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Breckles Hall, Watton
The coach that haunts this hall is said
to bring doom to anyone who sees it. Their fate is either
to be carried away forever in the coach - or to be left lifeless
on the driveway. Some say the coach is driven by Sir Thomas
Boleyn, father of Anne Boleyn, who is cursed with driving
his coach over forty bridges. One of his passing points is
Breckles Hall . . .
In the late 19th
century, the leader of a gang of local poachers, George Mace
from Watton, arranged a meeting on the Breckles estate. It
was agreed that the men would go their separate ways to do
their poaching and would then meet again at an outhouse to
share their illicit game.
Poaching pheasants at
a time when the house was empty, George Mace suddenly saw
a lighted coach coming up the drive. At the same time, the
hall came to life, with elegant ladies dancing and fiddlers
playing.
Out of the coach stepped
a woman with a beautiful face but "eyes of death."
She fixed the poacher with her gaze, and the man dropped to
the ground with a scream.
The poachers duly arrived with their sacks of birds and rabbits
but, of course, their leader failed to turn up. They waited
for some time, getting angry at being kept waiting, when they
heard the sound of wheels crunching up the drive to the Hall.
What startled them was that the coach appeared to glow, and
as it pulled up at the main door, invisible hands opened the
coach doors and pulled down the steps. Then the coach vanished.
The men were in rather
a subdued mood when they returned home, for they knew that
they had seen the spectral coach that always calls at Breckles
Hall when somebody has just died.
Next day the body of George Mace was found by a footman at
the spot where the coach had stopped, and there was no mark
of violence to show how he had died. His lips were curved
in a happy smile.
LOCATION
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