Yampy - Ellowes Memories

Photos by kind permission of Trevor Genge. We are grateful also to Sutton Publishing and Ian Beach.

Many thanks to the contributors.

5/1/04 Many thanks to Louise Guest for her contribution (first pink box below).

For another Ellowes ghost account click here.

The Coach Road article led to some fascinating submissions from Yampy readers, a selection of which we publish below.

If you wish to share your own Gornal memories with us, or if you have any comments on the following accounts,we would be very pleased to receive them at admin@yampy.co.uk. Or, where an email address is given why not contact the contributors direct?

We are currently particularly interested in three issues:

1) Was the Ellowes fire just a final kick in the teeth for an already derelict building that was being pulled down anyway, or was it the fire that made the demolition inevitable?

2) Did the tunnels really go to Dudley Castle? Many people think that they did, but we haven't found anybody yet who actually made the trip!

3) Who is/was the Grey Lady? Sean poses the question, and Cassy has already mentioned this character in emails to Yampy, saying that there are many stories including one relating to a warning to miners.

Many of us have heard of the Grey Lady - Ellowes Hall School apparently made a film about her - but we would now like to pool as much information as possible about her for the benefit of Yampy readers all over the world who are surfing in regularly. So if you have anything to contribute about the Grey Lady, whether historical fact or half remembered story, please email us.

'Black Country Eddie' tells Yampy that the following answers apply to the above queries: 1) No the fire wasn't the cause, it was coming down anyway (this concurs with Angus Dunphy's History of Ellowes Hall)... 2) No they didn't actually go all the way to the to the Castle. Eddie says that the walls are lined with animal knuckle bones, and confirms that the tunnels are still there, in people's gardens... 3) It's Lady Jane Grey, England's Queen for 9 days.

.. or is it the same Grey Lady who haunts Dudley Castle, thought to be Dorothy Beaumont?

At the foot of the page our latest contributor Dorothy (not Beaumont!) gets it "from the horse's mouth"..

Louise Guest
I attended Ellowes Hall for one year in the early nineties. Previously to that I was a pupil at both Red Hall schools in Gornal.

At Red Hall Middle School I seem to remember there being a book in the school library about Ellowes/Lady Jane Grey. It had a pale blue cover and was A4 in size with a plastic binding. Is this the book by Angus Dunphy or something worth tracing?

I also remember people who claim to have seen a ghost/Lady Jane in a large room that was apparently the school library, next to the science block - when I was at Ellowes I think it was a Dance studio.

My time at Ellowes was short but I have fond memories of tracking in the woods and walking from the school up to The Straits

I will be keeping a close eye on this site as it is all very interesting. Good luck in your quest for information

Daniel Jones
I currently attend Ellowes Hall School.

About the stories of the ghosts that are supposedly meant to be in the school, I haven't had any experiences myself but some of the teachers have. The ghost that haunts the science block was seen by Miss Griffiths, a science teacher. She was in a side class where they teach the 6th formers, when she looked round and saw a lady walk across the room and disappear through the cabinet where they keep the books.

Also, another teacher told us once that in an art classroom she feels a strong draught go past and the door rattles now and again. A cleaner wouldn't go in that room because someone tappped her on the shoulder and whispered in her ear.

That's the latest that has happened in the school - the information on the site was very interesting.

Many thanks Dan!

Tony from N. Carolina USA - I lived in Upper Gornal for several years and used hear of the little old lady dressed in grey who used to walk the old driveway of Ellowes Hall, which was long gone. I never did see her myself but several locals claimed to have done so, among them Mathew Harpers father who lived on Vale St. I under stand that the old quarry has been built on and that my old house is possibily now apartments..

Emma
I was reading the question regarding the caves near to Ellowes Hall and I can recall as a child seeing them in a friend's garden. The family were called the Higginsons, in Lawnswood road (bungalow). There were 4 entrances to each passage parallel to each other. My friend's father later had them filled in though, but I will never forget them.

Sean Bailey seabaiuk@yahoo.com
As a child born in the late 50's, I played in the Ellowes woods and have many happy memories of those times.

I cannot recollect ever seeing the old Ellowes Hall itself but I do remember playing in the old tunnels, which are situated in the back gardens of the bungalows in Lawnswood Road.

As I remember they ran parallel with the footpath behind the caretakers house for the Ellowes Hall School. They were narrow and went into wide rounded rooms with air vents in up to the twentyfour steps.

The question I would like to ask is that whenever we played in them or the woods for that matter, everyone would say that the grey lady would get us. Are there any stories or truths that relate to the grey lady?

John from Peterborough JCAPARI@aol.com
My family lived in the last prefab that entered into the Ellowes Hall estate in Stickley lane. Behind us was a tall brick wall and behind that were the large greenhouses that I presume were the kitchen gardens.

We left the prefab when I was about 10 years old (moved on the proverbial horse and cart) to a new council house in Stickley Lane which overlooked Ellowes Hall farm and the Straits. I remember all that you have mentioned in your article having left the area to join the army in 1963 at the tender age of 15yrs. I thought that the demise of the hall started with a fire, people said it was an insurance job..

