Ghosts at Tank Cottage

Brigitte Sheppard was in the Chapel on 1st December 2012 when there was a coffee morning and also an Archive open day on the balcony. Brigitte said that the Sheppard family lived at Tank Cottage in about 1924 and the family heard footsteps when no one was walking about.

The Sheppard family had six children and one day they were playing hide and seek in the garden. One girl hid by lying down next to the bank beside the track where some roses are now. There was no one near her as she lay still. She felt hands on her shoulders and was lifted up.

Mr Sheppard (who is believed to be Brigitte's step-father) was presumably one of the six children, so Brigitte, who never said that she lived at Tank Cottage, would have heard the ghost stories first hand.

Tank Cottage renovation

Tank Cottage was renovated between the autumn of 1994 and the spring of 1995 because the cottage was low-lying with a thin, cracked cement screed. When the springs rose the water pressure forced water up through the screed and flooded the living room. The kitchen part of the property and the bathroom extension were very sub-standard so they were demolished.

It was decided build a new extension with a higher floor level, but retain the living room end of the old cottage which had more solid walls. The old part was given a damp-proofed concrete floor and the upper floor walls and roof were removed and replaced with a new wall and a thatched roof which the original cottage would have had before the first floor was added. The offset to form a bearing for the original roof was still evident. Land drains were added around the cottage.

Tank Lane Water Tank

The old steel water tank on a rubble stone pier shown below served the surrounding cottages with water before mains water pipes were laid in about 1950s. The water was pumped up from the stream with a hand pump.