The Manor is small and cramped, the collections are large, consequently visitors have to take timed tickets and follow an accepted route through the house. The rooms visited last within the main house are the kitchens that belonged to the original monastery, disbanded by Henry VIII during the Reformation. In the kitchen, glowering in the far corner, stood a very large and angry monk. He was so strong I wondered at how few people seemed to notice him.
I often get involved in talking to the grounded spirits in the old haunted houses I visit in the UK. But I found it difficult to concentrate in Snowshill on that first visit. The Manor House was too full of visitors for me to talk to him. My husband noticed that I had gone into one of my quiet fugues and left me to it. I had to wait in between people wandering in and out of the room to get any sense out of him.
He was a very angry monk. He felt that his beautiful religious house was being desecrated by the visitors walking up and down, disturbing the meditation of the monks. He was furious that it was no longer a religious house, and he was especially annoyed about the heathen collections housed within it (the last owner had a small collection of Islamic artifacts housed in the room next to the kitchen and Geoffrey hated them as much as he loved the children's toys up in the attics). I tried to impart to him how much all these visitors appreciated the beauty of his home. The home he was trying to protect.
My husband and I left Snowshill after that first visit with me feeling that I had achieved little by way of helping the monk. I only managed to pierce his loneliness and anger so that he could see the living not as a threat to his peaceful home but as visitors.
Geoffrey came with me up to the attics to look at the toy collections. He loved them the best of all the bric-a-brac collected by the last owner although he took great pleasure in gazing at the Christian artifacts.
After a while I felt that I needed to leave the house and walk in the pretty gardens. Geoffrey came with me and we talked about the peace of the garden and how he was free to leave if he wished too. He was reluctant to go, it had been his home for too long. He also wished to have a Benedictus sung for him in the manor and had to stay until this was done.
Geoffrey's' story does not end there. I had been left with the problem of the Benedictus. Should I write a letter to the regional headquarters of the National Trust and tell them of their ghost? This was a puzzle he had set me. It got resolved in a very strange way. A year or so later my husband had bought us tickets to attend a promenade concert at the Albert Hall in London. He is partial to church music, particularly plain song. I realised part of the way through one of the hymns they were singing that it was a Benedictus. This was my chance but how was I to get Geoffrey from Snowshill Manor to London in the twinkling on an eye?
I took a chance, I used the combined energy of the crowd of thousands to create a power bubble which I then threw to Snowshill Manor in my minds eye and pulled Geoffrey to me through it. He was astonished, and as the music swelled and filled the hall he rose up through the centre and as the music finished he went home to his maker. My husband noticed I was up to something again and questioned me. He found it hard to believe it when I told him what I had been doing he jokingly referred to me being witchy again.
The story does not end there. I thought that Geoffrey was safely in the heaven he believed in; however, the next time we visited Snowshill Manor Geoffrey was there. I had a walk and talk with him once more in the garden. He said that although he could have stayed in that other place, he loved the Monastery too much and had chosen to return, sharing its warmth with the visitors instead of generating anger. He also asked my help in freeing the previous owner who had given the Manor to the National Trust. He was still tied to the place, living (and dying) in the stable block he had made his home after Geoffrey had haunted him out of the main building (Geoffrey was feeling a little guilty about doing that).
I made the effort to talk to the last owner of the house (I had found it difficult on the first visit in which I had noticed him but Geoffrey had taken most of my attention). But found him too incommunicable to deal with. I will go back again to see Geoffrey and the other ghost, perhaps in another year or two. Meanwhile, if you visit say hello to Brother Geoffrey and enjoy his lovely home. He is happy to share it with you now.
(c) Judy Farncombe 1998/9
September 1999 update:
I returned to Snowshill Manor in late September 1999, ostensibly to take photographs for the new web page I was creating on Geoffrey. It would also be a chance to see how the ghostly inhabitants were doing before the National Trust closed the manor for the winter break. Geoffrey welcomed me at once. First by touching my left hand with warm energy and then by draping his arm across my shoulders. It was Monday so the crowds were thin and I could sometimes talk out load to him. He was fine, enjoying himself wandering around with the crowds. He was still unprepared to leave Snowshill Manor.
He had appreciated what I had done for him before but he was still hankering after one in his home. Meanwhile he made me promise that I would come and fetch him when I died, just in case.
We then went out of the main building and Geoffrey asked me to go check on Charles Paget Wade, stuck in the Priest House next door. He was more communicable this time, he noticed me and came over to hold my hands to transfer energy (I find it a good way for me to establish a link). He wanders upstairs and down stairs in the Priest House just passing time. He said he was too attached to his things to leave them yet. At least he is talking to others now (i.e. myself). I told him that Geoffrey had forgiven him and that perhaps they ought to spend some time together. Perhaps on my next visit they will have established communications.
(c) Judy Farncombe 1999
LINKS: