A Haunting in Aveton Gifford

The village of Aveton Gifford lies on the River Avon estuary in South Devon, on the lowest point at which the river can be crossed. This used to be by a ford passable at low tide as is indicated by the names given to each side of the river at this point, North Efford and South Efford i.e. “ebbford”. According to local legend a ferryman plied his trade when the tide was up, enabling people to still cross over.

In the Medieval times work commenced on building a bridge and causeway, slightly up-river from the ford. This was organised by the church and local vicars left money in their wills for its construction. Work dragged on and eventually the Bishop of Exeter granted forgiveness of sins to anyone who would contribute to its construction. This is thought to have been too good a chance to miss and that the bridge was completed in the 1440s.

No doubt there was considerable rejoicing locally, but not by the ferryman who had lost his means of employment and is said to have committed suicide.

In 1760 a large house was built at South Efford occupied by various families over the years. In the 20th century it was the Dobells who ran a weaving business for over half of the  century. In the 1940s, a local builder named Edgecombe went with his grandson to carry out some repairs at the property and were then asked by old Mr Dobell to move a heavy dresser in the stone-flagged kitchen, which was placed at an angle to the wall. It proved too heavy for them and men had to summoned from the fields to get it shifted.

Granddad Edgecomb asked why the dresser had been moved in the first place.
“Why ‘twas the ghost”, said Mr Dobell matter-of-factly. Later on the grandson, Alan went up to the top of the house to attend to leak in the roof and found an old penny-farthing bicycle on the top landing and was told that sometimes it was at one end and sometimes at the other. “The ghost rides it backwards and forwards”, he was told.

The Dobells seemed to have accepted this poltergeist activity quite calmly, but a later occupier had the ghost exorcised by a church minister and it ceased to cause trouble.

The supposition is that this was the troubled soul of the ferryman of long ago.