Locals Ron and Betty Harper were hardly in a good mood when they
discovered that the mysterious creature had stripped whole sections of their
old, mighty oak tree bare of bark. To the kids of Brassknocker Hill, however,
the hunt for the beast provided them all the excitement they needed of a jolly
adventure of Hardy Boys proportions –
particularly so when, only one month later, the number of trees targeted had
reached an astonishing fifty, and the woods were plunged into an eerie silence
after almost all the local birds summarily fled the area, presumably for far
safer and beast-free pastures.
Meanwhile, eighty one year old Brassknocker Hill resident Frank Green,
clearly hyped up to the max and desperately trying to live out his Dirty Harry fantasies, took a far more
grave and serious view of the strange situation. He took up nothing less than a
day and night shotgun vigil, and told the media in loud and worried tones: “I
am very fond of some animals, but I reckon this creature could be dangerous and
I am taking no chances.”
Fortunately, or unfortunately – depending on one’s personal perspective
on the monstrous matter - Green did not have the opportunity to blast the
baboon-like beast to kingdom come, or, indeed, to anywhere. It skilfully avoided all of his attempts to track it
down, much to the relief of the police, who were hardly enamoured by the idea
of a grouchy, old-age pensioner roaming around Brassknocker Hill with a loaded
shotgun in search of a marauding, unknown creature.
Nearby Monkton Combe became the next locale terrorized by the Beast of
Brassknocker Hill. A small, old village situated approximately three miles from
Bath, the main claim to fame of Monkton Combe is that the village’s
railway-station appeared in the 1931 film, The
Ghost Train, penned by Arnold Ridley (Mr. Godfrey in the BBC’s classic,
wartime comedy TV series, Dad’s Army),
and also in the 1953 Ealing comedy-movie production, The Titfield Thunderbolt. As for the creature, it was seen by a man
who was driving through the area late one night, and who offered the anonymous
description to the press that the animal he crossed paths with was of a
significant size, seemed somewhat bear-like in appearance, briefly stood on its
thick and substantial hind legs, and possessed a pair of large eyes that were
surrounded by great white circles of fur or hair.
Getting in on the growing sensationalism, a Dutch newspaper – Het Binnenhof – ran a story that,
translated into English, practically suggested an assault on Brassknocker Hill
of the type of proportions one would expect to see in a Tokyo-shattering
on-screen attack by Godzilla! The title of Het
Binnenhof’s eye-catching article, that provided an entertaining summary of
the affair, was: Beast of Bath
By the time the following summer arrived, the mystery seemed to have
been solved: A policeman, one Inspector Michael Price, caught sight in the
woods of what he thought was nothing less than a large chimpanzee running
around; although the identification of the animal was never fully confirmed,
thus leaving the cage-door open to the possibility it had been a baboon, after
all. The local press quickly sought out comments from the police. And they got
them, too: “We were sure this mystery creature would turn out to be a monkey of
some sort,” said Inspector Price himself, clearly and happily wallowing in a
brief wave of very odd publicity. “After all, men from Mars aren’t hairy, are
they?” Quite! But rumours of strange and savage activities at Brassknocker Hill
persisted, much to the glee of the local media.
Two years later, the stories returned, only this time – rather curiously
- the tales of a baboon, or some other type of monkey, on the loose were
replaced by sightings of something very different. A stag, polecat, or even a
Japanese deer, were among the many and varied candidates for the new beast of
the hill. Then, one morning in the summer of 1984, reports started coming in to
the news-desk of the Bath Chronicle
newspaper of a strange-looking creature holding up traffic on Brassknocker
Hill. Once again, for the press, the game was afoot, to reference a certain
famous and fictional detective.
“I grabbed my notebook,” said reporter Roger Green, who later became the
editor of the Littlehampton Gazette.
“Colin [Shepherd] the photographer grabbed his camera, and we rushed out to the
hill. The reports were pretty credible, so we were convinced that there was
something there,” Green recalled. “It was with slight trepidation that we
entered the woods. After several minutes of stalking, we came across the
“beast,” by then calmly grazing in a field. It was an Alpacca, a type of llama,
and had escaped from a paddock. It was later reunited with its owner by the
police.”
But, quite obviously, this did not explain the earlier sightings of a
baboon-like animal, which – under no
circumstances, at all - could have
been confused with a llama! Needless to say, the mystery was never resolved, and
the baboon, if that is what it really was, vanished, died, or moved on to
pastures and tree-bark new. But, the legend of the Beast of Brassknocker Hill
continues to thrive amongst the residents of the area who still very well
remember those monster-filled, crazy days and dark nights of years now long
gone.
His books include The Pyramids and the Pentagon; Keep Out!; The Real Men in Black; The NASA Conspiracies; Contactees; and Memoirs of a Monster Hunter all published by New Page Books. His new book The World's Weirdest Places will be published in October. He writes for many publications, including UFO Magazine, Fate, and Fortean Times, and has appeared on numerous television shows, including the History Channel’s Ancient Aliens,Monster Quest, and UFO Hunters; National Geographic Channel’s The Truth about UFOs, and Paranatural; and SyFy Channel’s Proof Positive.
Picture credited to Scott A. Andrews
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