Now in ruins, this ancient house is situated above Swinden Reservoir. It dates from the late 1500s and was once home to the Parker family. Captain Robert Parker lived here with his family in the 17th century and he features in a piece of folklore which tells how he met a fairy funeral one night, on his way home from a Jacobite meeting. To his horror, he saw that the brass plate on the coffin bore his own name. Knowing that this foretold his own death, he took the warning to mean that his end would come because of his involvement with the Jacobites, so he swore from that moment that he would never to attend another meeting or support them in any way.

As weeks passed, Parker may have come to feel he had been spared the fate of those who had seen fairy funerals in the past. But fate would not be diverted so easily. Perhaps if he had continued to be vigilant, he would not have gone shooting in heavy rain and put his wet coat near the fire to dry. As his children helped him to strip off the rest of his wet clothes, a powder flask in the pocket of the wet coat exploded in the heat of the fire – and the explosion killed him and badly injured two of his daughters.

Image © Copyright Kevin Rushton and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.