Writing in 1922, J. S. Udal records that it was thought in the 1880s that Bagley House near Bridport had long been haunted by a noisy but usually invisible ghost which caused rappings, rustlings, footsteps, and the noise of doors opening and closing, and of crockery being violently moved about. A male figure in old-fashioned clothes was occasionally to be seen. Supposedly this was due to events more than a century earlier, when a certain Squire Light drowned himself after a day out hunting; his groom, having a premonition of tragedy, rode after him to the pond but was too late to save him. As the groom was returning to Bagley House, the Squire’s ghost appeared before him and knocked him off his horse, after which he became so desperately ill that his entire skin peeled off. A group of clergy then laid the ghost in a chimney of the house for a set period of years, but it returned once the time was up, and caused perpetual disturbances – which, the neighbours fervently believed, would continue until the house was demolished.
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SOURCE:
Haunted England : The Penguin Book of Ghosts – Written by Jennifer Westwood and Jacqueline Simpson –
Copyright © Jennifer Westwood and Jacqueline Simpson 2005, 2008