The Hollowmoor Bulletin

Filed weekly from the workroom at Hollowmoor Mill. One unsolved local account per week, recorded plainly, footnoted, and laid out for the parish to read carefully and without alarm.

H-027 West Feldmoor Parish

The Lantern That Walks the Cattle Lane on Thursdays.

Beginning in the autumn of 1924, residents along Cattle Lane reported a single steady light, no larger than a cupped palm, traversing the lane from the eastern stile to the milking gate at a walking pace. The light produced no sound, cast no shadow, and was visible only on Thursday evenings between Michaelmas and the first heavy frost. A constable stood watch on three consecutive Thursdays and recorded the same passage at 8:14, 8:11, and 8:13. No source was ever identified.

recorded 1924 · cross-ref: H-014, H-019

H-026 Stonepeck Crossing

A Knock Found Inside a Wall in Bittermere.

During the partial demolition of a granary in the spring of 1931, masons removing a north-facing wall discovered, between two courses of dressed stone, a small iron knocker of unknown manufacture. The mortar had been undisturbed since the granary's construction in 1802. The knocker, when struck, produced a clear note no member of the masonry crew was willing to repeat indoors.

recorded 1931 · cross-ref: H-008

H-025 Bittermere

The Field That Refuses Snow.

A two-acre meadow on the southern edge of Bittermere, locally called the Bare Field, has not held snow within recorded memory. Adjacent fields lie under their accustomed winter covering; the Bare Field itself remains a damp, dark olive throughout the coldest weeks. The soil is unremarkable. The drainage is poor. Three separate university surveys, the most recent in 1968, have failed to account for the discrepancy.

recorded 1948 · cross-ref: H-002, H-011, H-022

H-024 Larkhollow

The Bell at Larkhollow that Rings of Its Own Accord.

The single bell of St. Cyriac's at Larkhollow has been observed to ring, faintly, on the eve of any local burial — including, in two recorded instances, deaths not yet announced to the parish. The bell-rope is locked in the vestry. The verger has examined the framework. No mechanical cause has been determined, and the chapel committee, after some discussion, has elected not to investigate further.

recorded 1957 · cross-ref: H-003

H-023 Greyford-on-Moor

A Boat Returned to Shore Without Its Rower.

On the morning of the seventh of August, 1962, a flat-bottomed punt registered to the Greyford boathouse was found resting prow-first on the gravel shoal at Two-Pence Crossing, oars shipped neatly inside the gunwale. The water was glass-still that morning. The rower — a fisherman of forty-one years — was at home, asleep, and reported the punt missing only at midday.

recorded 1962 · cross-ref: H-009, H-018

H-022 Hollowmoor

The Visitor Whose Footprints End at the Threshold.

After the heavy snowfall of February, 1971, the postmistress of Hollowmoor village rose to find a single line of unbooted footprints leading from the road, across her garden path, and stopping precisely at her front step. The snow on the step itself was undisturbed. No corresponding tracks led away. A small parcel, addressed to her mother (who had died in 1934) lay against the door.

recorded 1971 · cross-ref: H-005, H-016

H-021 Threapwell

The Hum Beneath the Threapwell Lay-By.

A continuous low-frequency hum, audible to roughly one in seven listeners, has been reported at a particular gravel lay-by on the B-road north of Threapwell since at least the late nineteenth century. Sensitive instrumentation has not registered it. Those who hear it describe a single, sustained note, neither rising nor falling, that ceases abruptly forty paces beyond the lay-by in either direction.

recorded 1978 · cross-ref: H-013

H-020 Uncategorised

The Letter Postmarked from a Town That Does Not Exist.

A letter delivered in the autumn of 1983 to a farm cottage near Stonepeck Crossing bore a postmark reading "MARLBROOK FERRY" and a date of 1948. No settlement of that name appears on Ordnance Survey maps for any year examined. The letter's contents were a brief account of the weather and the writer's hens, and ended mid-sentence.

recorded 1983 · cross-ref: H-001

H-019 West Feldmoor Parish

The Stile Counted Twice.

Walkers on the well-trodden footpath between Cattle Lane and the lower reservoir have, on certain damp evenings, reported climbing the same wooden stile twice in a continuous walk — arriving at the stile, crossing it, walking on for several minutes, and then arriving at it again, the same stile, before any turn or doubling-back. The path itself does not loop. The stile is the only one of its kind on the route.

recorded 1989 · cross-ref: H-027

H-018 Greyford-on-Moor

A Light Beneath the Greyford Reservoir.

Anglers fishing the Greyford reservoir at dusk have, over a period of seventy years, occasionally remarked on a faint amber glow visible some thirty feet below the surface, in the area corresponding to the foundations of a farmhouse flooded during the reservoir's construction in 1903. The glow appears irregularly. No diving expedition has confirmed its source.

recorded 1994 · cross-ref: H-023

H-017 Hollowmoor

The Hollowmoor Mill Wheel That Turned Without Water.

The disused mill wheel at Hollowmoor Mill, fed by a leat that has been dry since 1959, has been observed on three separate occasions in the past decade to make a slow, deliberate quarter-turn at dawn. The bearings are seized. The leat is choked with bramble. No mechanism has been identified by which the wheel might rotate, and no mechanism has been identified by which it should not.

recorded 2002 · cross-ref: H-007, H-012

H-016 Threapwell

The Door That Locks From the Outside Only.

A pantry door in a Threapwell cottage, replaced in 1968 with a salvaged Georgian frame, has consistently refused to lock from within and yet locks — firmly, with no operator — from outside, sometimes when the cottage is empty and the key is two villages away. The locksmith of record retired without comment in 1981.

recorded 2011 · cross-ref: H-006

The Hollowmoor Index

All cases recorded by the office, sortable by filing number, region, or year. Click a column header to re-sort.

Filing No.	Title	Region	Year	Cross-ref

Filing No. H-027 · West Feldmoor Parish

The Lantern That Walks the Cattle Lane on Thursdays.

Beginning in the autumn of 1924, residents along Cattle Lane — a narrow drovers' way running between the eastern stile and the milking gate at the upper farm — began to report a single steady light, no larger than a cupped palm, traversing the lane at a walking pace.

The light produced no sound. It cast no shadow upon the hedge. It was visible only on Thursday evenings, between Michaelmas and the first heavy frost, and could be observed equally well from either end of the lane.

A constable, dispatched at the request of the parish council, stood watch on three consecutive Thursdays in October, 1924. He recorded the same passage, west to east, at 8:14, 8:11, and 8:13 in the evening. On the third occasion, he attempted to approach the light; it neither retreated nor advanced, but appeared to be always the same forty paces ahead, regardless of his pace.

No source has been identified. Cattle Lane remains a public right-of-way. The case is recorded as open.

Recorded by the parish constable, October 1924. Source: Hollowmoor Parish Watch-Book, Vol. IV. Cross-references: H-014, H-019. Recording-year: 1924.