Here’s a comic tale from Christmas Eve over 300 years ago, where a group of lads managed to terrify themselves and annoy the Vicar of Kingsthorpe, who recorded this tale in 1708.

The ancient ruined church of St John at Boughton Green has been abandoned for nearly 400 years, but the churchyard continues to be used for burials, despite its reputation as the most haunted in Northamptonshire. The ruins are picturesque during the day, but as dusk falls, the shadows cast over the gravestones persuade the susceptible that there are ghosts afoot! And reputedly the most haunted night of the year is Christmas Eve, when the devil rides out, and a beautiful red-headed female apparition might administer a fatal kiss.

Just before Christmas, a group of Kingsthorpe lads were enjoying themselves in their local. Conversation turned to the haunted churchyard, and Jonas White, being rather merry, declared he was afraid of nothing, neither mortal nor ghostly. His friend Robert Bletsoe scoffed at this, wagering his ox against Jonas’s two fat pigs, that he wouldn’t be brave enough to visit the churchyard at midnight on Christmas Eve. Jonas accepted the challenge, bragging that he would take a hank of yarn and wind it around the gravestones. The friends were delighted and started to plan the event. Secretly David Shelby visited his family in Moulton, and arranged for a ‘devil’ dressed in black to be waiting to scare Jonas in the churchyard. Also Robert didn’t want to lose his ox, and definitely wanted the two pigs, so he decided to dress himself in white, as a ghostly apparition to scare poor Jonas.

On Christmas Eve, the gang all met up to fortify themselves with a good bellyful of beer. By ten pm they set off for Boughton Green churchyard in the bright moonlight arriving just after eleven, waiting amongst the gravestones…

Meanwhile the Moulton men had not found anyone who wanted to dress in black to play the devil in the churchyard. Funny that! However they did find a blind drunk who they stripped, smeared with honey, and coated in soot. They took this poor character to the churchyard, and gave him some more spirits.

As the midnight bells rang out, Jonas plucked up his courage, and began to weave between the gravestones, and his prankster friend Robert, dressed in white as a ghost began to walk towards him. The Moulton men pushed the soot covered drunkard forwards and all three met in the middle of the Churchyard. Jonas felt to the ground in terror and hid behind a gravestone. Robert, in white, was terrified that the devil had arrived, and ran towards the Moulton men, waving his arms around in fear. They were terrified, and ran off themselves. The blackened Moulton man was so drunk he barely noticed anything, and kept on walking up the path until he reached the group from Kingsthorpe. They were terrified to see the devil in the churchyard, and fled back home.

At dawn on Christmas morning, Jonas and Robert crept home, much chastened, and the drunkard from Moulton was found still sleeping off the effects of the spirits from the night before.

The vicar came to hear of the tale, and hauled everyone in to preach them a sermon against their sins. He confiscated the pigs and the steer, and recorded the tale, adding ‘all’s well that ends well’ as he used the proceeds from selling the animals to help repair the church.

I hope you too have a ‘merry Christmas’, but perhaps keep away from Boughton Green Churchyard, you never know what might be lurking there on Christmas Eve!

From ‘Northamptonshire Notes and Queries’ vol III p309 - 310