The Vampire of Tarrant Gunville

---

Location: Eastbury House Park Gates, Tarrant Gunville

A Macbre Discovery

At the village of Tarrant Gunville in 1845, workmen exhumed an incorruptible corpse of a man while rebuilding part of St. Mary's church. Word quickly spread around the village that the body was that of 'Old Doggett', a man who had committed suicide, which in those days was regarded as an unpardonable sin.

Such suicide victims were thought to be doomed to remain on earth for all eternity, only to emerge at midnight from their graves as a ghoul or vampire in order to seek out the living and drink their blood and consume their flesh.

Old Doggett worked for George Bubb Dodington at near by Eastbury House, but in 1762 due to his fraudulent dealings, he shot himself in the library. After his death it was believed that if you happen to be at the Eastbury Park Gates at midnight, you would see the ghostly figure of Old Doggett, awaiting to be collected by a coach and four complete with headless coachman and horses. Only to be taken to the house to re-enact his own suicide.