Chagford: Lorna Doone

Chagford is one of those special places which, if you are lucky, you just happen upon and are delighted that you did. Centred around an octagonal Market House, known as The Pepperpot, the small town is full of independent shops and friendly people, who greet everyone- local and visitor- with a warm hello as they pass in the street.

On a slight hill, near the Pepperpot is the village church of St Michael the Archangel, a beautiful building, where in front of the alter is a strange memorial which reads:

Mary Whiddon, daughter of Oliver Whiddon, who died in 1641
Reader, would’st though know who here is laid,
Behold a matron, yet a maid
A modest look, a pious heart
A Mary for the better part
But dry thine eyes, why wilt thou weep
Such damsels doe not die, but sleep.

On the 11th October 1641, Mary Whiddon, a descendent of Sir John Whiddon, left Whiddon Park where she lived, to be married in St Michael’s Church. She and her husband to be, whose name has been forgotten, were married in the Church, but they did not live happily ever after. Legend says that after the ceremony, Mary’s jilted lover shot her on the steps of the church or, in some versions, in the porch of the Three Crowns. Mary’s ghost, still dressed in her wedding gown, is said to haunt The Bishop’s Room and upstairs corridors of the pub. Legend also has it that there is a secret passage from Whiddon Park House to the Three Crowns.

Many say that this story was the inspiration for the scene in ‘Lorna Doone’ by R D Blackmore where Lorna is shot by Carver Doone at her wedding to John Ridd. Growing up, the author spent a great deal of time in this area and so it would not be unreasonable to assume he heard of Mary Whiddon and used this as inspiration for his story.