The Hound Of Black Fenn (VILLAGE TALES EP. 49 )

A very large animal, a cat perhaps, or a dog, seen at night could just be imagination. Shadows cast by a bright silvery moon and a gently breeze can give the impression of something huge moving silently through the countryside. But if a victim of the beast proves its existence, what a story that would make!

Not far to the south-west of our village on the edge of a vale stretching almost to the coast, is Black Fenn Common, as its name implies it was once a rancid stretch of bog and peat marsh. Drained and cultivated over the years it is now a productive region with a fine reputation for what the area produces. 

Flat lands are regularly the source of rumour and superstition and the Vale is no different. Swirling mists over dark pools, dancing marsh gas and those who lost their way never to be seen again, were more than enough to give rise to all sorts of superstitions. Vale folk were inclined to encourage the tales, so as to discourage the casual visitor. The mists are now mostly limited to the water courses but they still fill the dips and hollows at any time of year and give an eery taste of what the whole was once like.

As the year settles into its late spring and early summer, the vale can give the impression its shuffled off its forbidding nature and is on the whole a welcoming place. It’s difficult to imagine when June arrives that the vale ever was, or has been, anything other than a green and pleasant landscape. It’s easy to think that only long dark nights are favoured by malevolent spirits, and not long summer evenings. A change in the season may make us more trusting, but what lies in wait during a winter, still waits for us in the middle of summer.

It was a summer’s evening towards the turn of the 19th century when the day’s light and warmth lingers that a courting couple, strolling arm in arm, on the edge of the vale, saw what they thought at first was small pony. Its agility made them then think it might be a cat, but one so impossibly large that it too was soon dismissed. They both then settled on it being a very large dog, the siting being brief, they both thought they were probably mistaken.

A few days later a local farmer heading home reported seeing an unusually large animal around midnight, he too presumed it to be a very large dog but of such an animal he knew nothing, and no one that kept such a thing. Concerned about the safety of his and his neighbours stock, he mentioned it when next he visited the pub but ridiculed by his friends he agreed perhaps it was due to having a few too many ciders. 

The Shipston Chronicle had received several reports too, but tales of creatures, usually stray cattle or horses, partly seen through mists at night were common place, and not worth the setting, or the ink.

Only when a Dorchester magistrate who was staying with friends near our village reported that he too had seen something similar, did the Chronicle take the sitings seriously, which by then they were numerous.

Rachael has a copy of the paper dated, the 15th of June 1899. The report is little more than a gesture, unlike today when it would be used to create mayhem purely so as to sell more papers, however this is how it started, one of the biggest stories the chronicle ever covered.

The Magistrate, Nathaniel Morten, reported that his siting was whilst walking his dog on fields overlooking Black Fenn after visiting our local, The Old Drum and Monkey, then known as the Albert in recognition of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria’s loss. Following the magistrate’s report several more people came forward having also seen what the chronicle now called the ‘Black Fenn beast’. That included the courting couple and the farmer, the latter now feeling vindicated and raised to the level of a celebrity in his local.

The paper capitalised on the story by organising sightseeing tours at dusk to where the sitings had been. More sitings were reported during the tours, but the feeling was that was due to alcohol and hysteria, but spine chilling howls echoing across the common were heard by local folk who then bolted their doors and fastened their windows. 

Several distinguished members of the scientific community arrived to study what evidence there might be of the creature. They criticised the tours for their rowdiness being populated by inebriated youths and courting couples. It became the fashion for young men to take their girlfriends along for the same purpose as they might visit the Ghost Train or the Haunted House at the local fun fair. 

During this time the police were reluctant to become involved as so far there seemed to have been no damage done, and nobody hurt. They considered it was harmless fun, and probably if any creature did exist it was more than likely a stray dog, one whose owner had now found it but was too embarrassed to admit its temporary loss. Whatever it was the chances are it would have now left their jurisdiction and moved into another area and so someone else’s problem. As I have said the reasons for doing nothing always outstrip those for doing something by about fifty to one.

The constabulary’s attitude began to change when information was received that an employee of the Chronicle had been seen leaving his home late in the evening whenever his employers had their twice weekly excursions into the countryside. He was seen leaving on his bicycle with a sack strapped to his back. When questioned he said that he regularly went out in the evening to catch eels. This satisfied the police and no further action was taken. A young constable, who was distantly related to the Westlakes at Westmill, thought there might be more to it. He thought that anyone regularly leaving late in the evening, might indicate he was thieving or poaching and decided to follow the employee when he was next on night duty.

As had been reported, the employee, a Mr. Albert Simms, left by bicycle at about the time the Chronicle tour was leaving Shipston in a hired charabanc. The constable followed Mr. Simms, both of which were on bicycles, to an area just north of Black Fenn. Sure enough just before nightfall the constable observed a dark shadow, who he believed to be Simms, moving across an open field then following close to the line of a hedgerow. By the time the constable had arrived at the spot, Simms had vanished through a narrow opening. The constable remained in the area for an hour or so, then returned to where Simms had left his bicycle. During this time some distance away the evening’s tour could be heard talking, giggling and disturbing the evening with mock howling. 

What they all heard next was to silence them and would be something none of them would ever forget. A terrifying series of screams echoed across the fields and brought the young constable running towards where he thought the awful sounds had emanated. There was then a long eerie howl before the night was silent. The constable searched for several hours but in the darkness found nothing. 

At first light the search was resumed with the help of other constables and several farm hands but the feeling was that this was another hoax perpetrated by the Chronicle to popularise their circulation. However as Simms bicycle remained where it had been left, and he had not returned home, the police were taking it seriously. 

At about lunchtime on the 21st of June 1896, the body of a young man, identified as Albert Simms, was found at the entrance to a broad storm culvert. Rachael read out to me the gory details of the man’s injuries, and if you wish they are held in the Chronicle’s archives. Suffice it to say Simms had been dragged along a ditch for well over a hundred yards by an animal of immense strength. The remains of a heavy steel grill had prevented the body being dragged further into the culvert from where it may never have been found. 

The story was reported in the national press and the ‘Hound of Black Fenn’ attracted much notoriety however any sightseeing was discouraged by both landowners and the police. One visitor who was shown the area and spent some time with the local constabulary in Shaftesbury was the author Arthur Conan Doyle. Two years later in 1901 he published The Hound Of the Baskervilles and it is believed that the events that occurred on Black Fenn Common during the night of the 20th of June 1899 were the inspiration for that famous novel.

Sitings around the summer solstice of an unusually large animal in the locality of Black Fenn are infrequent, and should not cause alarm. However at or about the summer solstice and the longest day of the year there are occasionally eerie, blood curdling howls that echo across the vale. The locals say it’s just cattle, but no bull or cow I’ve ever heard makes such a sound.

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Written and read by Barkley Johnson.