No place would be without their ghost tales and Cuckfield is no exception.
Mrs. Ann Pritchard Sergison, a member of the Cuckfield family, passed away in 1848 at the age of eighty-five. She was known as “Wicked Dame Sergison” due to her notoriously foul temper. Following her demise, eerie tales began to circulate about her restless spirit. Reports suggest that she haunted several locations: the avenue leading to Cuckfield Park, the Elizabethan Manor House owned by the Sergison family, and the corridors and main stairway within. One notable incident occurred during her daughter’s wedding reception in 1890, where she was allegedly seen as a ghost. Apparently she objected to her daughter's marriage. Locals believed that her wickedness prevented her from finding peace, and her apparition was even witnessed swinging on the oak gates at the entrance to Cuckfield Park. In an attempt to quell her haunting, three local churchmen supposedly conducted a midnight exorcism service at Cuckfield Church. According to the tale, they managed to subdue the ghost by drowning it in the church font, bringing an end to the manifestations. Interestingly, an alternative theory attributes the cessation of her hauntings to the replacement of the old oak gates with new spiked ones made of iron by her grandson. It seems that Dame Sergison was not the sole ghost haunting Cuckfield.
Geranium Jane was said to haunt the local pub, The King’s Head. Geranium Jane was a young girl in the 19th century who was having an affair with the licensee. After a lovers’ quarrel when he found out she was pregnant, he killed her by dropping a flowerpot of geraniums on her head as she passed beneath the upper storey windows. Jane was buried in the churchyard but returned as a ghost always accompanied by a strong smell of geraniums and a sudden drop in temperature. Lights have been switched on and off and dogs were said to growl and raise their hackles when she appeared. She stayed away when geraniums were banished from the inn.
At Ockenden Manor Hotel (formerly Ockenden House) a phantom grey lady has been seen by members of staff and guests in one of the corridors and also in the Elizabethan bedroom. It is believed to be that of a chambermaid who was killed when the walls of one of the tunnels leading to the Kings Head Inn in South Street collapsed in the 19th century. She is known to have used that route to meet her lover, but one evening, after the manor “shook as if affected by an earthquake” her crushed and mangled body was discovered in the rubble beneath the building.
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I really like ghost stories even though I don't believe in ghosts as such. I think that what people see, or think they see, are either angels or demons. Thanks for sharing.
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I did think Geranium Jane was a humorous name until I read how she came by it. I do think I believe in ghosts and would be terrified if I meet any of these. Hopefully I will find a ghost in my OPS.
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