The Murder Hole PDF Print E-mail
Written by Maggi Kaye   
Monday, 15 December 2008 16:51
These events are said to have taken place about four hundred years ago, near Rowantree Toll on a remote road running north over the moors from Glentrool into Ayrshire. This area is now covered by forest and the hole has been filled in, so no-one now knows exactly where it was, but probably in the southern part of Ayrshire near the border.

A young lad who worked as a pedlar was crossing these moors one night. There had been numerous tales of people going missing in the area, the local officers of justice could find nothing and many of the local inhabitants had moved away as a result. He was feeling very uneasy and wishing he’d never started his journey, but was reassured when he remembered a place where he had stayed previously, run by an old woman and her sons.

When he got to the cottage he knocked on the door. Instead of someone answering it, a commotion erupted inside and he went to have a look in at the window. He saw the woman sprinkling sand on the floor, and the sons stuffing something into a large chest. He decided to tap on the window, bring a mischievous sort of a fellow, but the people inside jumped with such obvious alarm that he is frightened. Just then the door opened and one of the men came out and grabbed him, dragging him inside. He explained who he is and that he had stayed there the year before, the woman asked “Are you alone?” When he said he was, they made him welcome and soon afterwards he was shown into a room where he was to spend the night.

The room was a shambles, the curtain that had screened the bed was ripped, the stool over-turned, the table smashed and the door fastening was broken. Apprehensively he lay down and after a long time fell into a fitful sleep. He was awakened by a sharp cry and sitting up he noticed a stream of blood running under the door. Jumping out of bed, he ran to the door and looking cautiously through a crack saw one of the men had just cut the throat of a goat. He almost laughed with relief, but this feeling was abruptly halted by what he heard next. The man holding the goat remarked, “That was an easier job than the last, such a noise as was made last night! The Murder Hole is the thing for me, dead and buried right away, with no signs left”.

“Which is it to be for him?” asked the mother, and her son drew the still bloody knife across his throat. The pedlar did not wait to hear more and ran to the window, pulling it open he leaped outside, still in his shirt and socks. Unfortunately the window made a noise and from inside he heard someone call, “Loose the bloodhound!” Terrified the boy ran for his life, stumbling through the moss hags and over rocks and stones. He could hear the baying dog behind him getting closer, and the men’s voices urging it on. Suddenly he tripped and fell, and as he lay there dazed and bleeding he could already feel the knife against his throat. Staggering to his feet he ran on and the dog reached the place where he fallen. It found the blood from his cut and began licking it, and nothing the men could do would make it carry on the search.

He was found in the morning, battered and bruised by some men going to work and when the people from the village heard his story they set out to revenge the loss of their friend and relatives, hanging the perpetrators from a gibbet. Before they were hanged they confessed to dispatching of nearly fifty people in the Murder Hole and when the cottage was searched they found the body of the last victim in the chest.
Last Updated on Tuesday, 16 December 2008 10:38