The Society for the Investigation of Spectral Phenomena
Notes Toward a Sermon on the Faces at Lyminster
Slayer's Slab, tomb, Crossbush, West Sussex
I.Background & History
Slayer's Slab is a medieval gravestone formerly lying in the graveyard of Lyminster church in West Sussex, and now moved inside the church to protect it from weathering. Local legend names it as the grave of the dragonslayer who killed the Knucker, the creature said to have lived in the nearby knuckerhole.
The stone bears a cross laid over a herringbone pattern. It carries no inscription, and nothing on it identifies whoever lies beneath. Its occupant is a matter of tradition alone.
The parish of Lyminster lies in West Sussex, close to Crossbush and within a few miles of Arundel, on low ground at the edge of the river meadows.
Source: Slayer's Slab, Wikipedia
II.The Entity
The Grain-Faces
An influence rather than a body, it shows itself as faces rising slowly in oak, elm and lime-plaster: the faces of living parishioners, rendered in the knots and stains with a likeness no carver could achieve. The eyes are always closed in the first year, half-open in the second, and in the third they follow the person they resemble. A face that has fully opened is always that of someone who will not see another spring.
Assessment of Peril
Class IV: Malignant
No hand has been raised against any witness, yet every parishioner whose likeness fully opened its eyes was dead, vanished or wandering mad within the twelvemonth. It takes notice of those who take notice of it.
III.The Account
The Society holds, in the muniment chest of the diocese, a bundle of leaves in the hand of the Revd. Josiah Aldwick, curate of Lyminster in the years after the Restoration. They are written on the backs of his sermons, and the Secretary has copied them as they stand. The first, dated the autumn of 1664, reads: 'Preached upon the text, Know ye not that ye are the temple. Remark, for my own satisfaction only: in the pew-end of the north aisle the grain has gathered into a likeness of old Goodman Tuppen. I took it for a fancy of the eye. The eyes are shut.'
By the spring of 1665 the notes are less easy. 'A second face in the vestry panelling, and a third in the damp that blooms beneath the window. I know them: the miller's wife, and the boy who blows the bellows. I have said nothing. Preached on Charity. I lost my place twice.' He records that the faces were most numerous near the Slab, then lying in the churchyard, and that on wet mornings the plaster of the nave seemed to him crowded, as a church is crowded at Easter, though he stood alone in it.
The hand degrades in the third year. 'Goodman Tuppen's eyes are open a little. I have watched him through the whole of Evensong. He has watched me. Tuppen was found on Thursday in the knuckerhole sedge, upright in the water, his eyes wide, and the coroner could say nothing of the cause. I have scraped the pew-end with a knife. The grain beneath is the same face, and it is deeper.' Here the sermon on the reverse is abandoned in the middle of a sentence concerning the resurrection of the body.
IV.Recorded Manifestations
- ✦Faces of living parishioners forming in pew-ends, panelling, beams and plaster damp-stains, always in their likeness
- ✦Eyes in the faces that are closed at first sighting, half-open the second year and fully open before the person's death
- ✦A smell of river mud and cold water in the nave on dry days
- ✦Scraping or planing a face away only reveals it deeper in the timber beneath
- ✦The sound of a large congregation breathing in the empty church, in the hour before dawn
Testimony of Witnesses
“I whitewashed the north wall at Michaelmas, sir, and by Candlemas there was my own sister looking out of it, and she in her grave a month after.”
“I went to the church to prove the thing a trick of damp. I found among the stains the face of a patient I had that morning pronounced recovering. I may say that I was wrong in the matter of her recovery.”
“I will not scrub the vestry wall any more. I washed a face off it on the Tuesday, and on the Wednesday it was back with its mouth open.”
V.Rite of Expulsion
Difficulty: Perilous
Requisites
- ☐A tallow candle never before lit
- ☐A bowl of river water drawn at dawn from the knuckerhole
- ☐A clean linen cloth
- ☐A plain iron nail from the churchyard gate
- ☐The parish register, open at the burials
The Rite
- I.Enter the church alone at the hour before dawn, and do not look at any wall until the candle is lit.
- II.Set the register open upon the Slab and read aloud every name for the previous year, omitting none.
- III.Wet the cloth in the river water and cover each face in turn, naming the living person it resembles.
- IV.Where an eye is open, press the iron nail to the brow of the likeness and say, 'Thou art paid.'
- V.Extinguish the candle with the fingers, not the breath.
- VI.Leave by the south door and do not look back at the nave until the first bell.
Caution. The rite must never be attempted by one who has seen his own likeness in the church. The Society's Mr. R. Ferrier did so in 1893, and was found at his devotions in the nave with his eyes wide open, and no face upon the walls but his.
VI.Hauntings of the Surrounding District
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Lyminster Priory · Abbey · a few paces
The Veiled Choir, phantom procession. Nuns in grey walk the cloister of the vanished priory in perfect silence, and each carries a candle that gives no light.
Poling Preceptory · Templar Preceptory · 1.6 miles
The Kneeling Knight of Poling, revenant. A mailed figure kneels at the preceptory's foundations each night, and those who ask his name hear their own spoken back.
Arundel Blackfriars · Abbey · 1.4 miles
Brother Candlewick, spectre. A friar in a black cappa is seen sweeping the ground where the cloister stood, and the dust he gathers is warm.
Arundel Castle · Castle · 1.6 miles
The Moat-Pacer, phantom hound. A great pale hound walks the rampart at midnight, and the sentries it passes are found in the morning with grey hair.
St Mary Magdalene's Church · Church · 1.2 miles
Mrs. Magdalen Ashe, white lady. A woman in a bridal veil stands in the porch with her back turned, and she has never once been seen to leave.
Trinity Congregational Church · Church · 1.4 miles
The Pew-Knocker, poltergeist. Rapping runs along the gallery rail during the hymn, one beat late, as though someone were keeping time from beneath the floor.
St Nicholas Church · Church · 1.5 miles
The Vestry Ewe, spectral animal. A thin ewe with a woman's eyes is seen among the headstones at dusk, and it bleats a name that is always a neighbour's.
Arundel Cathedral · Church · 1.6 miles
The Canon of the Nave, headless apparition. A robed figure without a head processes slowly to the altar rail and bows to the congregation it no longer has.
Arundel Priory · Church · 1.6 miles
Priory Lantern, will-o'-the-wisp. A pale flame drifts at head height over the old foundations, and draws the unwary toward the ditch.
Fitzalan Chapel · Church · 1.6 miles
The Earl's Mourner, spectre. A gaunt man in funeral black stands at the iron screen, and visitors feel him count them as they leave.
Arundel and District Hospital · Hospital · 1.6 miles
Ward-Sister Pell, revenant. A nurse in an old-fashioned cap passes between the beds at night, straightening the sheets of those who will not wake.
Littlehampton Friends Meeting House · Church · 1.7 miles
The Silent Bench, unclassified entity. The meeting house is found with one more person seated in the stillness than entered it, and none can say which.
South Marsh Mill · Old Mill · 1.1 miles
The Miller's Grey Cat, spectral animal. A grey cat sits on the sail-stock at dusk, and when the sails turn without wind it is gone and the flour is wet.
St Catherine's Church · Church · 1.9 miles
The Borrowed Mouth, possession. A churchgoer will rise during the psalm and speak in the voice of a person long buried, and remember nothing after.
Bailiffscourt Chapel · Church · 2.7 miles
The Salt-Lane Mourners, phantom procession. At the ebb a column of dripping figures files toward the chapel door, each one carrying the sea in its cupped hands.
