​The Ghosts of Cockington Church

Inside the church Bell Tower

 

 

During the remainder of our holiday, we enjoyed many other quaint places along the Devon coast and before we knew it, we were back home again.

The day after we arrived home I took all my films and got them developed. There were quite a few sets of photographs, so I separated those of Berry Pomeroy castle, made myself comfortable and studied each photograph carefully. I was hoping to have captured some haunting images, but after looking through the prints twice, I finally decided that the ghosts didn't like the sunshine that day. The rest of the photographs were nice, but because they weren't  taken at a haunted castle, I was able to look through them quickly and set them aside.

 

Approximately three months had passed when my wife handed me a photograph. ( seen at the beginning) She couldn't sleep the previous night, so at three o'clock in the morning she decided to look at the holiday photographs. "Look" she said, "there's a dragon in that picture".  I couldn't believe my eyes, I immediately seen two ghostly images in the photograph, one of a man's  face and the second a horse's head. My wife had focused on the image of the horses head and suggested a dragon because of the long misty neck shape attached to it, which actually was the man's face.  The photograph had been taken at the main doorway of Cockington church and my wife and sister were both in the photograph. Immediately to the left on the same level, there was the  ghostly image of a horse's head,(skull) and further left the face of a man who appeared to be leaning into the photograph, as if he wanted to be in the picture. I was ecstatic, every detail was correct. The images were on the same level as my wife and sister, the size of the images were in correct proportion, and the clarity and features were great. And better still, when I checked the 35mm negative, both images where there.

 

I immediately wondered if these ghosts actually lingered in Cockington village, or had they followed us there from Berry Pomeroy castle? All kinds of thoughts were going through my mind. I had what I believed to be a photograph with two genuine ghosts, and didn't know what to do with it.

 

I decided to search on line, and found reference to one Ghost who is known to haunt Cockington Court which is located next to the church. The ghost is believed to be Sir Henry Cary (1585 - 1633) who was a staunch Royalist during the civil war. He held the titles of Lord of Falkland and Lord Deputy of Ireland. The cost of war left him a ruined man, and he was forced  to sell his Cockington estate.  So perhaps the ghost in my Photograph is Sir Henry Cary, only this time round, he appears to have brought his horse with him. I should mention that one of the burial vaults in Cockington church, is the final resting place for some members of the Cary family.

 

For other research, I contacted a paranormal investigator in England who said that he would put a request on the Devon radio asking for anyone with a similar experience at Cockington village to contact him, but he never did get back to me.  I assumed that hadn't heard from anyone.  Online haunted sites didn't appeal to me, several seemed to lean towards selling ghost haunting equipment, and with the exception of  some famous ghost photographs that have been well documented, were loaded with fake looking pictures of ghosts. Finally I put my photograph aside with the intention of doing some research later, but before I realized it, a few years had passed.

One other interesting story did surface when researching Cockington church and Berry Pomeroy castle. The latter had an immense haunting history, but one story in particular was about the ghost of the Blue lady who roams the castle grounds in mourning. She was the daughter of a Norman Lord who lived at the castle, and was raped by her father. As a result, she give birth to a child who was strangled by her father. (in another version of the story, it was she who strangled the child)  The sound of child crying has often been heard at the castle, and is believed to be the murdered child of the Blue lady.

 

Knowing this, it appears that our ghost haunting trip while on vacation was very successful. Not only did we hear the crying of a child, but also captured two ghostly images on a 35 mm film.

 

We returned several times to Devon, trying to capture the images again but without any success. During our visit in 2009,  I took a print of the ghost photograph along with me hoping to meet the minister of Cockington church. If anyone knew of a local ghost, surely he would. 

 

We arrived at the village in time for the Sunday morning church service to end, and waited as the congregation members left.   One car was parked along the side of the church where a man was discarding a long black gown. Assuming he was the minister, I approached him introduced myself.  I had just started to explain the reason for my visit, when he laughed and told me that he was the organ player, he then took inside the church and introduced me to the minister.

 

The minister was very pleasant and listened attentively as I gave him the details about the photograph. A few moments later he glanced at me and acknowledged that he could see the images. I  asked if he knew of any ghosts that had been seen around the church, and wondered was he simply being professional, like in not divulging confidential information when he never really answered me, but instead smiled and said "let's go look at the wall, it hasn't been touched in years." We all went outside and he inspected the area of the wall and doorway where the photograph was taken, and after being satisfied that there were no marks that could be mistaken for the ghostly images, he turned to me and in his polite English accent and said, "jolly well done"  He commented on how unusual it was to capture the image of a spirit on a camera, and wished us a enjoyable holiday. When we arrived back home, I once again put the photograph away.

 

In the summer of 2011,  our daughter had been telling a friend about the ghost photograph who asked to see it. Excited about the images, she starred meticulously at every detail and probably because of her concentration, seen something that we hadn't noticed before. There was a small circle with a cross in the center located between the two ghostly heads, as if joining them together. The clarity of the circle and cross was a little fainter than that of the heads, but could be seen clearly if looked at closely. Prior to this I had automatically looked at the two heads without considering anything else, so now we had another mystery to solve. Finding this new image renewed my interest in the photograph, and once again I was on line doing research. I was able to establish quickly that a cross in a circle was the ancient symbol for Christianity, and that a cross was displayed on the garments worn by the Knights Templar.

 

By now my imagination was running wild, I started to ask myself questions like, do ghosts retain in death, the friendships they had with other beings when alive?  It would be a strange coincidence if two strange ghosts found companionship in death, one being a man, and the other a horse.

 

Why were they attached together at the head by the symbol of the cross and circle? The Knights Templar used the cross symbol, and Sir Henry Cary was a Knight, had that any connection?

 

This photograph certainly raises questions that are difficult to answer, but from my point of view it is definite proof that there is some kind of spiritual relationship in death, and that ghosts do exist.

 

 In August 2012 we decided to visit Devon once again. We planned one week in Torbay and two weeks  in Portugal. We visited all of our favorite places around Torbay including Berry Pomeroy castle and Cockington Village. Using both digital and 35mm cameras we took many photographs around Cockington church, but were unable to capture any ghostly activity.

 

Travelling on to Portugal, one of our first places to visit was Guimaraes Castle and the Romanesque Sao Miguel do Castelo chapel, both extremely interesting.  Inside the chapel visitors had to follow a path close to the walls to avoid walking on granite slabs that covered the tombs of medieval knights.  I was surprised to find that along with inscriptions, several of the slabs had engravings  of a cross inside a circle, which reminded me of the cross and circle in the photograph from Cockington church.   Also, although flash photography was not permitted, a large brilliant orb appeared in my photograph of the granite alter at the front of the chapel.