John Wrightson, the Wise Man of Stokesley

In the days when people were nervous of witches, and called on the wake-wailer to come each evening before a funeral to sing the lyke wake that would keep their loved one's body safe from demons, they also had another resource – the Wise Man.  The wise man could be consulted for many problems – illnesses, lost and stolen goods, help in time of need, and to turn away witches' charms.

The most famous in Cleveland is undoubtedly John Wrightson, the Wise Man of Stokesley.  He was at the height of his fame at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries, at the time of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.  This was a time when nobody was left unaffected by the huge demands of the war.  The wartime economy, the press gang, the militia and the army, the disruption of trade and manufacturing and the effect on people's livelihoods gave rise to uncertainty and many great hardships [1].  

So it is hardly surprising that John Wrightson should have a fertile field in which to work.  As to what he actually did and how he did it – writers over the years had various opinions on this, while there has always been an audience for the stories of his amazing feats.

Opinions on John Wrightson

Richard Blakeborough

Richard Blakeborough (1850-1918) was a writer, publisher, actor, playwright, recitalist and entertainer, in great demand at concerts and at house parties, where he was a favourite of fashionable audiences.  Born in Ripon, his passion was for the folklore and dialect of his native Yorkshire.  He began collecting during the time he worked in Bedale as a jeweller and watchmaker between the early 1870s and 1882 when he recorded many stories and dialect words which would otherwise be lost to us [2].   Born a couple of years after the railways reached Ripon, in the year that ironstone was discovered in the Eston Hills, he lived in the age of empire, of Disraeli and Gladstone and the might of industrial Britain.  He wrote with affection and enthusiasm of the world before industrialisation and compulsory education and he had a love of the mysterious and magical.  For him John Wrightson was "undoubtedly a man endowed with marvellous psychic power, and with the smallest amount of charlatanry possible" [3].

He relates in Wit, Character, Folklore & Customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire a couple of the stories that he was told.  

The first was a tale told him by William Scorer, who came from Baysdale and was landlord of the Fleece in Bedale during Blakeborough's time there.  The buyer of some cattle at Northallerton fair had engaged an old drover to drive them to Stokesley with the beasts he was taking for another buyer.  In the morning two of his cows were missing from the field near Stokesley in which the drover declared they had been gated the night before.  The buyers decided to consult the Wise Man, but also to test him by saying that it was a horse that was missing.  As they entered Wrightson's house, before a word had been said, Wrightson called from the scullery where he was washing himself

Noo then, if you chaps is sharp eneaaf, an' ez that mich off [ie. know that much] 'at ya can manish ti to'n tweea coos intiv a hoss, it's neea ewse cumin' ti me, foor Ah can't to'n a hoss back inti tweea coos, an' seea ya'd better mak yersens scarce.  Ah've nowt ti saay ti ya.

In the end he was persuaded to answer, and he told them that the cows were in the beck – where, indeed, they found them.  The cows had missed the bridge as they were driven over the Leven late at night and fallen into the swollen river. 

Thomas Wayne (1727-1806) and the "Mystery of Angrove Hall"

In the 1990s Peter Meadows was working on an article on the subject of a lost Cleveland house called Angrove (also Anngrove or Ann-grove) Hall, which once stood between Great Ayton and Stokesley.  The results of his work were keenly anticipated but, as far as I can tell, it was never completed.  His draft article was the basis of Dan O'Sullivan's piece on Angrove Hall on the Great Ayton History Society pages on wikidot and I was given sight of the draft article many years ago by Dr Geoffrey Stout, but I have not been able to discover whether the draft article itself survives.  Finally I decided to investigate Angrove Hall myself and the account that follows is the result [1]. 

(The Great Ayton History Society's wikidot pages are no longer active, as the Society is in the process of creating its own website.  I will alter my references to link to the new website when it is operational.  In the meantime, my apologies.)

Richard Blakeborough's ghost story

On 11 August 1900 the Northern Weekly Gazette proudly announced that Mr Richard Blakeborough, "the well-known author of 'Yorkshire Wit, Character, Folklore, and Customs' and 'T'Hunt of Yatton Brigg'" would be contributing to the newspaper 

a series of unique complete stories, into which he has woven in his own inimitable way a variety of remarkable

Old Legends, Folk Tales,

and

Ghost Stories of North Yorkshire

under the title "Tales our Grandfathers Told"

On 25 August 1900, Richard Blakeborough's column began with a story of some 3,500 words entitled 'The Mystery of Ann Grove Hall' with the subtitle in brackets '(The Manor House, Stokesley)'.

Blakeborough's story was an exciting tale featuring in swift succession: a master of Angrove Hall who was enraged by the suspicion that his daughter planned to elope with the undercoachman; his allegation that the man had stolen valuables that he was entrusted to take to Stokesley; the disappearance of the coachman and his reappearance as a ghost; the hunt by the man's tenacious sister for the truth of her brother's fate with the aid of the witch Hannah Waugh and the Great Broughton blacksmith; and the exposure by means of magic charms of the master as a murderer.  The man's body is at last discovered and the Hall decays, falling 

into such ill-repute that no one could be prevailed upon to live in it, so it was closed, and never inhabited again, thus fulfilling the prophecy, which Hannah Waugh is reported to have made to the master of Anngrove, one day when she met him in Stokesley town, he being in company with several others at the time.  Said she, brandishing her staff in his face 

Thoo'll a'e thi day,

Bud lambs 'll plaay,

An' loup on t'grund where Anngrov' stan's.

Neea lahm (lime) s'll ho'd

S'all hap up t'deed o'thi tweea han's

Indeed, Blakeborough wrote, Hannah Waugh's prediction had come true and "not a stone" was left of "the ill-fated Manor House, Anngrove Hall".

By the time he repeated the story in his column in the Whitby Gazette on 1 December 1905, he had made the tale still more exciting and lively with the addition of a great deal of the dialect speech for which he was famous.  He also made a small change in the name he had given one of his characters.  In his original version he had given the name Thomas Mease to a groom at the Hall.  Possibly it had been pointed out to him that Thomas Mease (1792-1862) had been a well-known Stokesley business man as he has altered the name to Thomas Moses.

Three farms (Angrove East, Angrove West and Angrove North) preserve the name of Angrove today.  Its gate pillars can still be seen, as they were moved to the entrance to Stokesley Manor House when Angrove Hall was demolished 2.  (The date of the demolition is generally accepted to have been 1832, as given by Peter Meadows and as stated in Dan O'Sullivan's article.)  Richard Blakeborough's ghost story is still retold, and versions can be found online.

So what was the history of Angrove Hall?  And what relation does the ghost story bear to that history? 

Richard Blakeborough informed his readers that details of the murder and Angrove Hall itself were hard to establish.  Some old people believed that the murder happened in about 1840; some said it took place "quite a hundred years (say 1725) before the place was allowed to fall into ruin".  Some said the body was soon discovered; in the version he favours, the action plays out over generations.  Certainly Blakeborough knew little about the house, believing that it was an old manor house and referring to it as the Manor House of Stokesley.

In fact, Angrove Hall was only built in about 1760 and had a lifespan of barely 70 years.  Its owner and builder was called Thomas Wayne.