Beast
The Hughenden Dragon
A monster in the farm pond, and a housewife brave enough to be bait.
Private, don't visit
- What's there
- Private farm and silted pond near Four Ashes
- Legend from
- 1578, reported 1758
- Tone
- Light-hearted
Near Four Ashes, a farm pond was once home to a monster. In 1578, the story goes, villagers used a brave housewife as bait to catch it.
In 1758 a letter in the Gentleman's Magazine described a farmhouse near Hughenden church with a dragon painted on its wall and a pencilled account of its history. In 1578, it said, the farm's housewife kept meeting a huge water serpent at the pond where she fetched water. Her neighbours hatched a plan: she sat by the pond as bait while they hid among the briars, and when the creature came out they killed it. Its skin was stuffed with straw and hung outside the house, and when it rotted a picture was painted instead. Local historian Clive Harper identified the house as the old manor of Rockhalls.
One sourceOnly one written account of this legend has been found so far.