Like some kind of unstoppable juggernaut of awfulness, so this Frightday lumbers into GD all ragged and blood-drenched. And timely its appearance is too, for ‘tis Hallowe’en soon my friends—the time of year when the shimmering veil that divides our realm from that of the Death’s is at its thinnest and wise folk lock their doors and keep edged weaponry handy. As ever, this is all written by me. It’s about Dartmoor. Some of you might have been there.
So, draw your curtains, pour yourself another glass of Tizer, huddle into the comforting folds of your Pikachu onesie and read on...IF YOU DARE.
The Horror of the Killer Hands!
Dartmoor: almost a thousand square kilometres of bleak, elemental land. Here, amid the regal menhirs, rocky tors and dangerous bogs, fairytales and legends flourish and have done so for many hundreds of years with spectral hounds, pixies and even a decapitated horseman all thought by some to roam this desolate moorland. But it is to a quite precise point in Dartmoor that we turn our attention—a stretch of road where a truly horrifying apparition has reportedly been the reason behind a multitude of accidents, some of them fatal.
The road that links the small village of Postbridge with Two Bridges is an old one. Now assigned the name B3212, it was once a turnpike (toll road) named Carter’s Road and was built in the late 18th century and for a long time it was the only ‘proper’ route to cross the moor’s expanse. In more recent times, a short section of this thoroughfare has become known as a particularly spooky ‘accident black spot’, the cause of which has a most unusual and unique attribution. This is because, since the early years of the 1900s, some motorists and cyclists have complained of a sudden loss of control of their vehicle caused by their steering wheels or handlebars being wrenched from their grasp by a pair of hirsute, disembodied hands! No matter how hard they struggled against the bizarre ‘Hairy Hands’, their vehicles usually ended up driven off the road. Even horses and carts suffered a similar fate.
In June of 1921, Dr. E.H. Helby, who worked as a medical officer at HM Prison Dartmoor, was killed after his motorcycle and sidecar uncontrollably veered off the road and crashed. On the approach to the small bridge there, he had shouted to the two children who were riding in the motorcycle’s sidecar (the daughters of Dartmoor Prison’s governor) to jump clear. Thankfully, the young girls managed to do just that, but the doctor was less fortunate and the ensuing crash brought about his premature death. That year proved to be a busy one for the Hairy Hands as just a few weeks after Dr. Helby’s demise a coach driver experienced a similar loss of control when his vehicle skidded off the road, injuring some of the passengers in the process. Then, on the 26th of August, a captain of the British Army crashed his motorcycle at the exact same spot. Despite most sources maintaining that the unnamed captain died, the following quote was found that seems to suggest otherwise:
Naturally, the area quickly became notorious and the stories of the Hairy Hands even made it into the national newspapers. Ghost Club investigator Michael Williams’ book, Supernatural Dartmoor, hosts an anecdote recounted by the writer Ronald ‘Rufus’ Endle, who died in 1986. In it, Endle tells how he was driving his car near Postbridge when “a pair of hands gripped the driving wheel and I had to fight for control”. Endle was lucky (or strong enough) and was able to maintain control of his car before the hands disappeared “as inexplicably as they had come”. Interestingly, Endle supposedly asked Michael Williams to hold the story back from publication until after his death, presumably out of fear of mockery. Another instance involved a lady by the name of Florence Warwick who was on holiday in south Devon. While travelling along the B3212 to her accommodation in Torbay after a sightseeing trip, the 28-year-old woman’s car unexpectedly shuddered to a halt near Postbridge and refused to restart. Warwick leaned over and delved into the glove-box, to retrieve the car’s manual. She said:
The hands proceeded to crawl across the screen by themselves:
Luckily, a frantic attempt to start the car’s engine was successful and she sped off to safety. Supposedly, Florence Warwick had not known about the legend of the Hairy Hands before her encounter with them and it was only after she related her terrifying experience to friends that she was told about the old legend.
Another fatal crash happened 1960 when a car left the road and overturned. The driver had been making his way from Plymouth to Chagford when he mysteriously lost control of the car. No evidence of the involvement of another vehicle was found and the police investigation found no mechanical problems with the car itself. Motorists are not the only ones to have suffered unwanted attention from this most unusual manifestation. Hikers walking close to this notorious section of road have claimed “strange experiences and sensations”. In the rather wet summer of 1924, Theo Brown, the popular folklorist, was sleeping in her caravan not far from the B3212 when she sensed that something was afoot:
If, as some sources suggest, Theo Brown’s caravan had been parked amongst the scattered remnants of Powder Mills (once a thriving industrial site but now a series of ruined buildings slowly being reclaimed by the moor), the tor mentioned by her must be Higher White Tor. Powder Mills itself is an interesting location for one of the few stories that claims to shed light upon the Hairy Hands’ origin is set there.
