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The Midnight Case Files, Skegness (2026)

02/09/2026

📣 According to an old Nottinghamshire legend, the Devil once hurled an enormous rock at Lenton Priory.

It missed its target and crashed into Stapleford Hill—where the alleged missile still stands more than 200 million years after it was formed.

But from which direction did the Devil throw it, and how old is this story really?

⸻

📁 CASE FILE: NEAR MISS — THE HEMLOCK STONE

Location: Stapleford Hill, near Bramcote
Type: Legend — Old Nick
Date: Unknown — stone still present

⸻

🕯️ THE INCIDENT

Somewhere beneath Castleton in Derbyshire, the Devil was said to have emerged from his cave and settled down to sleep.

Around 35 miles away, at Lenton Priory near Nottingham, a pious monk lay awake. Sensing that something evil was abroad, he began to pray.

His prayers travelled through the earth until they reached the Devil, shocking him awake and sending him into a furious rage.

The Devil tore an enormous block of rock from the ground and hurled it towards Lenton, intending to crush the priory and silence its monks forever.

But something went wrong.

Whether defeated by the monk’s prayers or distracted by the ringing of the priory bells, the Devil missed. His missile fell several miles short, burying itself in the side of Stapleford Hill.

That rock, the legend claims, is the Hemlock Stone.

⸻

📍 LOCATION

Although the original paranormal entry places the stone in Bramcote, it technically stands within the civil parish of Stapleford, immediately beside Bramcote Hills.

Rising from the eastern side of Stapleford Hill, the Hemlock Stone is approximately 28 feet—or 8.5 metres—tall. Older descriptions measured it at 30 or 31 feet, which probably explains the frequently repeated claim that it is ten metres high.

Its upper section spreads out over a much narrower base, giving the entire structure the appearance of a huge, decaying mushroom.

Today it stands behind protective railings in Stapleford Hill Woodland, surrounded by trees and overlooking Coventry Lane. The wider site is now a Local Nature Reserve, but the landscape once looked far more open. The stone could be seen from a considerable distance, looming over the surrounding fields.

The ruins of Lenton Priory lie approximately 3.3 miles east of the stone.

In other words, the traditional claim that the Devil’s missile landed “four miles short” is surprisingly close.

⸻

🏛️ THE LOCATION’S HISTORY

The Hemlock Stone was not transported to Stapleford Hill. It is made from the same ancient sandstone found beneath the surrounding landscape.

Its lower section consists of soft, red-brown Lenton Sandstone. Above it is a much larger mass of Nottingham Castle Sandstone, hardened by the mineral baryte.

Over an immense period of time, the softer material surrounding and beneath it disappeared. The harder upper section survived, leaving behind the strange, top-heavy pillar visible today.

What remains uncertain is exactly how the surrounding material was removed.

Some geologists believe the stone was isolated entirely by natural erosion and ancient glacial activity. Others have argued that quarry workers removed the softer sandstone around it, leaving the hardened pillar behind because it was difficult—or dangerous—to break apart.

The debate has continued for centuries.

When antiquarian William Stukeley described the Hemlock Stone in the early eighteenth century, he believed it was probably the remnant of an old quarry. Later geologists favoured natural erosion, while more recent surveys have produced arguments for both explanations.

The stone itself has even been scanned using lasers and drones in an attempt to record its shape and search for signs of human working.

Whatever exposed it, its sandstone was deposited more than 200 million years ago. The Devil legend is therefore only the latest chapter in an unimaginably longer history.

⸻

👤 THE PEOPLE INVOLVED

No early version names the monk who supposedly challenged the Devil.

A later comic poem calls him Father Pierre, presenting him as the head of Lenton Priory. However, the historian who later reproduced the poem openly doubted that Father Pierre had ever existed.

The real person connecting the locations is far more interesting.

Lenton Priory was founded in 1106 or 1107 by the powerful Norman lord William Peverel. It became one of England’s wealthiest Cluniac monasteries, possessing an enormous church, numerous buildings and extensive lands.

