Mist was rising from the lake like steam from a hot bath, and gravity always wins

10 September 2026

Welcome to issue 43 of Tales from the Chase, a fortnightly publication exploring the landscapes, folklore, hidden histories and strange corners of Cranborne Chase. Including odd tales. Mildly strange goings-on. Definitely strange, occasionally amusing, and always assembled with care — delivered straight to your inbox every other Thursday. Was this email forwarded to you? You can sign up for free by clicking below!

welcome Back, strange companions

It's September, and time for another draught of landscape, lore, and local oddities from across the Chase.

In this issue, we turn our attention to the parish of Fonthill Gifford. Hubert explores the grand ambitions of the various owners of the estate, and the rather baffling succession of great houses that have risen and fallen (literally in one case) in the landscape.

I’ve also been delving into the archive of the Forgotten Footpath Society, where I came across a particularly odd account of a walk in the parish: a mysterious seventh companion, a boat appearing on the lake at twilight, and nine tall, silent figures descending through the trees to meet it.

Naturally, I asked Isla Cobb, our resident folklorist, to take a look. She has, as usual, some thoughts.

Pull up a chair, pour a warm drink, and join us as we explore the curious corners of Fonthill Gifford.

the ferry

Walk Record No. 114.Fonthill Gifford.

Recorded by D. Merridew.

Weather: overcast, then indecisive.

ROUTE. From the layby on the Tisbury road take the lake path, then skirt the old Fonthill Abbey grounds keeping to rights of way.

PARTICIPANTS. Six. Seven at the halfway point. Six again by the end.

OBSERVATIONS.

At the lake, the water was unusually still for the season, holding a colour some members described as "pewter". Mad Geoff reported hearing what he described as "someone tuning an instrument nobody plays any more," a claim the Society records without comment, as is customary.

An elderly woman, encountered near the church and who was disinclined to give her name, referred to the lake as "the mirror," and pointed up Hinckley Hill to what she called "the door they use."

She would not elaborate. She did, however, wish us a safe walk home, "before the light falls."

The seventh walker joined us at some point on the hill and wore a long green cloak. No once recalls anything else about her, other than that she was with us for some distance but not at the end of the walk.

We came across a standing stone by the path, not previously recorded and not there now. There was a single word scratched into its surface in an unknown language. The script was not Ogham, though Marjorie thought that two of the strokes look borrowed from that alphabet.

Maggie took a rubbing of it and others took photos, but the photos show nothing and the relevant page of Maggie’s sketchbook is now blank.

The remainder of the walk was uneventful. We arrived back at the lakeside about half past six, having lost the green-clad woman at some point earlier. No one recalls her leaving the group. Several of us had the distinct feeling that we had forgotten something, although none of us could say what.

The light was fading and mist was rising from the lake like steam from a hot bath.

Then we saw a boat, a long wooden vessel, sitting low in the water, with a high pointed prow and stern. It drifted silently towards the shore. Nine tall, pale figures emerged from the trees and approached it in single file. They wore dark, heavy cloaks.They stepped aboard.

None appeared to have faces. I should say that they had faces, but the eye seemed unwilling to settle upon their features. This may have been the fading light and the mist. It did not feel like either.

The boat moved away smoothly, the nine figures standing motionless. It did not reach the far shore. As far as we could see, it simply disappeared into the mist. The mist cleared within minutes.

We discussed what we had seen later over drinks at the Beckford Arms. Rufus had made a sketch of the boat and its passengers. The sketch remains in the FFS archive and is, in our professional opinion, not very good.

We showed it to an old man at the bar and told him what we had seen.

He studied the sketch for a long time. Then he said, “That’ll be the ferry, then.” He said it in the tone of a man who had just discovered that the last bus had already gone.

There was a silence. Edith asked him where the ferry went.

The old man looked at her for several long seconds, then he drained his pint and left without a word.

There is one final matter which should be recorded. On returning home, I counted the names in the attendance book. There were seven. The last one, just under Edith and in a strange hand, read “Nyniaw”.

