A fascinating blend of history, folklore and ghost story awaits you on day 12 of 31 Days of Hallowe’en Tales, as Zowie Swan takes us to the Fylde Coast’s northern peninsular
Growing up on a council estate in Fleetwood, I was always a little curious about the big old private boarding school just down the road from where I lived. But when I heard about the ghost of Lady Fleetwood, I was absolutely hooked.
Rossall School itself is located in what was once Ross Hall. It’s much older than you may first expect and has a very interesting history.
Pre-conquest the land was owned by Earl Tostig, brother of King Harold II and post-conquest the Domesday Book of 1086 has the manor listed as Rushale. In 1212 it appears in documents as Rossall and Roshale in 1228. ‘Manor’ refers to the old manorial system alone – there was no manor house on the land itself and the estate was actually owned by Dieulacres Abbey in Staffordshire.
At this time, Fleetwood wasn’t much more than a rabbit warren, only evidenced now in the street names of Warren Street, Warrenhurst and Warren Farm. The land was littered with complex tunnels and grassy sand dunes that stretched across the peninsula with the Mount at its centre. The Mount was the largest natural sand dune in the area and was known then as Tup Hill or Starr Hill. There was no town, no dock, no community there, just desolate empty land, prone to flooding, which belonged solely to the rabbits.
Cardinal Allen
Legend says that there was once a man named Allen who lived near Rossall, with his family on a poor and dismal farmstead. He suffered misfortune after misfortune, his crops failed, the land was barren, his family hungered greatly and by and by, he sold every last belonging he had in order to feed his children. Eventually, Allen had nothing left, save for the shirt on his back and the old donkey that slept in the meagre stable.
Finally, by Christmas Eve, Allen was at his wits end. He had nothing left to sell, his debts were rising and his family were to be destitute. He staggered into the stable in desperation, wondering what to do. It is an old tradition that on the Eve of Christmas that the Christian God grants the lowly animals of the stable with the power of speech for one night, in remembrance of their role in the nativity.
Allen followed the advice of the donkey and went to the rabbit warren on Christmas morning.
It was usually bad luck to listen to the horses and cattle speaking, but Allen had nothing left to lose. Sure enough, in the stable, the donkey was speaking and fell to its knees in prayer. It spoke to him and told him that as he was a man of God, he would be saved. It told him to walk to the rabbit warren on Christmas Day and look for three rabbits playing together. Where the three rabbits frolicked, he should search.
Allen followed the advice of the donkey and went to the rabbit warren on Christmas morning. He found three rabbits playing together in the sand. Digging down beneath where they had been, Allen found a great hoard of treasure. Now a rich man, he had a family crest designed and was sure to include the three rabbits that led to his salvation. They became known as the Three Rabbits of Rossall. Allen built the first hall on the land and his God-fearing descendants prospered. One of his heirs became a Cardinal, remembered now in the naming of Cardinal Allen Catholic school.
By 1737 maps confirm that old Rossall Hall, sometimes shown on maps as ‘Ross Hall’, had been claimed by the sea, crumbling into the briny depths, and subsequent replacement halls were already ruinous. When Lady Margaret Fleetwood married Sir Roger Hesketh in 1733, it is believed that they decided to build the new hall, much of which stands today, incorporated into Rossall School.
In his Guide to the Country Houses of the North West, John Martin Robinson describes the 18th century hall as a “great rambling whitewashed house”, with irregular wings. By the 19th century, it had five family bedrooms, nursery rooms, a drawing room, dining room, libraries and an organ room, as well as servant accommodation and service rooms. The grounds included a workshop, four stables, a shippon, a coach house, an ice house and a gazebo.
In 1844 Sir Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood, the mastermind and father of Fleetwood town, lost his fortune over-speculating on the creation of the new town and the Preston railway link. He was forced to sell his other manors, Meols Hall and Tulketh Hall, and leased his ancestral home at Rossall to Rev St Vincent Beechey. It became the Northern Church of England Boarding School and, later, Rossall College.
The White Lady
When I was a child, whispers of a terrifying apparition which haunted the grounds of Rossall were spoken about in hushed voices in the playground.
There was always someone who had a father, an auntie or a friend who had seen her or had heard her wailing about the old hall.
The story goes that Lady Fleetwood had pined greatly when her husband had been abroad at war. Each morning she would climb the then highest point of Rossall Hall and stare out to sea, watching the horizon for the return of her husband’s ship.
Convinced that she had just witnessed the demise of her beloved, Lady Fleetwood was bereft.
One day, during her lonely vigil, she spied a ship in trouble. It was her husband’s ship. She watched in terror as it floundered on the sand banks of Rossall Beach and was soon wrecked. The entire crew were lost to the waves. Convinced that she had just witnessed the demise of her beloved, Lady Fleetwood was bereft and threw herself from the Gazebo to her death. Tragically, her husband had not been aboard the ship at all, but had taken separate passage and soon arrived home to find his wife dead.
On All Hallows Eve the heartbroken spectre of Lady Fleetwood tears about the courtyard of Rossall School, crying out for her lost love, never to be reunited. Each Hallowe’en she howls through the chapel and in J F Rowbotham’s History of Rossall School it was reported how she had entire dormitories of boys petrified, hiding with their heads under their blankets trying to block out her screams.
Read our previous Hallowe’en Tales
Day 1 – The Curse of Carleton Crematorium.
Day 2 – The Witch Ducking Stools of Poulton-Le-Fylde.
Day 3 – The Ghost-Seer of Weeton.
Day 4 – Smuggling, Drowned Nuns and Fallen Acrobats at Raikes Hall
Day 5 – The Hauntings at the Old Coach House
Day 6 – Old Scrat
Day 7 – A Goblin Funeral at Extwistle Hall
Day 8 – The Ghost of Lady Macbeth
Day 9 – The Mermaid & The Sea Serpent of Marton Mere
Day 10 – The Banshee of Poulton
Day 11 – The Possession of the Lancashire Seven
Take a look at Zowie Swan’s debut novel, Chingle Hall here.
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