ORGAN-PLAYING MYSTERY.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLV, Issue 11959, 10 December 1919, Page 2

ORGAN-PLAYING MYSTERY.

During a recent' outing a little party of antiquaries sjgent some time in the lonely church at Avenbury, Herefordshiro, expecting the vicarg Being unable to attend, however, the vicar, the Rev. Archer Shepherd, sent a letter of apology, which contained two ghost stories about the very church in which, they had assembled.

"$y some sfcraiige, unexplained cause", the vicar wrofce, "tne sound as of a voluntary played on an 'organ is heard at times to proceed from the church. .Three such occasions have come under my notice. On the first occasion the music was heard by several members of the family of Colonel Prossor, of Bromyard, who were walking along the footbridge by the church. They all heard it, and believed it was the organist practising. They afterwards found that neither he nor anyone else had been insido the church that day. The American organ was substituted for fthe present harmonium. One Saturday" afternoon when I was in the vicarage garden I heard the harmonium being played, and supposing that the woman who cleaned the church was allowing her child to strum the instrument I hastened to forbid it. The music continued all the time I was walking down the meadow till I came within ten yards ol~the churchyard. Thon it ceased, and I found the church door locked and no one there. On another occasion I heard the music as 1 was driving in Avenbury Lane. It sounded like a voluntary and continued while the pony trotted about 10© yards and ceased when I came opposite to the church." The vicar's other ghost story related to the legend of the Middle Ages that a certain Nicholas Vaughan burned down a palace of the Bishop of Hereford, and that the incendiary's ghost haunts Avenbury Church. ' 'The belief still survives,'' says the vicar, "and it is customary for the vicar of Avenbury once a year tD lay a ghost in Avenbury Church with the aid of twelve lighted candles."