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mysteries |
Theophilus Broome |
Other Information |
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| There is many a supernatural tale of skulls and other dismembered parts of the body haunting people with a view to being reunited with the remainder of the corpse. The skull of Theophilus Broome offers precisely the opposite scenario. Theophilus Broome (spelt Brome in some accounts), was a Royalist during the English Civil War but he defected to the Roundheads in horror at the inhuman acts Royalist troops carried out in the name of their king. In particular he despised the Royalist habit of severing the heads of victims and spiking them on rails as trophies. On his deathbed he made a plea to his sister that his head should be separated from his body so that even if his body were exhumed no head could be discovered which could then be impaled as a trophy. His plea to his sister was that his skull should never leave his farmhouse. Theophilus Broome died aged 69 on 18 August 1670. Over the years since that time several tenants of the farmhouse at Chilton Cantelo, near Yeovil, Somerset, have attempted to remove the skull, only to be plagued by horrid screaming noises until it was replaced. One tenant went as far as trying to have the skull reunited with the body in Broome's grave and even secured permission for this- During the attempt to exhume the body the sexton's spade broke in half, convincing all concerned that this was not in accord with the wishes of the subject of the exercise. The skull was again returned to its home. Broome's skull still resides at the farmhouse and has been credited with good actions towards those who treat it properly. During an early visit to the farmhouse, prior to their marriage, the now Mrs Kerton was about to walk across a black shadow on the ground when Mr Kerton called out to her, alerting her attention, that she had dropped her coat. It turned out that the shadow was not a coat but the top ot an uncovered well which she would otherwise have fallen into; the couple attributed their good fortune to the skull to whom they had shown respect. In the mid 1970s TV celebrity Dave Allen visited the farmhouse to record a programme. He apparently became scared by something that happened while driving home and told Mr Kerton that he never wanted to visit the house again. When a well in the garden suddenly opened up during another TV film crew's visit to the farmhouse Mr Kerton claimed that 'Broome was trying to tell them something. |
Place: Higher Chilton Farm, Somerset. Date: 1670 Source: Various |