Haunted Scotland (7 page)

Audiences seated in the Dress Circle during the 1970s were often intrigued by the costumed ‘actor’ who sat boldly on the balcony and glared at them while ignoring what was taking
place on stage. More recent members of staff have commented on the lady in the Victorian gown who glides elegantly from the Dress Circle Bar towards the Circle Studio dressing rooms. A security
guard on his late-night rounds ‘distinctly felt the swish of her dress as she overtook him in the Props and Costume Department’.

Far be it for me to imply that such sightings are mere flights of fancy, although you might expect there to be mind games under circumstances where emotions have run high
through the passage
of time. For example, in religious seminaries and retreats where the devout congregate for seclusion and prayer.

One such retreat is the Cistercian Abbey of Nunraw in East Lothian. Founded as a nunnery, it remained in private ownership for the best part of four centuries before being
reclaimed by the Cistercian brotherhood from Ireland in 1945. Since then the old red-stone visitor centre and the spacious, airy cloisters built by the monks themselves, have provided a haven of
peace and tranquillity for anyone in search of spiritual solitude.

Nobody asks questions and there is always a bed for the night on the basis that visitors make a contribution in proportion to what they can afford. In addition, the monks are kindly and
non-judgemental, and always at hand to listen. It was therefore to Nunraw that Elizabeth Davies escaped when her marriage ran into trouble, and she has been a devotee of the monastery ever since.
However, to this day she can vividly recall the first night she stayed over in the guest dormitory.

‘It was mid-winter, and we were three ladies, myself and Ruth and Jane, and one man, whose name I can’t remember,’ she explained. ‘For some time we all sat with Father
Benedict drinking coffee in front of the fire before retiring to our rooms, the man to the men’s dormitory, and Ruth, myself and Jane to ours.

‘There were three of us occupying the bedroom, and we all woke up simultaneously,’ she continued. ‘My bed was beside the door, and although I was still half asleep, I could
hear Jane’s voice saying anxiously, “There’s somebody in the room. He’s beside you.”’

Elizabeth had looked up to find a luminous figure wearing what appeared to be an old duffel coat looming over her. What was even more alarming was that she could clearly see the bedroom door and
door knob glowing on the far side of him, as if he were transparent.

‘I began to say my prayers,’ she said with a shudder as the memory returned to her. ‘But I kept one eye open, and as I recited the words out loud, the
vision faded back through the open door and I could see a shadow walking up the stairs towards the men’s room. We all looked at each other in amazement. We’d all of us seen the same
thing, so nobody could have accused me of making it up.’

Detractors sometimes dismiss such phenomena as the natural aberration of our sensory powers, but is this a good enough reason to do so? Aristotle famously observed that human beings share five
common senses – sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. We also know that beyond these lie instincts such as self-awareness, which create all kinds of unanswered questions. Why, for example,
does the hair on the back of a neck involuntarily tingle in response to a poignant tune or an emotional lift? How is it possible for amputees to feel phantom pain in limbs which are no longer
there?

Science has a long way to go before it arrives at an honest and uncompromising understanding of the supernatural. And in the meantime we can only rationalise what we can.

Scholars have argued the causes of good and evil since time immemorial. There are loads of logical explanations, but nothing is ever that simple. Wickedness leaves its scars not only on its
victims but on its perpetrators. When bad things happen, repercussions follow.

On a lonely stretch of the Dumbarton Road in Dunbartonshire an encounter with the Black Lady of Dalquhurn brings immediate death to anyone unfortunate enough to be in the wrong
place at the wrong time. Of course, you might well ask how anyone knows about this if no one has lived to tell the tale?

Well, it seems a John Neil from Renton did live to tell the tale, and spilled the beans in his last breath. However, the mystery
becomes even more obscure when it emerges
that the Black Lady of Dalquhurn is, in all probability, not a lady at all, but a man.

Up until 1989, the so-called ‘Tomb of the Black Lady’ sat just inside a gateway to the railway siding of the former Dalquhurn Bleach Works, fifty yards from the River Leven. How or
when it came to be identified with the Black Lady is unknown, but clues to the ownership can be taken from the tombstone inscription which was recorded in the
Country Reporter
of 10 December
1969:

Translated, this reads: ‘Here is buried George Scott, son of a gallant merchant, late of Glasgow. He lived for fifteen years in India, and died immediately on his return
to London, Great Britain, on
6 November 1787. His age was 37 years. His remains brought by his brothers Charles and William from latter place (London?), he wished to be
preserved here.’

Local historian Graham Hopner has meticulously researched the subject and has reached the conclusion that George Scott was one of three brothers – George, William and Charles – all
of them born at Dalquhurn Cottage. Their parents were Lawrence and Margaret Scott, and Charles, having accumulated a small fortune from the bleachworks, purchased Dalquhurn House from the Telfer
Smollett family in either 1774 or 1775.

In 1969, an article featured in the
Country Reporter
led four anglers on the River Leven to claim that at the end of a night’s fishing they had been touched by a weird and ethereal
white form which afterwards had vanished in the direction of Dalquhurn. Soon afterwards, another correspondent wrote in to say that his wife had seen a mystical figure resembling a woman, standing
upriver from George Scott’s tomb. Other reports soon followed, all involving a woman in black.

The legend of the Black Lady has been circulating around the Renton district for well over 200 years. But who was she, this Black Lady? And what connection did she have to the final resting
place of George Scott?

One possibility is that the Dalquhurn tomb, which measures sixteen feet square, might contain more than one occupant. There is the suggestion that Scott might have returned from India with a
companion, a lady friend or even an ayah with whom he had formed a relationship.

Such speculation, however, was discounted when it was confirmed that only one body was interred in the Scott mausoleum. So was George Scott perchance a transvestite? Or was it simply that he
wore his hair long, in the fashion of the eighteenth century?

