Jenny Gallows is the name of a ghost who once haunted the village of Flamborough on the East Yorkshire coast.
The first reference to Jenny seems to be in John Nicholson’s ‘Folklore of East Yorkshire’ (1890) where he noted …
” Near Flambrough is a circular hole, resembling a dry pond, in which a Flambro’ girl committed suicide. It is believed that any one bold enough to run nine times round this place will see Jenny’s spirit come out, dressed in white; but no one yet has been bold enough to venture more than eight times, for then Jenny’s spirit called out –
” Ah’ll tee on me bonnet,
An’ put on me shoe,
An’ if thoo’s nut off,
Ah’ll seean catch thoo ! “
A farmer, some years ago, galloped round it on horseback, and Jenny did come out, to the great terror of the farmer, who put spurs to his horse and galloped off as fast as he could, the spirit after him. Just on entering the village, the spirit, for some reason unknown, declined to proceed farther, but bit a piece clean out of the horse’s flank, and the old mare had a white patch there to her dying day.” (Nicholson, 1890)
All later references seem to take their information from Nicholson, although some writers have ’embellished’ his account to create a fuller story. The only extra details come a few years after Nicholson, when A.H. Armytage noted the full name of the spirit was Jenny Gallows. He also noted that a person running around the hollow 9 times would hear the fairies (Fisher 1894). This suggests that Jenny was sometimes regarded as a fairy spirit rather than just a ghost, and this does tie in with other ‘Jenny spirit’ type folklore. For some reason the actual location of the ‘dry pond’ is not mentioned in any of the accounts, even by later writers who lived in the area, – It is only ever described as being “near Flamborough”. This seems a bit odd, and might suggest that the original site of the haunted hollow had been lost or somehow forgotten.
An enquiry on the Flamborough Facebook page drew quite a response, showing that Jenny Gallows is still remembered by the residents, many of who grew up there. In the local accent she was called ‘Jenny Gallus’, and some thought that she haunted a large chalk pit located behind modern houses on the west side of the village. Another mentioned a pit out near Beacon Hill to the south of Flamborough, while another person mentioned a pond near the remains of the old castle in the village. The fact that she was thought to have haunted different locations again points to some uncertainty about the site of the dry pond noted by Nicholson.
It is worth noting that Nicholson described the circular hollow as being “near” Flamborough rather than in Flamborough, and that the Jenny spirit chased the farmer to the edge of the village, but would not enter it. Also worth noting is that he described the hollow as a ‘dry pond’ rather than a chalk pit, which he would have known the difference between. The old chalk pit in the village is actually a large and deep quarry, and could not be mistaken for a dry pond. The large size of the old chalk pit also means that to run around it nine time would require running well over a mile in distance.
It begins to look like the Jenny Gallows story has changed over the years, as folklore often does. Jenny has been referred to as a ghost, a fairy, and even a witch. She lived in either a dry pond, a chalk pit, or a well – some where near Flamborough, or in other cases in the village itself. The oldest version we have is from Nicholson who referred to Jenny haunting a dry pond somewhere outside the village. The only reference that makes any mention of the location of the dry pond comes from the Rev William Smith (rector of Catwick) who visited Flamborough in the early 1900’s. An old man from the village showed him the remains of a Spa Well near the old lighthouse on the road to Selwick Bay, and the Rev also noted the Jenny Gallows story with its fairy association, writing that …
“Flamborough gives us our next Fairy well, now only a dry round hole near the North Landing.”
The North Landing is a bay on the coast 1 mile to the north east of Flamborough village, and would qualify as being “near Flamborough” . The old road from the North Landing to Flamborough would also fit with the story of the farmer galloping back to the village on his horse. The question as to why Jenny stopped pursing the farmer at the edge of the village might also be explained by the fact that a stream crosses the road at that point, and it is a general folklore belief that spirits cannot cross running water. It is not clear if the Reverend visited the site at North Landing, but it does ‘fit’ with Nicholson’s older version of the folklore, and it is quite likely that the Rev Smith got his information from the old man who took him to the Spa well.
It is tempting to suggest that the Jenny Gallows story as it has come down to us today is a mixture of several pieces of folklore from the Flamborough area. Originally, there may have been separate stories about a fairy haunted Hollow, and the spirit of a girl who killed herself, along with a ‘white lady’ type ghost who haunted the old castle grounds. During the 1800’s, the belief in these kind of stories and folklore was dying out as they came to be regarded as just foolish superstition. The older generation did not pass on the stories for fear of been ridiculed, and so the details became lost. This might explain why Nicholson, when he was gathering information for his book in the late 1800’s, could only say that the dry pond was near Flamborough. The publication of his book may have partly revived the folklore, and in later years the story became attached to the quarry pit near the old castle.
But who was Jenny Gallows? There are hints that this female spirit may have had her roots in a far older tradition connected with the fisherfolk on this part of the coast, and this will be explored in a follow up post about Jenny.
References
Fisher, R. (1894) Flamborough: village and Headland
Nicholson, J. (1890) Folklore of East Yorkshire
Smith, W. (1923) Ancient Springs & Streams of the East Riding of Yorkshire.
First image is painting by John Everett – The Somnambulist (1871)
