barnburgh churchyard night

In the fifteenth century there lived at Barnburgh Hall a worthy knight called Sir Percival Cresacre. He was returning home rather late at night from Doncaster after visiting friends or maybe transacting some business, and was ambling gently on his horse along the bridle way which is now the road from Doncaster through Sprotburgh and High Melton. The district was at that time very heavily wooded, and as he came down the Ludwell Hill a wild cat (or lynx), which was far larger and stronger than the domesticated cat of to-day, sprang out of the branches of a tree and landed on the back of his horse. So maddened was the horse by the tearing claws of the cat that it shied, sprang forward, threw its rider to the ground and ran away. The cat then turned upon the knight and there followed a long, deadly, running struggle between the two which continued all the way from Ludwell Hill to Barnburgh.

 

By this time the man had been terribly mauled by the fierce claws of the cat and was nearly exhausted. On reaching the Church the knight made for the porch, thinking to get inside the Church and close the door on the animal. The fight had been so fierce, however, and had so told on the man that he fell dying in the Porch, and in his last dying struggle, stretched out, and in so doing his feet crushed and killed the cat against the wall of the Porch.

 

Thus the cat killed the man and the man killed the cat, and thus they were found some time later by the search party that went out after the knight's horse had returned home rider less

 

 

 

In support of all this, the more imaginative story teller will probably show you stones tinged with red in the floor of the Porch, and the "cat" at the feet of the Cresacre effigy

 

 

Done