In 1991, a Balloch businessman, having purchased the site of the Dalquhurn Bleach Works for redevelopment, applied for permission to remove the tomb. Nobody can confirm for
certain what then took place, but following a prolonged correspondence with the local authority, it seems that George’s grave was desecrated and his skeleton deposited a few miles away, in
the Alexandria Cemetery.

When word of this got out there was outrage among the local community, especially when some Renton schoolchildren were found playing with human bones. By this stage, an impasse had been reached
between the businessman and the council, and what made matters worse was a ruling that since the tomb was on private, not public, land, there were no legal requirements for it to be maintained
irrespective of the last wishes of its occupant.

Since then, the site of the tomb of the Black Lady has remained untouched, which is not so surprising when you consider that generations of Renton weans have been told that if they do not
behave, the Black Lady of Dalquhurn will get them. Meanwhile, the grisly relics of George Scott are being stored in Alexandria. Is it any wonder that the Black Lady of Dalquhurn, whoever she or he
might be, walks the Dumbarton Road at night looking for the despoilers of his or her last resting place?

The advice I would therefore offer to anyone finding themselves on the Renton stretch of the Dumbarton Road after sunset is simply to maintain a healthy stride. When driving a car, be certain to
keep your eyes firmly fixed on the highway ahead.

Under absolutely no circumstances should you feel tempted to pull over and offer someone a lift.

8

The religious purges of long ago are of little concern to those facing up to the challenges of the here and now. There are, nonetheless, certain episodes of repression indelibly
imprinted on the faiths of our island race, their consequences embedded deep within our spiritual psyche. That is why we shudder when we hear of atrocities in far-off lands. That is why we claim to
abhor injustice.

The Scottish National Covenant of 400 years ago is a case in point. The passions it engendered are largely forgotten, but they certainly make it easier to explain the re-emergence of such
movements as Islamic Fundamentalism.

In 1633, spurred on by William Laud, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, King Charles I, a didactic monarch by any
standards, pronounced himself head of the Church of
Scotland by Divine Right and, in so doing, ordered the replacement of the reformer John Knox’s
Book of Discipline
with his own modified
Book of Common Prayer.
This was seen by
the majority of Lowland Scots as a betrayal of everything that had come before.

Since neither the Scottish Parliament nor the Kirk Assembly had been consulted, the king’s proposals were justifiably seen as a blatant attempt to undermine the independence of
Scotland’s hard-won fight for its Presbyterian faith. Although the majority of Scots had always supported their Stuart monarchs in the past, this was a step too far. Matters came to a head on
23 July 1637 when Jenny Geddes, a market trader in Edinburgh, threw her ‘fald’ stool at the minister of St Giles’ Kirk in protest. When, in 1638, a large number of devout members
of the Church of Scotland signed a National Covenant of opposition, it ignited a period of brutal religious repression which lasted for over fifty years.

During these ‘killing times’, simple, God-fearing folk, whose only crime was to reject the corruption of their political masters, were unwittingly transformed into martyrs. Those who
failed to attend government-approved churches were fined. The death penalty was imposed on those who preached out-of-doors at so-called ‘conventicles’.

It is estimated that over 28,000 souls met their deaths in the violent confrontations that followed. With such an intensity of anger and frustration, it is only to be expected that the blanket
of discontent surrounding such emotions should linger on to create the occasional aberration of time.

Encroaching upon Edinburgh to the south-west are the Pentland Hills, today designated a Regional Park. Here the scenery is criss-crossed by rivulets, burns and glens spilling into the Southern
Uplands, a wild and lonely territory despite its close proximity to Edinburgh.

And it was exactly the plentiful solitude and fresh air to be found here that attracted the Dutton family. Entrapped within their individual working environments during the
week, Richard Dutton, a bank employee, and his wife Emma, a nurse, first began excursions prior to their marriage. With the arrival of their two sons, Jamie and Pete, such outings became a monthly
ritual in all weathers.

More often than not, they parked their car in the old railway station at Dolphinton, and set off on foot towards West Linton. They had completed this walk on numerous occasions, but one Sunday,
as they were crossing the gate at North Slipperfield, the sky became rapidly overcast and before long it had begun to rain.

‘It’ll pass,’ said Richard. Besides, all four were equipped with boots and waterproofs.

Two miles on, as they were approaching the remains of the old Blackhill farmhouse, they encountered a man dressed in what looked like an ill-fitting coat. He was carrying what appeared to be a
younger man over his shoulder. ‘Can we help?’ asked Richard. ‘My wife is a nurse.’

The older man fixed them with a sad and vacant stare, and made no response. Turning to Emma and the boys, Richard shrugged his shoulders. ‘Must be down-and-outs,’ he observed.
‘Probably drunk.’

Emma was not so censorious. ‘The one wearing the red cloak looked unconscious,’ she said with concern. When they turned to have another look, the pair had vanished.

‘They went over the brow of that hill,’ shouted Jamie, scampering across the heather with his brother to have a look. ‘Not here,’ he called back to his parents.
‘They must have gone some other way.’

Sure enough, when Richard and Emma reached the summit, the strange couple were nowhere to be seen.

‘Did you see how they were dressed?’ asked Emma. ‘They must belong to one of those historical reenactment groups. You know, the Sealed Knot or White
Cockade Society.’

Richard laughed. ‘Well at least I’ll have something to tell them in the office tomorrow.’

Emma was more circumspect. ‘I’ve a bad feeling about this,’ she said and, as soon as they reached home and the children were fed, she turned on the computer to search the
internet. ‘Look what it says here,’ she called out eventually. Richard joined her and, with some incredulity, absorbed the information on the screen.