Helen of Gornal helen.kirby@blueyonder.co.uk
Before the houses were built, the Coach Rd and that area were among my favourite places; I remember walking down a very narrow overgrown path from my nan's emerging into what is now the path that runs at the back of the 'new' estate. It was like emerging into paradise when I was a kid!

To have that view and all those fields at the back of Ruiton was magical to me as a child, making it seem all the more romantic approaching it as I did from that nettled path - (got stung many times!) I was very sad when the houses were built.

There was a beautiful house I'm told down there known as Botany, with a large orchard and grounds. Unfortunately the house was burnt down when it was seconded during the war.

My nan used to tell me about the folk in Gornal, how everyone was called by a nickname - no-one was ever called their real name! I'd better not name any names on the Web! She told me how everyone used to keep pigs many years ago and took it in turns to slaughter them and share the meat with the neighbours. She used to say how simply folk lived, how hard they worked, but how happy they were. Perhaps they got it right?

Ian from Australia ian_beach@hotmail.com - Your Coach Road walk and photos bought back lots of good memories. We used to go collecting conkers down the "Ellers" when we were kids (middle of the last century!) there were some massive trees down there, probably long gone..

Clive from Gornal - I always believed Ellowes Hall burned down in mysterious circumstances. I'm sure I remember my grandfather telling me how he watched from the Straits as it burnt down, maybe that's just an old wives Gornal tale.

Alan from Portugal Alanhyde2001@msn.com
As a son of Gornal I used to play (or was it trespass ) in the grounds of Ellowes Hall in the fifties & early sixties. There used to be a wooded area just off the Stickley Lane boundary of the estate known locally as The Rookery, the centre of which was a great oak tree of huge girth - 20 to 30 foot. We used to collect mounds of fallen leaves in the autumn and jump from its high branches into them.

There was an orchard nearer the great house as well as vegetable & flower gardens. Georgy Nock was the son of the owners at the time and spent many hours chasing us from the grounds.

There were man made tunnels inside the rookery that were said to lead underground as far as Dudley Castle. I can't confirm whether or not the tunnels went all the way there - by the time I was brave enough to go all the way, there had been a cave-in after what seemed a couple of hundred yards (but those may have been a ten year olds yards!).

In my memory the tunnels were of a mixture somewhere between plaster & concrete with shells embedded in the walls and ceilings - quite scary to journey through. They started in a large cavern in the rookery some twenty feet across and tunnels led off, but only one went more than a few yards. It was only about 3 feet wide and no more than 4 or 5 feet high.

The steppings were regularly used then to travel around the estate, especially when going conkering. The pool in your pictures was a natural spring and was full of wildlife, fish, frogs & newts.

Those were the days of simple fun

Cassy of Gornal teresa.rose@blueyonder.co.uk
Most of my childhood I played in Ellowes woods. I lived in the prefabs behind the Good Intent Pup run by the Guests. Joined on to the pub were two houses, belonging to two sisters, Miss Watton and Mrs Brown.

The houses where a very odd shape and finished up nearly in a point, with a short narrow garden getting narrower towards the end. Across the road was the brew house, where the water and loos where , (this is now the drive way to the new houses).

Mrs Brown was in service at Ellowes Hall for many years and she used to tell us of parties that went on at the Hall in the big ballroom. The Coach Road would be all lit up will fancy lights and in summer they would have boats on the pools and at one time there was a bridge across the pool, (I always thought it was too small for this).

There was also a crypt with tunnels going to Dudley Castle, and places decorated in animal bones, according to some of the very old people I knew. They said there were other places the tunnels went to as well, I can't remember properly but I think it was Himley Hall. It has always stuck in my mind that the previous building on Ellowes Hall was probably built about 1500, and these were priests tunnels for them to escape.

Something else I was told as a child, was that many years before, old manuscripts scrolls where found in these tunnels dating back hundreds of years.

As a child Mrs Brown told me many tales of the Hall, one of them being that Ellowes Hall was not the first house on the site; before the Ellowes there was an Elizabethan House made mostly of wood, and some of the buildings and stone work where from the first house.

Ellowes Hall never had electricity, and was set on fire accidentally in the ballroom about 1964, apparently by some kids playing. It has been said that the owners at the time told the Fire Brigade to let it burn, and it was on fire for two days. This saw the ending of a once lovely house.

Dorothy
This morning a friend has come for a visit and we got to talking about Ellowes Hall. She told me several details concerning the Hall because she lived there as a child. Also her grandparents used to live at the gardeners cottage that was on the estate. She is related to the last owners, the Nock Family.

In answer to some of the questions asked by contributors to your site:

There were no tunnels to Dudley Castle or Himley Hall, but in the Shrubberies there were tunnels, grottos and two Summer Houses, decorated with bones and fancy stone work.

The grey lady as far as she was concerned was only a rumour, probably started to keep people away from the estate.

It was set on fire by vandals but not before there were certain artefacts removed such as Adam fireplaces, doors and possibly the beautiful Oak spiral staircase.

There were between 25 and 30 rooms in the Ellowes Hall. Out the back were stables and coach houses for the horses. Where the conservatory was there were steps leading into it and at the bottom of the steps there was a big whalebone. On either of the steps there were 2 stone lambs to match the 2 stone lions at the front of the house.

This has come straight from the horse's mouth.