High above Castleton stood another of Peverel’s strongholds: Peveril Castle.

Directly beneath that castle is Peak Cavern, historically known as the Devil’s Arse. Its immense natural entrance and strange underground sounds caused it to be associated with the underworld for centuries.

According to the Castleton version of the legend, this was the Devil’s cave.

That means the story sends the stone from beneath William Peverel’s castle towards William Peverel’s priory.

Whether that connection was deliberately woven into the legend is unknown—but Castleton may not have been chosen at random.

⸻

📜 WHAT THE NEWSPAPERS SAY

I could not find a medieval manuscript, priory record or early chronicle containing the Devil story.

The first secure written description of the Hemlock Stone appeared in William Stukeley’s Itinerarium Curiosum, first published in 1724. Stukeley described the formation and proposed that it had been left behind by quarrying—but did not mention the Devil or Lenton Priory.

In 1856, Rambles Round Nottingham recorded another local explanation. When asked how the stone had arrived there, one countryman insisted that it had been left by Noah’s Flood.

A 1905 edition of the Nottingham Guardian referred to it as the “Himlack Stane,” while another article published in 1913 discussed whether its strange name had Danish origins.

The fullest theatrical version appeared in a poem by a writer calling himself Fitz-Green, printed in the Nottingham Weekly Express. In this telling, Father Pierre’s success had caused Lenton’s bells to ring and its monks to sing. Furious that people were abandoning evil, the Devil travelled to Castleton, seized a block of rock and threw it at the monastery.

As the missile approached Bramcote Hills, the prayers and bells of Lenton defeated it and brought it crashing down.

Unfortunately, the date of that newspaper poem has not yet been identified.

Although modern accounts routinely describe the story as medieval, I found no surviving medieval source proving that. It may preserve a much older oral tradition, but its documented history is considerably later.

⸻

🌙 FOLKLORE & LOCAL LEGENDS

The Castleton story is not the only version.

According to another local tradition, the Devil was sleeping much closer to Stapleford on Stoney Clouds, a sandstone escarpment near Sandiacre.

A monk at Lenton sensed his presence and began praying. The prayers woke the Devil, who threw the rock towards the priory but missed.

Stoney Clouds lies only a short distance west of the Hemlock Stone and follows a much more direct line towards Lenton. Geographically, it makes a far neater “near miss” than Castleton.

The Hemlock Stone also gathered other beliefs around it.

One tradition claimed that Druids used it as an altar. Fires were reportedly lit on its summit around May Eve or Beltane, with nineteenth-century writers claiming that elderly residents still remembered the ceremony.

However, no archaeological evidence has confirmed Druidic activity there.

A now-lost spring near Stapleford Hill was believed to possess healing powers and was reportedly used by miners and travelling communities. Witches were said to gather near the stone and use poisonous hemlock in their potions.

Other stories claimed that the rock was thrown by a giant, deposited by Noah’s Flood or left behind by a meteorite. One ledge was even remembered locally as the Devil’s Seat, where Old Nick supposedly rested.

There was also a rumour that one of the sandy hollows beneath the hill concealed a tunnel leading all the way to Wollaton Hall.

By the early twentieth century, the Hemlock Stone had become a popular destination for holiday walks and picnics. D.H. Lawrence later included it in Sons and Lovers, describing a field crowded with young people from Nottingham and Ilkeston.

Centuries after the alleged rituals ended, people were still gathering beneath the stone.

⸻

⚠️ THE STRANGE PART

The geology tells us that the Hemlock Stone belongs to Stapleford Hill. It was never torn from Castleton and hurled through the sky.

But that does not explain why the story connects such specific places.

At one end is Peak Cavern: an ancient cave associated with the Devil and lying beneath Peveril Castle.

At the other is Lenton Priory.

Both were connected to William Peverel.

Between them stands an enormous rock that appears to have fallen just over three miles short of the priory.

The legend transforms a strange natural formation into physical evidence of a battle between Christian prayer and something believed to be lurking beneath the Peak District.

Yet the earliest known writer to describe the stone never mentioned that battle at all.

Somewhere between the eighteenth century and the later newspaper poem, the Devil entered the story.

Exactly when—and who first connected the stone to Castleton and Lenton—remains unknown.

⸻

📜 FINAL NOTE

The Devil missed Lenton Priory, but the priory eventually fell anyway.

It was dissolved under Henry VIII, its wealth seized and most of its buildings destroyed. Only fragments now survive.

The Hemlock Stone remains on Stapleford Hill.

Its intended target disappeared centuries ago, while the Devil’s alleged missile still watches over the landscape—weathered, fenced off and continuing to guard the secret of how its strangest legend began.

02/09/2026

The Woman on Blyth Bridge
📍 Blyth New Bridge, A634, Nottinghamshire
🕰️ Reported during the summer of 1970

On the western edge of Blyth stands an old stone bridge carrying the A634 across the River Ryton.

Known as Blyth New Bridge, it is actually more than 250 years old. Built around 1770, possibly to a design by architect John Carr, its three stone arches have carried generations of travellers across the river.

But according to one unsettling account, not everyone who crosses the bridge is travelling alone.

◆ THE ENCOUNTER

During the summer of 1970, a motorist was driving across the bridge when he suddenly became aware of a woman’s presence inside his car.

There is no surviving description of her face, clothing or age.

The report does not say that the driver saw her standing beside the road or watched her climb into the vehicle. There was apparently no figure illuminated by the headlights and no passenger waiting near the bridge.

Instead, the motorist simply felt that she was inside the car with him.

It was the unmistakable sensation of an unseen passenger—someone occupying the vehicle despite the driver knowing that he had entered it alone.

The surviving account describes this as the most recent encounter with a woman already believed to haunt the bridge.

But who was she?

◆ THE WOMAN AND THE GAMEKEEPER

Local tradition reportedly connected the ghost to the death of a woman involving a local gamekeeper.

Frustratingly, the original account provides no names, date or explanation of what “involving” means.

Was the gamekeeper responsible for her death?

Was he the person who found her?

Was the woman related to him—or had they been secretly meeting near the bridge?

The wording leaves all of those possibilities open.

The story could concern an accident, a drowning, an act of violence or a relationship later concealed beneath village gossip. Without the woman’s identity, the gamekeeper cannot yet be traced with certainty.

◆ SEARCHING THE RIVER

While searching historical newspapers, I found the death of 25-year-old Daisy Maud Painter, whose body was recovered from the River Ryton near Osberton.

Daisy disappeared after leaving home on the morning of Tuesday the 10th. Her bicycle was later discovered leaning against a fence, and officers searching the river found her body lying face down in approximately one foot of water.

One of the officers involved, Police Constable Harpham, was stationed at Blyth.

For a moment, Daisy appeared to be a possible candidate: a young woman, the River Ryton and a direct connection to Blyth.

However, the full report places her death at Osberton, several miles south of Blyth New Bridge. It contains no reference to the A634 bridge or to a gamekeeper. The inquest concluded that Daisy had died by drowning while in what was then described as a state of unsound mind.

Daisy therefore appears to be a separate tragedy rather than the origin of this haunting.

◆ WHAT CAN BE VERIFIED?

The bridge itself is real and historically significant. Blyth New Bridge was constructed around 1770 and still carries the A634 across the River Ryton.

The haunting report, however, has a much thinner paper trail.

The surviving entry was submitted by a member of the public and added to the Paranormal Database in 2016. It records the summer 1970 encounter and the gamekeeper tradition but provides no named witness, contemporary newspaper report or earlier published source.

That does not necessarily mean the story was invented in 2016. It may have circulated locally for decades before being written down. But without an earlier record, we cannot currently determine how old the tradition really is—or whether important details have changed during repeated retellings.

