Where did Ghost Hill get its name?

I have also always wondered whether on same BMX track, after the start did anyone ever manage to change position? Because over taking involved riding into waste high grass from which few people returned...

"I can find out on the Internet," I thought. Alas, I found one person's memories of Knight Rider and 1984, but nothing else about the Ghost Hill, Taverham.

The photograph is of Ghost Hill Wood (taken in December 2000).

I thought perhaps the children at the first school are told every year about Ghost Hill and tell tall tales about the bendy tree (it can't be old enough to have served as a gallows), but apparently not (that or the kids are not paying attention in classes).

Years ago an elderly gentleman was scanning the field with a metal detector, and in front of me he dug up a rusty old .303 cartridge. He believed the field to have been a practice range for soldiers around about the time of the First World War. This might be true since during the First World War large numbers of soldiers were billeted in Taverham (some at Taverham Hall or the old paper mill). Most were put up in tents alongside the Fakenham Road - hence Camp Road next to Pips Chips (if that's what it's still called).

Bunnett Hill

A trip to Norwich Record Office dug up a map printed 1891 and this shows the land between what is Orchard Bank and Shakespear Way today as Ghosthill Plantation. This is a bit of a surprise to me for as we all know Ghost Hill is over by the school..! I've scanned in a whole A3 wodge of map; zoom in by clicking on the map: In 1845 Francis Greene Bradshaw Esq. was the landowner of the plot marked 28, and the occupier was Bunnett (or Burnett?) who was charged rent in lieu of tithes for 5 acres, 0 rods and 4 poles of land. The record only shows that the land consisted of hills and arable. This ties up with Ghost Hill formerly being called Bunnett Hill.

I found one little book about Taverham, published in 1969, which makes a single reference to Ghost Hill Plantation - there was no Shakespear Way or Norgate Way, and certainly no Cameron Green then. The lower half of Cypress Close was built in 1965 but that was about it.

No ghosts, just the usual histories of Taverham Hall, the paper mill and a little piece about silver fox farming. However, in Mr Norgate's book he does point out that on a map dated 1826 (by A.Bryant) "Hanging Wood" on the way down to Ringland has no connection to gallows - the name refers to the trees that were "hanging" on the steep ground. I cannot think of a similar reason where Ghost Hill could have earned its name.

On another map the plots above 28 and 29 were labelled glebe which probably indicates it was owned by the clergy. A lot of this information gleaned from:
A History of Taverham by Thomas B.Norgate, 1969 (available on the shelves at Taverham Library)

Ghost Hill - 1985

In January 1985 it snowed heavily...     Best remembered for St Edmund middle school's heaters breaking down, and sledging conditions since have only briefly been rivalled in early 1991. In those days digital cameras didn't exist - these are the only photos I have of Ghost Hill then, with the exception of bonfire night 1984 (at night, so not much use). Remember the sand humps? All built on and long gone now.

Ghost Hill's Origins

After a couple of years of first putting this page up, a Drayton resident, Mr Charles Jarvis emailed me with lots of information. He wrote: As a child I was told that during the First World War there was an army training camp in the Drayton area. When a draft of soldiers were due to leave for France several men deserted and one of them climbed into a high tree in the area known today as Ghost Hills. He bound himself with a rope into the upper branches of the tree, but his bondage was such that he could no longer free himself and eventualy he died of exposure. His body remained in the tree un-noticed for many months (remember in those days few people would have visited the woods). Many months later a party of people visited the woods and whilst walking through that area of the woods one of the soldier's limbs fell down in front of them. Charles Jarvis I spent most of my childhood in Drayton and I attended the original Drayton Primary School. This story was related by my late aunt Mrs K.Haverson, one of the two teachers at the school, and much later in life she repeated the story to me. She learned of the story from a Major Rudguard (retired) who had a small estate in the vilage.