Arbury Estate, Nuneaton, Warwickshire (1930s)

Birmingham Daily Post, Monday 13th February 1939
"Red Deeps": A quarry described by George Eliot
Some years ago, an old estate workman at Arbury used to recall seeing, when a youth, a lady in a black silk dress sitting on a low stone wall at Griff Hollows, notebook in hand, sketching or writing. She was George Eliot, visiting a favourite haunt, Griff Hollows or Griff Bottoms, which she depicted in "The Mill on the Floss" as "Red Deeps".
[...]
The canal at "Red Deeps" has an association with Sir Roger Newdigate, the famous antiquary, and fifth baronet, who was depicted by George Eliot - she was born on his estate - as "Sir Christopher Cheverel." Some years before his death Sir Roger cut a canal through his ground to join the Coventry canal, and it was said that he could enter a boat on his estate and go to Venice by water without putting foot on dry land.
Following the canal-side one can understand how Maggie Tulliver held "Red Deeps" in awe, and needed all her confidence in her brother Tom's bravery to reconcile her to an excursion thither, "visions of robbers and fierce animals haunting every hollow." The legends of "visions" at Griff Hollows persist to this day, and a superstition among Warwickshire miners who have to pass through the valley on their way to work is that of the "seven whistlers." The whistlers are seven birds, which are said to fly together at night making a whistling noise and presaging disaster. Many miners, if they think they hear the birds, return home, instead of going on the night shift.
[...]

Bedworth, Warwickshire

On Monday morning a large number of the miners employed at some of the Bedworth collieries in North Warwickshire, giving way to a superstition which has long prevailed amongst their [-], refused to descend the coal pits in which they are employed. The men are credulous enough to believe that certain sounds, which are doubtless produced by flocks of night birds in their passage across the country, are harbingers of some impending colliery accident.

During Sunday night it was stated that these sounds, which have been designated "the seven whistlers," had been distinctly heard in the neighbourhood of Bedworth, and the result was that on the following morning, when work should have been resumed, many of the men positively refused to descend the pits, and were to be seen on Monday idling about the streets of the town.

The recent colliery accidents at Bedworth, and the "sounds" by which they are said to have been preceded, seem to have augmented rather than diminished this superstitious belief.

The Merthyr Telegraph and General Advertiser for the Iron Districts of South Wales, 2nd October 1874.


A paragraph has been going the round of the papers during the past week, which seems to us to be a striking illustration of how not to deal with the industrial aspect of popular superstitions. It is said that the miners at the Bedworth collieries in North Warwickshire, refused to go down the pit one day last week because certain sounds, known as "the seven whistlers," had been heard the night before; and the paragraph adds that "they are credulous enough to believe that these sounds, which are doubtless produced by nocturnal birds in their passage across the country, are harbingers of some impending colliery disaster."

Now it seems to us that the believers in these mysterious "nocturnal birds" are even more credulous than the colliers. What nocturnal birds are there  which make noises in their passage across the country at night? If there are such birds, is the early September their time for migrating? And if so, did anybody see them on the night in question so as to be able to say that "doubtless" the sounds proceeded from them. The penny-a-liner's explanation is doubtless a figment of his own dogmatism.

It is obvious to any scientific man that these noises are worth inquiring into if they are really heard at all. Colliery accidents arise from the escape of compressed gases, and there are some states of the atmosphere in which those gases show a greater disposition to escape than others. Now it is by no means impossible that when the sudden lightening of atmospheric pressure which favours colliery explosions takes place, these imprisoned gases may expand, and a singing or whistling noise is exactly the sound which would probably accompany such expansion.

It seems to be admitted that the people did hear "the seven whistlers" before the last colliery accident in the district in question; and if so, it is by no means impossible that their perception of the connection of the noises whith the condition which favours accident is a true one though their explanation of the noises is as absurd as that of the newspaper reporter's "night-birds." The matter is, at anyrate, worth inquiring into. Earth noises due to the escape of vapours are quite as common as "flocks of night-birds," and may give a warning of the condition of the strata which it might be well to note and observe. --- Capital and Labour.

In the Burnley Advertiser, 10th October 1874.

"Strikes caused by ghosts"

Quite recently the whole of the miners belonging to the Glyncorrwg Colliery, near Port Talbot, Glamorganshire, went out on strike through fear of a ghost. Deep down in the nethermost workings, they assert, a white-clothed female figure appears at frequent but irregular intervals, waves her arms thrice above her head, mutters certain words in an unknown tongue, and then vanishes.

This, of course, is no new thing. Miners are proverbially superstitious, and it is only natural that they should decline to go down into a mine that they believe to be haunted; but it is rather hard lines for the mine-owners especially as these ghost-induced strikes often prove exceedingly expensive.

Thus, in 1873, several hundred Warwickshire colliers ceased work, owing to the alleged appearance, in a disused drift, of a "luminous boy." This strike lasted for the better part of a year, and cost £30,000; and after all the so-called "luminous boy" turned out to be nothing more supernatural than a collection of decaying fungi.

Bell-ringing apparitions have haunted the Cornish tin-mines from time immemorial. The miners assert that the bells are rung by kindly-disposed ghosts, themselves miners when in the flesh, as a warning of impending calamity; and no amount of persuasion will induce them to venture below ground at such times.

One of these curious strikes lasted five months; and another which threatened to continue indefinitely, was only brought to a close by the plucky action of one of the proprietors, who, in order to reassure his men, descended himself into the particular working which was supposed to be haunted, and stayed there quite alone for three days and nights.

Very tragic was the termination of the spook-bred strike which, in 1887, occurred iat Mons Colliery, in Belgium. Late in April the men came out because, so they averred, a strange shaggy man, who vanished when approached, had been heard in the workings foretelling disaster and muttering imprecations against those who disregarded his warnings. for several days the mine lay idle, but on the morning of the 5th of MArch the manager had so far succeeded in allaying the fears of the men that a goodly proportion of them returned to work. Two or three hours later a terrific explosion occurred, causing the death of eighty-seven of them.

Northants Evening Telegraph, 16th August 1902.