◆ POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS

The motorist may have experienced a powerful feeling of being watched or accompanied while driving through an isolated area. Darkness, fatigue, reflections, passing shadows and the enclosed interior of a vehicle can all create an unnerving sense that somebody else is present.

There may also have been a physical passenger whom the driver briefly glimpsed or believed he sensed, with later retellings reducing a longer experience to the phrase “a presence in his car.”

Alternatively, the encounter may have been interpreted through an existing local story. If people already believed that a woman had died near the bridge, an unexplained sensation there could naturally have been connected to her.

The paranormal possibility is that the motorist encountered the bridge woman herself—not as an apparition beside the road, but as an unseen passenger repeating some final journey connected to her death.

◆ THE UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Who was the woman?

What happened between her and the gamekeeper?

Did she die at the bridge, in the River Ryton or somewhere nearby?

Were there encounters before the summer of 1970?

And why did the motorist sense her inside the car, rather than see her beside the bridge?

At present, the identity of the Blyth bridge woman remains unknown.

Daisy Maud Painter can be placed in the wider investigation but does not fit the known details closely enough to name her as the ghost. Somewhere in Blyth’s records may still be another death—a woman, a gamekeeper and an incident close to the old bridge—which gave rise to the story.

Until that connection is found, Blyth New Bridge keeps its secret.

Drivers continue across its three ancient arches, usually without incident.

But one summer night in 1970, a motorist reportedly crossed the River Ryton believing that somebody—or something—had entered the car with him.

02/09/2026

Big shout out to my newest top fans! 💎 🥹

Mary Baker, Kay Smith, Jackie Guy, Lesley Aspin, Samantha Anderson, Liz Horton, Colin Bray

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02/09/2026

7k of you!

What started as me disappearing down rabbit holes, digging through old newspapers, forgotten records, local legends and strange little corners of history has somehow grown into a community of 7,000 people who apparently enjoy disappearing down them with me. 😂

Thank you for reading the ridiculously long case files, sharing your own stories, sending me leads, correcting things, questioning things, joining the investigations and generally encouraging me to keep opening files I probably should have left alone. 👀

I absolutely love what The Midnight Case Files has become, and the best part is that there are still SO many forgotten stories waiting to be found.

7K investigators, history lovers, sceptics, believers and curious minds.

Thank you for being here. 🖤

Now… back to the archives. We’ve got cases to open. 🕯️

02/09/2026

🌲 THE MIDNIGHT CASE FILES

CASE FILE: THE FRIAR’S FIGHT

Location: Fountain Dale, near Blidworth, Nottinghamshire
Classification: Legend
Date: Unknown
Status: A centuries-old story attached to a genuine medieval site

◆ THE LEGEND

Deep within the old landscape of Sherwood lies Fountain Dale: a secluded place of woodland, water and medieval earthworks.

According to local tradition, this was where Robin Hood first encountered the man who would become one of his most famous companions—Friar Tuck.

The story begins with Robin praising Little John’s skill with a bow. Will Scarlet laughs and tells him that a powerful friar living at Fountains Dale could defeat them both.

Never one to ignore a challenge, Robin rides out alone.

He finds the friar beside the water, dressed not as a peaceful holy man but wearing armour, carrying a sword and holding a steel buckler. Robin commands him to carry him across the water.

The friar obeys—but once they reach the opposite bank, he draws his sword and orders Robin to carry him back.

Robin does so. Then he demands another crossing.

This time, when they reach the deepest part of the water, the friar throws Robin in and leaves him to choose whether he will “sink or swim.”

Robin scrambles ashore and begins firing arrows, but the friar turns them aside with his shield. The pair draw their swords and fight from ten in the morning until four in the afternoon.

Eventually Robin asks permission to sound three blasts on his horn. Fifty armed yeomen emerge from the trees.

