The Croglin Vampire

Hullo, chaps. It’s Douglas Bladder-Warwick here, Maggie’s husband.

I’m laid up again. I rather over did it sampling a batch of Amber Demon, a new whiskey I’m making with dear old Totty for our drinks business bladdered.com.

I’m over the hallucinations and the vomiting now. But the dislocated shoulder and broken fingers sustained during an impromptu re-enactment of ‘The Vampire of Croglin Grange’ are still giving me jip.

I was tucked up in an armchair in front of the fire at Bladder Hall whilst the rain lashed down outside ready for a spot of after-dinner meditation, when Maggie rushed in brandishing her laptop. So now I’m typing my next blog post for you with my one good hand.

It’s about the strange demonic creature that lurked, or maybe still lurks, in the locality of Bladder Hall.

And, no. I don’t mean Mrs Boothby, the housekeeper. That would be far too terrifying…

The Tale

Locals refer to this legend as ‘The Croglin Vampire’ but its proper title is ‘The Vampire of Croglin Grange’. For those of you who don’t know it, Croglin it is a small, remote village at the northern end of the Eden Valley in Cumbria surrounded by farmland, open fell and…well…nothing.

Sometime in the 1870s, a house on the edge of the village, Croglin Grange, had been rented out by the Fisher family to the Cranswells. The Cranswell family were three adult siblings, a sister and two brothers.

It is vital for this tale that you understand that Croglin Grange was a single storey dwelling with all its rooms, including bedrooms, on the ground floor. A bungalow in fact. And we all know that no good ever comes of living in a bungalow!

One summer evening, the sister, Amelia was alone in her room, probably hoping for a spot of R&R, when there was a tapping at her window. She looked out and saw a terrifying creature scratching away the lead that held the window glass in place. It apparently had bony fingers and wild eyes. Maybe it was one of Mrs Boothby’s ancestors after all.

Anyway, Amelia stood frozen to the spot as all nineteenth century heroines are meant to whilst the thing calmly removed a pane of glass, reached through the gap, undid the latch and climbed into the bedroom. Either before, during or immediately after her visitor had sunk its teeth into her neck and drunk her blood, Amelia screamed.

The scream alerted her two brothers. One tried to assist his injured sister (no doubt he couldn’t remember where the first aid kit was kept and he would end up getting a row about it) whilst the other lad chased after the vampire who exited rather sharply via the widow.

To recover from the shock, the family decided to spend some time in Switzerland which was a fashionable holiday destination at the time. But for some strange reason they then returned to the vampiric backwater of Croglin. And you can guess what happened next. The blood-sucker decided he wanted seconds and made another visit to Amelia’s bedroom, very much along the lines of the first, which rather begs the question why hadn’t the windows been secured in the meantime?

On this occasion, however, Amelia screamed rather more effectively (or possibly yodelled, having recently visited the Alps) and one of the brothers took a pot shot at the departing demon, wounding it in the leg.

This injury apparently slowed the creature down a bit and they were able to track it to a vault in the local churchyard. When they investigated further, they found the mummified body of the vampire in an open coffin, with a tell-tale gunshot wound to the leg.

The next day, no doubt tired of waiting for the authorities to arrive from Carlisle or Penrith, the brothers and a posse of locals, who always carried flaming torches around with them in those days, took matters into their own hands and burned the body of the vampire. Not to waste a good blaze, they probably also burned a few sheep carcasses and some general farmyard rubbish at the same time.

The Truth

This tale was allegedly recounted by the son of the Fisher family, one Captain Fisher, at a dinner party in Surrey the night before Fisher’s wedding. The company at the dinner was rather distinguished as Fisher was marrying somewhat above his station.

The story was told as if the Fishers were the owners of Croglin Grange, but more recent research has revealed that Croglin Grange was in fact Croglin Low Hall, and it happened to belong to the Johnsons, a family whose decedents still own half of Croglin to this day. It seems that the truth of the matter was that Fishers were themselves the tenants and guilty of a bit of unauthorised subletting.

Poor young Fisher seems to have concocted the story in a bid to appear to be one of the landed gentry and in those days, Cumberland was synonymous with all things wild and mysterious so it was unlikely that anyone present at the dinner would be able to contradict him.

The Moral

The moral of the story is clear: Social climbing never pays off. Mind you I’m surprised Fisher got away with his tall tale for so long. I mean, have you ever heard of any self-respecting vampire visiting a bungalow?

Maggie has told me to mention that you can hear this and other local legends if you book a weekend stay with us at Bladder Hall. Just log on to bedandbladders.com.

Next time, I’ll tell you all about the Renick Cockatrice. If I’m allowed.

And now I’m in need of another gin as typing is getting a tad painful.

Chin up chaps,

Douglas.