Isla Cobb's Commentary

This account from the FFS archives reminds me of a story about Fonthill Abbey. I've heard versions of it since I was a child, although usually from people who began by saying something like “Of course it's nonsense, but my grandmother always said...” and then proceeds to give you all the nonsense in considerable detail.

The story goes that there is a door on Hinckley Hill.

Nobody seems quite sure where it is, which is probably just as well. Some say it is built into the hillside. Some say it is in a particular stand of trees. One old fellow I knew insisted it was a literal, perfectly ordinary door (although of clearly great antiquity) standing by itself in the middle of the grass, which would make it considerably easier to find but no more sensible.

The important thing is that the door is old.

Not old in the sense of medieval; way, way older than that. And it isn’t our door.

The local story says that when Beckford began building the Abbey, people tried to warn him that there was something there on the hill that should be left alone.

Whether anyone actually said this to Beckford is impossible to establish. He was not, by all accounts, a man particularly receptive to being told where he could and could not build an enormous Gothic palace.

Men working on the Abbey would occasionally see pale figures standing at the edge of the works. Sometimes they were seen among the trees. Once, supposedly, they were seen inside the building itself. Sometimes, the sound of a bell was reported, deep below the ground.

There is a pleasingly quality to this part of the story. We do not have demons shrieking from a hole in the ground. We have silent figures standing about looking disapproving, and sometimes ringing a bell. Some people prefer supernatural beings to behave with some dignity, it's rather becoming.

The figures were said to appear before each major failure of the building. The early collapses were blamed on them by some, although the builders themselves had more immediate explanations involving foundations, structural inadequacies and money. The tower's eventual collapse became the final proof, for those inclined to believe the story, that the hill had been trying to get rid of the Abbey all along.

The sensible explanation is that Fonthill Abbey was a huge, complicated and imperfectly constructed building. It had already suffered structural problems before the final collapse, when the tower came down in 1825. There is nothing mysterious about that.

One interesting aspect of the FFS archive entry is Nyniaw.

I don't recognise it as a documented local name. Nor do I know of any historical person associated with Fonthill by that name. It resembles Welsh or Brythonic forms, but resemblance is a dangerous business. Give a folklorist an unfamiliar word and, if you leave her alone with it long enough, she'll eventually find a Bronze Age princess hiding in it.

The FFS account certainly suggests that Nyniaw is the mysterious green-clad woman who joined the walk as its seventh participant. Whether that is actually her name, however, is another matter. The account provides no evidence for it.

Nor is it clear what connection, if any, she has with the nine tall, pale figures seen later at the lake. It would be very tempting to connect them, but folklore has taught me to be suspicious of things that fit together too neatly.

There is something here worth investigating, though. I may spend a little time looking into Nyniaw, the old stories about the door on Hinckley Hill, and the rather disconcerting business of the ferry.

It’s classic Chase, really: layered, elusive, and just unsettling enough to make your senses sharpen when the twilight drizzle sets in.

A parish by parish tour of the Chase

fonthill gifford

FONTHILL GIFFORD

Ah, Fonthill Gifford; a parish of some 100 souls, handsome countryside, vanished mansions, artificial caves, a lake, a very good pub and remarkably few public footpaths.

The majority of the parish is covered by what remains of Fonthill Park, a Registered Park and Garden. Historically this was part of a private, highly managed estate, with walls designed partly to keep ordinary people, inconvenient neighbours and other assorted members of the public at a suitable distance. Which means that, within the parish, you can count the number of public rights of way on the fingers of one hand, and they are mostly peripheral to the Park.

So if you discover a pleasant-looking track disappearing into the woods, do not assume that because it appears to lead somewhere interesting you are entitled to follow it.

This is Fonthill. It may well lead to somewhere interesting. It may also lead to a notice informing you that you are not supposed to be there.

Regular readers will recall from last issue that there are two Fonthills. Fonthill Bishop was the bit belonging to the Bishop of Winchester. Fonthill Gifford was the bit belonging to the Giffard family, Norman newcomers who acquired the manor after the Conquest in 1066.