The friar responds by placing his fist to his mouth and whistling three times. Fifty powerful dogs come racing through the forest.

According to the ballad, the dogs were trained to catch the outlaws’ arrows in their mouths. It is only when Little John begins killing them that the friar calls an end to the battle.

Robin and the friar recognise one another as worthy opponents, make peace and become companions.

◆ FOUNTAIN DALE OR FOUNTAINS ABBEY?

When I began looking into this story, I immediately encountered a problem.

The surviving ballad initially says that the friar lived at “Fountains Abby.” It then says that Robin travelled to “Fountains Dale,” where he found the friar walking beside the water.

That change has caused arguments for generations.

Was the story originally connected with Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire? Was “Fountains Abbey” a mistake made while the ballad passed between singers and printers? Or was the intended location always Fountain Dale in Nottinghamshire?

The friar in the ballad is never actually named Tuck within the verses. He is called the “Curtal Friar,” with his identification as Friar Tuck developing through manuscript titles, plays and later retellings. The famous river encounter was already appearing in a printed Robin Hood play around 1560, while fuller versions of the ballad survive from the seventeenth century. (d.lib.rochester.edu, ebba.english.ucsb.edu, en.wikisource.org)

The Blidworth argument is strengthened by the surrounding landscape. There really is water here. There really is a substantial medieval moat. And people have been pointing to it as the place of the fight for almost two centuries.

◆ THE MOAT IN THE WOODS

Fountain Dale’s moat is not a modern attraction built for the Robin Hood story. It is a nationally protected Scheduled Monument.

The site contains a rectangular island measuring approximately 48 by 35 metres, surrounded by a wide and deep ditch. Historic England associates it with a medieval hunting lodge inside Sherwood Forest, where a forester named Raffe Clerc collected tolls. It may also have accommodated forest officials when they visited the area.

Because the site has experienced relatively little later disturbance, remains of its medieval buildings may still survive beneath the ground. (historicengland.org.uk)

A later archaeological assessment identified it as a possible location of the “New Repair,” a documented forest lodge beside Rainworth Water. The identification is not completely certain—but it demonstrates that Fountain Dale was genuinely occupied and administered during medieval Sherwood’s working life.

That does not prove that Robin and Tuck fought there. But it means the legend was attached to a real medieval stronghold rather than an entirely invented landscape.

◆ THE STORY IN PRINT

In 1835, American writer Washington Irving travelled through the area and recorded the Fountain Dale tradition in Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey.

He described it as the place where Robin encountered the “stalwart” Friar Tuck. Irving was shown the moat said to have surrounded the fighting friar’s stronghold, as well as the supposed scene of their six-hour battle.

This is the earliest definite written identification of the Blidworth site that I found. It proves the story was established here by 1835. (upload.wikimedia.org, online-literature.com)

In 1894, W. H. Groves described “Friar Tuck’s Island” at Fountain Dale and repeated the complete story of the crossings, the fight and the extraordinary army of dogs.

Then came a newspaper article published on 20 December 1895.

Its writer argued that “Fountains Abbey” in the ballad should be read as “Fountain Dale.” He believed the amended words fitted the rhythm more naturally and agreed with Blidworth’s traditions concerning both Friar Tuck and Will Scarlet.

The writer even referred to himself as the “Clerke of Copmanhurst”—the name used for Friar Tuck in Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe—and claimed to have studied the question at Fountain Dale itself.

◆ TUCK’S CELL AND THE 5,000 BAPTISMS

Another newspaper article, published in 1928 under the wonderful headline “Friar Tuck’s Abode,” described Fountain Dale as the traditional home of Scott’s famous friar.

It claimed that Tuck’s cell once stood beside the lake and that a stone-lined pool was the place where the “genial Friar” baptised no fewer than 5,000 people.

I have found no evidence supporting that astonishing number, but it is a remarkable piece of Fountain Dale folklore.