During the second half of the 1800s, the Plymouth and Dartmoor Gunpowder Company’s Powder Mills was a busy complex that attempted to satisfy the area’s great demand for gunpowder. This explosive was needed not just for blasting rock by the local quarries, but also by farms with rocky enclosures that required clearing. Naturally, the risk of explosion at the mill was ever-present and all measures to avoid naked flames and accidental sparks were undertaken by the workers, including the removal of metal studs from the soles of their boots. The local blacksmith who, conveniently enough, is said to have possessed “big strong, hairy arms and hands”, was contracted to repair the Mill’s faulty machinery. The story goes that one evening, after more than a few drinks, the burly smith wandered up to the Mill having forgotten to take off his hob-nailed boots. As his soles struck the granite floor, the ensuing sparks ignited some nearby gunpowder and exploded, vapourising most of the hapless man. The story says that only his hands were found intact.
Other explanations discount the blacksmith’s story and say that the mutilated hands belong to an unnamed man who expired in an accident on the road, although further details are elusive. Still others point to an ancient Bronze Age settlement that once existed in that area of Dartmoor.
Whatever the origin, the police have never seemed to take the supernatural aspects of the reports seriously and even local residents mainly blamed drunkenness or unfamiliarity with the slim Dartmoor roads for the accidents, especially when the ‘witness’ turned out to be a ‘grockle’ (Devon slang for ‘tourist’).
Investigations undertaken by the local council revealed that the road had an unusual camber which was subsequently rectified. Harsher speed limits were later introduced to protect drivers and the free-roaming livestock alike.
For now, the hideous Hairy Hands seem to have disappeared and I haven’t heard of any recent stories about them. Or perhaps they merely lie in wait for some unsuspecting, milky-white overclocker...
Fancy more creepy reads?
Frightday 1: The Cooper Falling Body Photograph
Frightday 2: What’s your Ghost Name?
Frightday 3: The Mystery of the Chase Coffins
Frightday 4: Robert the Haunted Doll
Frightday 5: The SS Watertown’s Floating Faces
Frightday 6: The Gruesome Mystery of Elisa Lam
Frightday 7: The Strange Case of the Burpham Crash
Sources
So, draw your curtains, pour yourself another glass of Tizer, huddle into the comforting folds of your Pikachu onesie and read on...IF YOU DARE.
The Horror of the Killer Hands!
Dartmoor: almost a thousand square kilometres of bleak, elemental land. Here, amid the regal menhirs, rocky tors and dangerous bogs, fairytales and legends flourish and have done so for many hundreds of years with spectral hounds, pixies and even a decapitated horseman all thought by some to roam this desolate moorland. But it is to a quite precise point in Dartmoor that we turn our attention—a stretch of road where a truly horrifying apparition has reportedly been the reason behind a multitude of accidents, some of them fatal.
The road that links the small village of Postbridge with Two Bridges is an old one. Now assigned the name B3212, it was once a turnpike (toll road) named Carter’s Road and was built in the late 18th century and for a long time it was the only ‘proper’ route to cross the moor’s expanse. In more recent times, a short section of this thoroughfare has become known as a particularly spooky ‘accident black spot’, the cause of which has a most unusual and unique attribution. This is because, since the early years of the 1900s, some motorists and cyclists have complained of a sudden loss of control of their vehicle caused by their steering wheels or handlebars being wrenched from their grasp by a pair of hirsute, disembodied hands! No matter how hard they struggled against the bizarre ‘Hairy Hands’, their vehicles usually ended up driven off the road. Even horses and carts suffered a similar fate.
In June of 1921, Dr. E.H. Helby, who worked as a medical officer at HM Prison Dartmoor, was killed after his motorcycle and sidecar uncontrollably veered off the road and crashed. On the approach to the small bridge there, he had shouted to the two children who were riding in the motorcycle’s sidecar (the daughters of Dartmoor Prison’s governor) to jump clear. Thankfully, the young girls managed to do just that, but the doctor was less fortunate and the ensuing crash brought about his premature death. That year proved to be a busy one for the Hairy Hands as just a few weeks after Dr. Helby’s demise a coach driver experienced a similar loss of control when his vehicle skidded off the road, injuring some of the passengers in the process. Then, on the 26th of August, a captain of the British Army crashed his motorcycle at the exact same spot. Despite most sources maintaining that the unnamed captain died, the following quote was found that seems to suggest otherwise:
Naturally, the area quickly became notorious and the stories of the Hairy Hands even made it into the national newspapers. Ghost Club investigator Michael Williams’ book, Supernatural Dartmoor, hosts an anecdote recounted by the writer Ronald ‘Rufus’ Endle, who died in 1986. In it, Endle tells how he was driving his car near Postbridge when “a pair of hands gripped the driving wheel and I had to fight for control”. Endle was lucky (or strong enough) and was able to maintain control of his car before the hands disappeared “as inexplicably as they had come”. Interestingly, Endle supposedly asked Michael Williams to hold the story back from publication until after his death, presumably out of fear of mockery. Another instance involved a lady by the name of Florence Warwick who was on holiday in south Devon. While travelling along the B3212 to her accommodation in Torbay after a sightseeing trip, the 28-year-old woman’s car unexpectedly shuddered to a halt near Postbridge and refused to restart. Warwick leaned over and delved into the glove-box, to retrieve the car’s manual. She said:
The hands proceeded to crawl across the screen by themselves:
Luckily, a frantic attempt to start the car’s engine was successful and she sped off to safety. Supposedly, Florence Warwick had not known about the legend of the Hairy Hands before her encounter with them and it was only after she related her terrifying experience to friends that she was told about the old legend.
Another fatal crash happened 1960 when a car left the road and overturned. The driver had been making his way from Plymouth to Chagford when he mysteriously lost control of the car. No evidence of the involvement of another vehicle was found and the police investigation found no mechanical problems with the car itself. Motorists are not the only ones to have suffered unwanted attention from this most unusual manifestation. Hikers walking close to this notorious section of road have claimed “strange experiences and sensations”. In the rather wet summer of 1924, Theo Brown, the popular folklorist, was sleeping in her caravan not far from the B3212 when she sensed that something was afoot:
If, as some sources suggest, Theo Brown’s caravan had been parked amongst the scattered remnants of Powder Mills (once a thriving industrial site but now a series of ruined buildings slowly being reclaimed by the moor), the tor mentioned by her must be Higher White Tor. Powder Mills itself is an interesting location for one of the few stories that claims to shed light upon the Hairy Hands’ origin is set there.
During the second half of the 1800s, the Plymouth and Dartmoor Gunpowder Company’s Powder Mills was a busy complex that attempted to satisfy the area’s great demand for gunpowder. This explosive was needed not just for blasting rock by the local quarries, but also by farms with rocky enclosures that required clearing. Naturally, the risk of explosion at the mill was ever-present and all measures to avoid naked flames and accidental sparks were undertaken by the workers, including the removal of metal studs from the soles of their boots. The local blacksmith who, conveniently enough, is said to have possessed “big strong, hairy arms and hands”, was contracted to repair the Mill’s faulty machinery. The story goes that one evening, after more than a few drinks, the burly smith wandered up to the Mill having forgotten to take off his hob-nailed boots. As his soles struck the granite floor, the ensuing sparks ignited some nearby gunpowder and exploded, vapourising most of the hapless man. The story says that only his hands were found intact.
Other explanations discount the blacksmith’s story and say that the mutilated hands belong to an unnamed man who expired in an accident on the road, although further details are elusive. Still others point to an ancient Bronze Age settlement that once existed in that area of Dartmoor.
Whatever the origin, the police have never seemed to take the supernatural aspects of the reports seriously and even local residents mainly blamed drunkenness or unfamiliarity with the slim Dartmoor roads for the accidents, especially when the ‘witness’ turned out to be a ‘grockle’ (Devon slang for ‘tourist’).
Investigations undertaken by the local council revealed that the road had an unusual camber which was subsequently rectified. Harsher speed limits were later introduced to protect drivers and the free-roaming livestock alike.
For now, the hideous Hairy Hands seem to have disappeared and I haven’t heard of any recent stories about them. Or perhaps they merely lie in wait for some unsuspecting, milky-white overclocker...
Fancy more creepy reads?
Frightday 1: The Cooper Falling Body Photograph
Frightday 2: What’s your Ghost Name?
Frightday 3: The Mystery of the Chase Coffins
Frightday 4: Robert the Haunted Doll
Frightday 5: The SS Watertown’s Floating Faces
Frightday 6: The Gruesome Mystery of Elisa Lam
Frightday 7: The Strange Case of the Burpham Crash
Sources
Most of this story if taken from a chapter in one of my books as I ran out of time for this Frightday, so the sources are listed in there.
