SUPERNATURAL spooks and haunting ghosts are occupying two properties in Chard and Ilminster – according to a new book that has been published.

Strange Victoriana: Tales of the Curious, the Weird and the Uncanny from Our Victorian Ancestors was written by Dr Jan Bondeson, senior lecturer at Cardiff University.

In it, he documents the paranormal activities in a Knowle St Giles property and the mysterious disappearance of a Dowlish Wake reverend.

In an extract from the book, it says: “In 1879, one of the veteran inhabitants of the tiny village of Knowle St Giles was the 83-year-old labourer Samuel Churchill. After Samuel’s first wife had died, he had an illegitimate son with the house-keeper Katherine Walden, before marrying her in 1871.

“On March 4, 1879, George English was called to Mr Churchill’s cottage, after word spread of an accident. He found old Samuel dead in the fireplace, his body much burnt and charred.

“George English immediately suspected that Katherine had murdered the old man. A police constable and a doctor came to the cottage, and although old Samuel’s body was very badly burnt, they found marks of blows to the face, head and hands.

"A blood-stained bill-hook matching these injuries was found hidden on the premises. Katherine Churchill was found guilty of murder [and] sentenced to death. She was executed within the precincts of Taunton Gaol on May 26.

“In December 1879, a sinister account was published in the Illustrated Police News. An old man named Churchill was murdered in a cottage near Chard. The murderess, Kitty, has been frequently seen to glide about the premises in ghostly attire, and Mr Churchill has been seen at the window.

“This added to the appearance of blood on the floor of the room in which the tragedy was enacted, supernatural movements amongst the furniture and other articles, and unearthly noises in the immediate vicinity of the cottage, so unsettled the occupants that they at last abandoned the dwelling, which is now regarded as haunted.”

Just which cottage it is that hosts Mr and Mrs Churchill's ghosts has been lost in time.

Other tales within Dr Bondeson’s collection include the disappearance of the Rev Benjamin Speke of Dowlish Wake in 1868, the Sleeping Frenchman of Soho, the Ghost of Berkeley Square, the Jumping Spectre of Peckham and the Fighting Ghost of Tondu.