The Sturminster Cat

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Location: The Castle and the Hollow, Sturminster Newton

The Hollow Horror

At Sturminster Newton there was once a terrifying creature, which ran along a track parallel to the main road at a place called the Hollow. The Rev J.B Hirst, a local clergyman in 1965, knew of someone who spoke of it as a large black dog.

Yet there is a much older record, which shows it to, been a large cat, which appears in a 1907 manuscript 'Reminiscences of Sturminster Newton' by Robin Young.

"a story was often told them of a wild and savage monstrous cat which haunted the remains of the old castle and was often seen on Newton Hill. Such horrid tales were told of this monsterous cat, with eyes as big as tea saucers, that many children were afraid to pass that way, and not only children but grown up people would be so afraid that they would walk on the main road below the hill to avoid the creature."