The Tale of Mary Whiddon

In the ancient tannery town of Chagford, where Dartmoor’s granite tors tower over the whispering River Teign and shadows cling to the stones of St. Michael’s Church, a chilling tale of love and violence endures from 1641—the tragedy of Mary Whiddon, a young woman slain on her wedding day, her blood staining the altar and her spirit forever bound to Whiddon Park. Her ghost, cloaked in a shimmering black gown, haunts the manor’s corridors and the churchyard’s quiet grave, her sorrowful presence a spectral thread weaving through centuries, stirred in 1971 when a guest glimpsed her mournful figure, tying the moor’s timeless grief to a fleeting moment of joy stolen by a single, brutal shot.