The Green Forester of Fingest

Coming into Fingest, watch the woods. A greedy medieval bishop who stole the villagers' common land was said to walk here, dressed all in green.

Henry Burghersh, Bishop of Lincoln in the early 1300s, kept a manor beside Fingest church and in 1330 was licensed to turn his wood and some 300 acres into a private deer park, swallowing common land the villagers needed. After his death, the story goes, he appeared to an old friend dressed as a forester all in green, with bow, quiver and horn. He said he was doomed to keep the park until the wrong was undone, and begged that the canons of Lincoln be told. They sent one of their number, William Bacheler, to break down the fences and fill the ditches, and the ghost was seen no more.