Note 16 — Chapter IV

Although the account, singular as it is, receives very general credence, and the place of sepulture, on the roof of the mansion near Hyde Park, is even pointed out, we must say, that a literary friend, who devoted some time to the inquiry, discredits the truth. In a letter written by a near relative of the titled possessor, which we have seen, it is stated, that the account is correct, and it is also stated, that the property, for that reason, was purchased for a lower price. The matter therefore remains involved in some mystery. We have since been informed by a clergyman, that he well remembers being told, of the sepulture of a body, on a house near Clapham Junction, on the London and South-Western Railway. Another instance has also been mentioned to us, as occurring in one of the midland counties. At the last moment, but in time to find a record in this note, a friend has kindly sent us the following facts, illustrative of our page heading, “Strange Wills.” At Stevenage, in Hertfordshire, a pleasantly situated place on the High North Road, about eleven miles from Hertford, a resident, Henry Trigg, having peculiar ideas about the resurrection, left his property to his heirs, upon condition, and in trust, that they put him in an oak coffin, and placed his body on the rafters of his barn, attached to the Old Castle Public House, in the parish of Stevenage. There he was placed in 1724, and there he now remains. In the time when coaches stopped at the Old Castle Public House, there were many travellers on the Great Northern Road. The old oak coffin was then a lion of the place, and brought grist to the landlord of the inn. Even now it is occasionally visited by the curious.