So the names are basically medieval property labels.

Fonthill Bishop: the Bishop's bit.

Fonthill Gifford: the Giffard's bit.

It is, in a way, reassuring to know that after invading England the Normans immediately got down to the important business of labelling their acquisitions. There was to be no confusion about who owned what, even if the original owners might reasonably have felt confused about whether the whole arrangement was actually fair.

Most notable for: a ridiculous number of grand houses

The various landowners of the Park have occupied a number of grand houses, and on various sites.

The tag “Fonthill House” keeps changing identity, while Fonthill Abbey is used for two entirely different buildings.

The quick version is:

1. A substantial house that existed by the 16th century was badly damaged by fire in the 1620s and restored by the Cottingtons in the 1630s.
2. Alderman William Beckford took ownership of this house in 1745 and altered it considerably. Then it burned down in 1755.
3. Meanwhile, Fonthill Splendens, Beckford's huge neo-Palladian mansion, was completed around 1770. This is the grand house in which his son, the younger William Beckford, grew up. He subsequently dismantled much of it to provide material for his next project...
4. Fonthill Abbey, the younger Beckford's gigantic Gothic fantasy, was begun in 1796 on a different site, about a mile away. It eventually collapsed spectacularly and what was left was then largely demolished.
5. The Pavilion, the surviving western part of Fonthill Splendens, was retained and later developed into a house for James Morrison and his family. It was enlarged in the 19th century then demolished in 1921.
6. A second Fonthill Abbey, because apparently one wasn't enough, was built by Marquess of Westminster in the 1850s, this time in Scottish Baronial style. It was demolished in 1955.
7. Little Ridge / Fonthill House was built by Morrison in the early 20th century, but most of this was demolished in 1971.
8. The present Fonthill House, a much smaller classical house, was built in 1972 on the site of its predecessor and remains the principal house of the estate today.

The present Fonthill House (actually in Chilmark parish) is therefore the survivor of a long evolutionary process in which a principal architectural strategy, barring fire and collapse, appears to have been: “This one doesn't work for me. Knock it down. Put the new one over there.”

Also notable for:

Gothic excess. The younger William Beckford appears to have looked at the perfectly respectable country house in which he lived his early years (Fonthill Splendens), and thought:

"Yes. But what if I could live somewhere completely ridiculous?"

Beckford did not make his fortune, he inherited it. The money came principally from the family's sugar plantations in Jamaica, worked by enslaved people. At ten years old he inherited the lot; the plantations, the house and land at Fonthill, and an enormous quantity of cash. He had therefore become one of England’s richest men before he was old enough to have much say in the matter.

Now Beckford was not merely enormously wealthy; he was also accomplished, which is much more irritating. He wrote, travelled, designed landscapes, composed music and accumulated enough cultural treasures for him to decide he required a cathedral-scale building to contain them.

So he commissioned Fonthill Abbey, less a house than the physical manifestation of a man who had acquired too many talents and possessions and had no obvious reason to exercise restraint.

His Fonthill Abbey, a gigantic Gothic fantasy with a tower reaching about 300 feet into the Wiltshire sky, arose on Hinckley Hill about a mile from Fonthill Splendens.

It contained enough rooms, galleries and Gothic paraphernalia to make many a real medieval abbey look like a garden shed.

He filled it with his enormous collection of art and antiquities: rare books, Old Masters, furniture, lacquer, glass, porcelain, jewellery and enough precious objects to make the average museum curator need to take a lie down in a darkened room. Much of it was of exceptional quality, and a surprising amount survives in major British collections today.

The dwarf. Beckford apparently employed a dwarf whose particular responsibility was to open the 38-foot entrance doors for visitors. The intention was presumably to make the already absurdly tall doorway appear even more preposterous by having a very small person emerge from it.

The problem of other people. Beckford surrounded much of the new park he created with walls because, it seems, other people was something he preferred to experience at a considerable distance.

