This story a part of the True Ghost Stories page on Obiwan's UFO-Free Paranormal Page. Please do not copy or distribute without permission from Obiwan and/or the original author!
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 16:42:38 -0700 (PDT)
To: guestbook@ghosts.org
yourname Judy Farncombe
email judy_farncombe@hotmail.com
story Brother Geoffrey of Snowshill Manor, Oxfordshire UK
I first visited Snowshill Manor with my husband to see the collection of Japanese armour and swords held there. I was unprepared for meeting one of the ghosts that haunt the beautiful manor as it nestles in the rolling Cotswold hills of England.
The Manor is stuffed full of collected knick knack’s. Antiques is too grand a word for the squirrel hoards held there, collected by the mad gentleman who owned the manor before bequeathing it to the National Trust.
The Manor is small and cramped, the collections are large, consequently visitors have to take timed tickets and follow an accepted route through the house.The rooms visited last within the house are the kitchens that belonged to the original monastery, disbanded by Henry VIII during the Reformation. In the kitchen, glowering in the far corner stood a very large and angry monk. He was so strong I wondered at how few people seemed to notice him.
I often get involved in talking to the grounded spirits in the old haunted houses I visit in the UK. But I found it difficult to concentrate in Snowshill, that first visit. The Manor House was too full of visitors for me to talk to him.
My husband noticed that I had gone into one of my quiet fugues and left me to it. I had to wait in between people wandering in and out of the room to get any sense out of him.
He was a very angry monk. He felt that his beautiful religious house was being desecrated by the visitors walking up and down, disturbing the meditation of the monks. He was angry that it was no longer a religious house, and he was especially angry about the heathen collections housed within it (the last owner had a small collection of Islamic artefacts housed in the room next to the kitchen and Geoffrey hated them as much as he loved the children’s toys up in the attics).
I tried to impart to him how much all these visitors appreciated the beauty of his home. The home he was trying to protect. After a while I felt that I needed to leave the dark room he was hiding himself in and walk in the pretty gardens. Geoffrey came with me and we talked about the peace of the garden and how he was free to leave if he wished too. He was reluctant to go, it had been his home for too long. He also wished to have a Benedictus sung for him in the manor and had to stay until this was done. I parted with him and told my husband about Geoffrey as he drove us home.
Geoffrey’s’ story does not end there. I had been left with the problem of the Benedictus. Should I write a letter to the regional headquarters of the National Trust and tell them of their ghost? This was a puzzle he had set me.
It got resolved in a very strange way. A year or so later my husband had bought us tickets to attend a promenade concert at the Albert Hall in London. He is partial to church music, particularly plain song. I realised part of the way through one of the hymns that they were singing a Benedictus. This was my chance, but how was I to get Geoffrey from Snowshill Manor to London in the twinkling on an eye?
I took a chance, I used the combined energy of the crowd to create a power bubble which I then threw to Snowshill Manor in my minds eye and pulled Geoffrey to me through it. He was astonished, and as the music swelled and filled the hall he rose up through the centre and as the music finished he went home to his maker. My husband noticed I was up to something again and questioned me. He found it hard to believe it when I told him what I had been doing he jokingly referred to me being witchy again.
The story does not end there. I thought that Geoffrey was safely in the heaven he believed in; however, the next time we visited Snowshill Manor Geoffrey was there. I had a walk and talk with him in the garden. He said that although he could have stayed in that other place but he loved the Monastery too much and had chosen to return, sharing its warmth with the visitors instead of generating anger. He also asked my help in freeing the previous owner who had given the Manor to the National Trust. He was still tied to the place, living (dying) in the stable block he had made his home when Geoffrey had haunted him out of the main building. I made the effort to talk to him (I had found it difficult on the first visit in which I had noticed him but Geoffrey had taken most of my attention). But found him too incommunicable to deal with. I will go back again too see Geoffrey and the other ghost, perhaps in another year or two. Meanwhile, if you visit say hello to Brother Geoffrey and enjoy his lovely home. He is happy too share it with you now.