Cutthorpe   Local History

Home  |  Village Tour  |  Census Places  |  Occupations  |  People

Thanks to Judy Stubbs for this story. A Modern Ghost Story by Judy Stubbs In the early 1980s when I lived at the Dower House with my husband and family of three children I started to research the history of Cutthorpe and its people. Like most places its beginnings were lost in the mists of time but several families stood out as populating the village for over a hundred years or more. One such family was the Crookes family. They were mostly involved in farming and their relatives lived in several houses in the village. One evening about 5.30 I was preparing a meal in the kitchen before they all came home. There was a knock on the back door and a lady asked me if I could tell her anything about the Crookes family. I had a lot of information about their lives and about a murder that had taken place but I had to turn her away as I was too busy at the time. She agreed to come back next day with her husband who was waiting outside in the car. Next morning, at the duly appointed hour, they arrived and we sat round the kitchen table. I had got out all the information I had for her to read, including the murder of Herbert Crookes from Rose Cottage [now called Rosene]. We spent over an hour going over all the notes and she was thrilled. As they got up to leave her husband asked me who was waving to him from the end bedroom window as he sat in his parked car the night before. He described a lady in a bright yellow dress with black hair. I had no idea; I was alone in the house at the time. There was a bed across the window and at the foot of it was a chest of drawers so it was not possible to get near the window. I wonder who she was. No doubt a Crookes making contact with one of her relations. No one I knew or could account for.