But Beckford's reclusiveness had a darker side. His relationship with the young William Courtenay became public in 1784, provoking a vicious scandal in a society with little tolerance for homosexual relationships. Beckford eventually withdrew to the Continent and, on returning to England, retreated from public life behind the eight-mile wall enclosing his Fonthill estate. It became known as the Barrier.

The wall kept out unwanted visitors and, particularly, hunters. Given Beckford's dislike of blood sports, he may have regarded several miles of masonry as a perfectly reasonable way of improving both his privacy and the local wildlife's prospects.

Gravity finally won. The tower collapsed several times during construction and eventually fell for the last time in 1825, after Beckford, his fortune badly depleted, had disposed of the Abbey, estate and remaining contents to John Farquhar in 1822 and retreated to Bath.

Presumably, having made his fortune with gunpowder, Farquhar appreciated the irony when his new home exploded into history. Others may question the accepted explanation of defective foundations, given the trade of the new owner.

And there are others who mutter that the old people of Fonthill knew better than to climb Hinckley Hill after dusk, who would note that for generations the hill was left alone. Some would talk of tall figures, pale figures, standing on the hill or moving down the slopes. Less so since the invention and ready availability of spectacles.

If you are to believe Isla Cobb (but why would you) some stories say that Beckford was warned about building there, but went ahead anyway, and that the tower did not fall but was, somehow, pulled down by these mysterious figures.

Personally, I favour the considerably more frightening explanation that the architect made a mistake.

All that remains of the Abbey today is half of the north wing. And no, you can’t visit. It’s private land and there are no public paths nearby.

The landscape. The Abbey was only the centrepiece of a landscape around it containing grottoes, tunnels, hermitages, ornamental woodland, bridges, viewpoints, gardens and lakes.

This was landscape as theatre. The eighteenth-century equivalent of special effects.

In theory you could walk around Fonthill Abbey Wood and surrounds and discover that someone has spent a fortune making it look as though a medieval wizard might step out from behind a tree. In practice, you aren't invited.

You can, however, see features such as Fonthill Lake, the arch at Fonthill Bishop (see last issue), and one of the tunnels, which is used by the Tisbury–Hindon road although the latter is currently closed after a misjudged vehicle manoeuvre messed it up a little.

Nix, a computer game created in 2014 in which Fonthill Abbey was resurrected beneath the water and players were invited to swim about its Gothic corridors collecting glowing objects and putting the place back together. Oh the indignity.

The Beckford Arms sits rather smugly on the edge of the parish, an eighteenth-century inn which has survived fire, fashion and the steady march of people who think a pub should have cushions.

These days it the sort of country inn that looks like it is run by someone who knows what Farrow & Ball paint costs. There are open fires, comfortable sitting rooms, gardens and eight bedrooms, plus two lodges.

The food is, I regret to report, rather good. Recent reviewers have praised everything from the Sunday roast to fish and chips.

The service also appears annoyingly competent. Staff are generally described as friendly and attentive, which is becoming a worrying trend in the hospitality industry.

It is considerably more expensive than the sort of pub where you used to get a packet of crisps and a suspiciously warm pint, but then the furniture doesn't look as though it was rescued from a skip.

On leaving

And so, having explored Fonthill Gifford without trespassing, falling through a grotto or being crushed beneath a collapsing Gothic tower, you may consider yourself fortunate.

There is considerably more to the parish than you are permitted to see, which is perhaps the most Fonthill Gifford thing about it. The landscape is full of vanished houses, hidden ruins, ornamental follies and old paths that seem to lead somewhere interesting but, inconveniently, belong to someone else.

You may therefore leave by one of the authorised routes, preferably having visited the Beckford Arms and contributed to the local economy.

And if you hear footsteps following you through the woods, it's more likely to be an estate employee coming to tell you to leave the premises than anything tall, pale and unnatural.

Probably.

NEXT TIME: FONTMELL MAGNA

Prepare to be underwhelmed.

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