In a spirit of festive spookery, I’ve been having a nose around the venerable story of the Campden Wonder. I recall reading an account of this peculiar episode in a book of ghost stories when I was very young. I feel a link to it because, although Campden is far from my neck of the woods, I know the village and the reputed home of one of the protagonists very well indeed.
On August 16th, 1660, one William Harrison, a 70 year-old rent collector, disappeared from the Cotswold village of Chipping Campden. His hat, comb and collar band were found on the main road between Campden and Ebrington, slashed and bloodied.
Before long, Harrison’s servant, John Perry confessed that he, his brother and his mother had conspired to murder Harrison. All three were hanged.
The story would have remained just a gruesome piece of local history had not something extraordinary occurred two years later. William Harrison returned, offering an account of his disappearance straight out of a romance. He had, he said, been attacked and abducted by two armed horsemen, who had eventually put him on board a ship in Deal. The ship was taken by pirates and Harrison was sold into slavery in Smyrna, Turkey. After months enslaved, Harrison was released when his master died, and he slowly made his way back home via Portugal.
Harrison’s account raised as many questions as it answered, not least why Perry had confessed to a fictitious murder. There have been a number of adaptations of the story, and there is a well-maintained website covering the mystery.
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