This is the first in a series of ten posts which will take us up to the date of publication of my new book Paranormal Warwickshire, out from Amberley Publishing on 15th November. This richly illustrated compilation of strange tales from Shakespeare’s county can be pre-ordered now from all online bookstores, and from Warwick Books and Kenilworth Books.
Today let me take you to Guy’s Cliffe, Warwick. This poignant and atmospheric ruined mansion is the first place local people think of when I speak to them about my book. “Have you included Guy’s Cliffe?” they ask. I reply, “Yes – the first chapter is devoted to it. I took a tour with the custodian Adrian King and have recorded many of his stories.”
Here’s an extract.
Guy’s Cliffe, Warwick
Leave not the mansion so long tenantless
Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall
And leave no memory of what it was!
Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 5, Scene 4
What could be more poignant than a great house, surmounting a cliff, abandoned and desolate? Clinging to a cliff alongside the river Avon north of Warwick, you may find the ruins of just such a mansion.
Many stories linger within these imposing ruins and their environs. As you wander around you may wish to climb those gaping staircases, or gaze at the view down the Avon, beyond the Saxon Mill to Milverton Hill from those stone balconies; or imagine you see a shadowy figure flit past that empty window-frame.
Adrian King, the present Custodian of Guy’s Cliffe, told me: “Years ago, my father told me a story, which first drew me to this estate. He said that whilst standing on the bridge further down the river at the Saxon Mill, looking toward Guy’s Cliffe, he noticed a woman standing on one of those high balconies. He said ‘she had a green aura around her’. Then to his horror she threw herself off the balcony down onto the ground.”
This story piqued Adrian’s interest and he began to research the history of Guy’s Cliffe. Years later he took up an appointment as custodian there.
The known story of the estate spans ten centuries. Well before any structures existed here, Christian hermits were attracted to the caves by the mystical qualities of this location. 16th century historians described the area as an idyllic glade with many clear springs above a steep rock full of caves….washed at the bottom by a crystal river.
Even before those hermits, it is probable that ancient Celtic people would have come here.
“Water has a strong influence on this place,” says Adrian. “The attraction would have been not only rock – a wooded area with caverns in it – but springs as well. Those two aspects alone, rock and water, are spiritual; they would lend a reverence to the place. Very early on, a spring would have been attributed to a deity. The Romans came along and they melded their gods with the local deities, and so forth.”
Adrian feels sure that people from the very distant past knew where to find centres of energy, or sites that you would consider sacred.
“They seemed to home in on them.”
He believes that the stone or rock here, and the water, work together rather like a battery. The stone tape theory proposes that stone possesses a certain unique property whereby human events and emotions are imprinted upon it and will later replay.
Paranormal Warwickshire by SC Skillman, pub. Amberley, 15 Nov 2020
Adrian goes on to share many of the curious anecdotes associated with Guy’s Cliffe, and the strange events visitors continue to experience, right up to the present day.
To find out more about the history of this fascinating place, and about the many strange stories that cling to the house and estate, preorder Paranormal Warwickshire here.
scskillman.com 