The supposed remains of Tuck’s cell have a more complicated history. Medieval masonry removed from Blidworth church was taken to Fountain Dale around 1839 and apparently arranged into a picturesque hermitage. The stones were returned to Blidworth around 1902.

Therefore, people visiting Fountain Dale during the nineteenth century may have been shown a romantic reconstruction made from genuine church masonry—not the remains of Tuck’s original home. (her.nottinghamshire.gov.uk)

◆ FRIAR TUCK’S WELL

The location also contains the remains of Friar Tuck’s Well.

The spring became associated with healing water, while another tradition claimed that an angry Friar Tuck cursed it to flow only once every seven years.

The surviving stepped wellhead is Grade II listed, although its visible stone and brick structure principally dates from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Earlier accounts called it Robin Hood’s Well, suggesting that its precise legendary identity changed over time. (historicengland.org.uk, her.nottinghamshire.gov.uk)

Whatever its original name, the presence of a natural spring may help explain why this quiet wooded valley became known as Fountain Dale.

◆ THE OWNER WHO SHOWED VISITORS THE BATTLEFIELD

The tradition was still thriving during the Second World War.

On 26 February 1943, a newspaper published a spirited defence of Robin Hood’s Nottinghamshire connections under the headline:

“Robin Hood Was A Sherwood Forester — And Friar Tuck Lived at Fountain Dale.”

At that time Fountain Dale belonged to Councillor Tom Shipside, a successful Nottingham motor dealer. The article stated that Shipside proudly showed his visitors the place where Robin Hood and Friar Tuck’s famous combat was said to have occurred.

The estate had become a physical home for the legend. Visitors were not merely told that the fight happened somewhere around Blidworth—they were shown the supposed spot.

◆ MY VERDICT

I cannot claim that Robin Hood and Friar Tuck genuinely fought at Fountain Dale.

The ballad is inconsistent, alternating between Fountains Abbey and Fountains Dale. The visible wellhead is considerably later, while the supposed cell was probably created from displaced church masonry.

But this is certainly not a modern tale invented for tourists.

The fight itself comes from an old and established Robin Hood tradition. Washington Irving recorded its connection with Fountain Dale in 1835. Victorian writers investigated it, newspaper correspondents argued over it, and successive owners showed the purported battlefield to visitors.

More importantly, beneath all that folklore lies a genuine medieval moated site associated with the administration of Sherwood Forest.

Perhaps the name Fountain Dale caused local people to claim an existing ballad. Perhaps an older memory of the Nottinghamshire landscape somehow survived within the song. Or perhaps the real moat, spring and forest lodge simply provided such a perfect setting that the legend found its natural home here.

Whichever came first, the story has now clung to Fountain Dale for nearly two hundred documented years.

Among the trees, beside the remains of the moat and the water where the friar supposedly waited, it is still easy to picture two armed figures facing one another—neither willing to step aside, and neither yet knowing that the fight would end in friendship.

02/09/2026

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01/09/2026

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01/09/2026

WILL SCARLET’S GRAVE

Location: St Mary of the Purification Churchyard, Blidworth, Nottinghamshire
Type: Legend
Date: Tradition confirmed in print by 20 December 1895
Status: Memorial still present

🌙 In the churchyard of St Mary of the Purification stands a peculiar arrangement of ancient stones, traditionally associated with Will Scarlet—one of Robin Hood’s legendary Merry Men.

The original account I began with described Will as being buried in a grave “the shape of an arrow.” However, once I looked properly at the photographs, church records and local history, it became clear that this description is slightly misleading.

The monument does not resemble an ordinary grave cut into the shape of an arrow. It consists of a low stone base with a tall, pointed piece of old masonry standing at one end. That pointed stone may be where the arrow description originated, but it appears to be an architectural fragment from an earlier version of the church.

◆ WHO WAS WILL SCARLET?

Will Scarlet—also written as Scarlett, Scarlok, Scadlock and Scathelocke—was not simply invented for modern Robin Hood films.

