story. |
The Dering family only came to Surrenden
Dering, through careful marriages, in the early 1400's. The Lady
appears both in the Dering Chapel of St Nicholas' Church, and at
the Manor house - Surrenden Dering (usually in the library) Stories
of both White Ladies tell that she was so beautiful that, when she
died at a young age, her bereft husband had her body sealed in a
succession of lead caskets before being placed in an oak coffin
and lowered into the family crypt. And there she lies, clothed in
a rich flowing gown with a glorious red rose at her breast. The
lead caskets may have preserved her body, but her spirit is still
free.
Free to appear in the Village Church
and free to wander the passages of her old home. Between the wars
Surrenden was rented out to the Court of St James' (the US Embassy
in the UK) and a regular visitor there was Walter Winan, the big
game hunter and horse owner.
|
|
