Read the Legend

Just off the winding main road alongside the poppied North Norfolk Coast, about two miles inland from Cromer, lays the small village of Northrepps. Find its centre and the Foundry Arms Inn then proceed up Hungry Hill towards Sidestrand, where halfway along, a sandy lane on the right leads to a grey-green willow-hung pit so deep that it once swallowed a horse and cart with no trace. This is the Shrieking Pit.

Tall and graceful, with long brown hair, soft round face and an evenness of features and form, Esmerelda was the beauty of the village in 1782. In her eighteenth year she blossomed from an attractive country girl into a young woman with all the grace of a highborn lady. The daughter of a farm worker who lived along Craft Lane, some said her real father was a guest at Northrepps Hall where her mother had been a serving girl.

Many a young lad dreamed of Esmerelda; many a bold swain advanced his suit: many a hopeful boy sought a close acquaintance – all charmed by her beguiling smile and sparkling brown eyes. But Esmerelda also dreamed; she dreamed of a young farmer from across the fields in Roughton. Already married, he sought Esmerelda’s charms for his own selfish gratification. He encouraged her adoration even though he knew he could never honour their relationship nor make her life settled and secure. Esmerelda was smitten by the farmer and forgot all reason.

Life in those days held constraints that cannot be imagined nowadays. The young farmer was persuaded to end the affair by the rector and by his landlord who threatened to restrict his livelihood if he did not play the faithful husband. Lacking the courage to face Esmerelda he stayed away, leaving her to weep alone. She continued her life as a housemaid at Shrublands, the farmhouse at the end of Craft Lane, whilst inwardly her desperate yearning grew so that she could barely retain her sanity. She took to lonely nightly wanderings, her favoured walk being along Craft Lane and thence by Sandy Lane to Hungry Hill, before returning home again. On these nightly excursions her tortured mind seemed to find relief in physical exertion but the solitude began to intensify her feelings of rejection and she disregarded her own safety.

One night, one cold, cold night, when a full moon shone and the world was silhouetted in silver and black, Esmerelda moved along Sandy Lane and came to the large open pit, its water still and reflective in the moonlight. She stood on the bank, her fateful tears illuminated and as she gazed upon the water’s surface, she thought she saw something there. Not just a ripple or a shadow... but the image of her lover’s face.

Without a thought she jumped into the water to join her lover and not until she leapt in did reason come flooding back. As she felt the water’s chilly embrace, she let out a wild shriek that echoed in the hills and fields and awakened dogs and people in their cottage beds. A second wail brought heads to windows while some shivered in fearful sheets; they knew something awful had happened. A third scream tapered into a shriek which ended sharply and so the Legend of the Shrieking Pit was born.

It is said that on February 24th at midnight something can be seen and heard by the Shrieking Pit. Is it Esmerelda’s slim figure as she makes her way into the pit? Is it her cries as she is overcome by the icy, black water? Or is it just the screeching call of a watching barn owl in the wintery branches above? The myth and mystery of this brooding place prevail; even on the warmest summer day it is still cool and ominous.