He appears in some of the earliest surviving Robin Hood ballads, standing alongside Little John and Much the Miller’s Son. This gives the character genuine medieval literary roots, although it does not prove that he was based upon one identifiable man.

Over time, Will developed into the youngest, most finely dressed and sometimes most hot-headed member of Robin’s band. Later stories also claimed that he knew every path through the surrounding forest.

Blidworth eventually became closely connected with him. Local tradition says that Will was killed during an encounter with the Sheriff’s men and buried in the village churchyard. But could I find anything older than the modern retellings?

I could.

◆ THE 1895 DISCOVERY

While searching old newspapers, I found a remarkable article published on 20 December 1895.

It states:

“Will Scarlet is said to be entombed in Blidworth Churchyard, although his name is not inscribed in our Registers.”

That one sentence is extremely valuable.

It confirms that the burial tradition was already circulating in the nineteenth century. It also shows that somebody had apparently considered the church registers and openly admitted that Will Scarlet’s name could not be found in them.

Of course, parish registers would not take us back to the period traditionally associated with Robin Hood anyway. The absence of his name therefore proves very little—but the writer’s honesty is interesting. Even in 1895, the story was being presented as an old local belief rather than documented history.

The same article attempts to connect Blidworth’s nearby Fountain Dale with the ballads of Friar Tuck, suggesting that references normally read as “Fountains Abbey” should instead be understood as Fountain Dale. Whether that interpretation is correct or not, it shows how firmly the Robin Hood legends had already settled into the Blidworth landscape.

◆ THE MYSTERY OF THE STONES

The physical monument creates another fascinating layer.

The church has medieval origins, although much of the present building was reconstructed in 1739 and 1839. During the nineteenth-century work, architectural fragments from the older church were removed to Fountain Dale.

According to the Nottinghamshire Historic Environment Record, those stones were returned to Blidworth around 1902, after which several fragments were re-erected in the churchyard.

This is where the 1895 newspaper report becomes particularly important.

The article was published approximately seven years before those fragments were brought back. Therefore, the belief that Will Scarlet was buried in the churchyard did not begin with the monument we see today.

The most likely sequence is that an older oral tradition already placed Will’s burial somewhere within the churchyard. When the old masonry returned from Fountain Dale, one distinctive piece was eventually adopted as a memorial marking that tradition.

The National Churches Trust now describes it carefully: Will Scarlet’s actual burial place is unknown, but a piece of the earlier church serves as his memorial.

◆ SO IS IT REALLY HIS GRAVE?

There is no inscription bearing Will Scarlet’s name, no surviving medieval burial record and no known archaeological evidence identifying human remains beneath the monument.

The pointed stone is also too late to have been his original gravestone. It belongs to the architectural history of the church, even if it now carries a completely different meaning.

But that does not make the legend worthless.

Will Scarlet genuinely appears in early Robin Hood literature. Blidworth stood within the historic landscape of Sherwood Forest, and the village’s association with him can now be traced in print to at least 1895—when it was already being spoken of as an established belief.

The present monument may not mark an identifiable grave, but it preserves the memory of a much older local story.

◆ FINAL THOUGHTS

I began with the image of an outlaw lying beneath an arrow-shaped grave. What I found was slightly different, but perhaps more interesting.

Somewhere along the way, an old belief, a ruined medieval church and a collection of returned stones became entwined. The grave itself was forgotten—or perhaps never known—but the name remained.

Is Will Scarlet truly buried beneath Blidworth churchyard?

There is no evidence strong enough to say that he is. There is not even enough evidence to prove that Will Scarlet existed as one historical man.

Yet by 1895, villagers were already saying that one of Robin Hood’s oldest companions rested there. More than 130 years later, the strange pointed memorial still stands among the graves, keeping that tradition alive.

Perhaps it does not mark the exact place where Will Scarlet was buried.

Perhaps it marks the place where Blidworth refused to let him disappear.

The Midnight Case Files

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