Lady Wyndhams Return
Watchet - Kentsford Manor & St Decumens Church
In 1556 she married Sir John Wyndham of Orchard Wyndham and a year later was pregnant and was taken ill and thought to have died.
Sir John was overcome with grief and Florence was buried the next day in the Wyndham crypt at St Decuman’s Church.
That same night a covetous sexton Tom Hole, who had seen her jewels opened her coffin in order to remove her rings and cut one of her fingers in the process.
She had in fact fallen into some sort of cataleptic trance, and was now awakened by the pain and rose from her coffin.
The sexton fled and was never to be seen again, using the lantern he had dropped in his shock, she made her way home to Kentford Farm across the fields to her astounded family.
They were astonished and unbelieving as Florence knocked on the window dressed in her grave clothes.
It is said that the servants refused to let her in believing her to be a ghost or a witch and Sir John fainted and took to his bed.
She recovered completely and gave birth to a son
To this day members of the Wyndham family are not buried until three days after their death.
Her ghost has been seen making the journey back to the manor, tapping on the windows and door once she arrives home.
A poem about her remarkable escape, called 'Lady Wyndham's Return', was written by Rev. Lewis H. Court, Vicar of St Decuman's church, and includes the following verses:
He seized the slender fingers white
And stiff in their repose
Then sought to file the circlet through;
When to his horror blood he drew,
And the fair sleeper rose
She sat a moment gazed around,
Then great was her surprise,
And sexton startled saw at a glance
This was not death but a deep trance,
And madness leapt to his eyes.
The stagnant life steam in her veins
Again began to flow
She felt the sudden quickening,
For her it was a joyous thing,
For him a fearsome woe.
Source - Watchet Online, Visit Watchet & Paranormal Database