Bone Hill Farm

by W. Headlie Lawrenson

Looking from the Garstang Road across the flat peaceful farmland towards "Bone Hill Farm", standing today serene upon its little hill, few people would guess that here during the eighteenth and nineteenth century lived a family who for notoriety rivalled the Doones of Exmoor.

Their main source of income, amongst other infamous pursuits, was the running of a 'Baby Farm', where to save embarrassment to wealthy or noble families, unwanted offsprings from daughters or mistresses were disposed of, or reared to maturity, according to the fee paid. I expect the latter would be very rare indeed, for who was to know the fate of the poor unfortunate waif, once money had been handed over and its parent departed for good.

The head of the "Bone Hill Clan", wearing in his hat a white feather for recognition, would meet his "guests" at Garstang. One can only imagine the thoughts and fears of the pregnant women and children as they traversed the rough track, over a morass of moss to their destination, which must have seemed the end of the world, and would sadly prove to be just that for some of them.

Many were the tales told around the Pilling fire-sides about the "goings-on" at "Bone Hill", some of which almost attained the dignity of folk lore.

It was said that a ghostly light was to be seen glowing around the house at night: or that blood stains were to be seen spattered on the flag floors. Probably the former was nothing more sinister than a beacon to guide the M-'s home across the moss lands from their poaching forays, and the latter the product of a successful night's work. It was also believed that it was impossible to dig in the orchard without encountering bones. So it was perhaps not surprising that, when in 1824 about three-quarters of a mile north of the farm peat diggers discovered a female head buried in the bog, village gossip soon laid the crime at the M-'s door. This gruesome find was described by William Birch, Surgeon of Stalmine, in the two following letters to the Preston Chronicle in 1824 and 1825.

"As some labourers were digging peat, on that part of Pilling Moss contiguous to the road leading to Garstang, on Wednesday week, at a depth of six feet from the surface, à piece of coarse woollen cloth of a yellow colour, was discovered, in which were contained the remains of a human skull, with a great abundance of a most beautiful auburn hair, and two strings of large black glass beads, together with a part of the first vertebra of the neck; the hair plaited, and of a great length, in many parts about three inches from the extremities of the braids, it was cut off by some heavy cutting instrument, as the ends were exactly level, not a hair projecting, which could not have been the case had it been cut by scissors: a large piece of hardened moss, rendered so by previous exposure to the air, and bearing evident marks of having been dug with a spade, was found lying in immediate contact above the cloth, though the moss above was as solid as in any other part."

Letter by William Birch-January 1825 (describing beads on head):

"They are in two links; those of one are solely made of jet, in cylinders about half an inch in length, and the thickness of a goose-quill, the other link is composed of jet also, with the exception of one, which is a large round one of amber, the beads in this link are also cylindrical, but of irregular lengths some being nearly an inch, and others not one third that length."

Mr. Ben Edwards suggests in an article in the Trans. Lancs. and Cheshire Historical Society Vol. 121 (1962) "That this was a burial made long before the time of the M-'s and was in fact a Pre- historic ritual bog burial, as the case of isolated female heads from Stidsholt Fen (Vendsyssel) and Roum Fen (Himmerland)".

One of the most gruesome and authentic tales about Bone Hill was told to me many years ago by the late Miss A. Butler of "Field House". She related how her grandmother, the village midwife, was awakened one night by a stranger, who demanded she should accompany him to a difficult confinement. He took her to a lonely farm, where after the birth, the child was snatched from her and taken from the room. After she had attended the mother she wandered into the kitchen, where to her horror she surprised the man in the act of disposing of the child's remains on the roaring peat fire. He threatened her with death if she should reveal what she had seen, and after driving her home. pressed a very generous amount of money upon her in payment. In those rough lawless times she had no reason to disbelieve his threats and with money scarce she held her tongue, only to tell her story to her grand-daughter in her latter years.

Another more fortunate child who was reared to womanhood was left a brooch or necklet by her mother. With this she was able to identify herself as being the daughter of a titled family living to the south of Garstang. She later married and became mother of that well known Pilling character "Grannie Carter", who died at the grand old age of 96 in 1921.

Even as late as the end of the last century, cock-fighting mains were still being held at the farm, and local children who misbehaved would be warned "That if they did not mend their ways the M-'s would get them".

In the modern Pilling, the M-'s their deeds and victims are almost forgotten, and perhaps like Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, it is a case of the evil men do living long after them and the good being interred with their bones.