Possessed Possessions : The Hexham Heads

 On a fateful day in May of 1971, in the rear garden of 3 Rede Avenue, an anonymous house situated in the market town of Hexham, two sons of the Robson family had been engaged in a game which involved digging small pebbles up out of the ground, and then throwing them at each other. Much to the frustration of Mrs Robson, Colin and Leslie Robson had been engaged in the activity for quite some time but suddenly, the boys ceased what they were doing.

 When Mrs Robson stepped outside of the house to check on them, the brothers showed her a pair of unnaturally smooth stones which they had dug up from the ground. Roughly six centimetres in diameter, both stones appeared to have crude human faces etched upon them. One of them was masculine in appearance, seemingly representing a young boy, whilst the other depicted distinctly female features. These stone heads were eventually named “The Hexham Heads”.

Hexham Heads (Source: Chloë Delanghe)

 Intrigued by their find, the two boys brought the stone heads back into the house and set them to one side. However, over the course of the days that followed, they would understand that it was not a wise decision.

Paranormal Experiences of the Robson Family

 The first indication that something paranormal may have entered the house along with the two artefacts came when the adult members of the family began noticing the stone heads move on their own accord. Waking up in the morning, Mr and Mrs Robson often found the heads turned around overnight, facing the opposite direction to how they had been left the previous evening. At times, they were found lying on the floor while on several other instances, they were found in rooms different to the one they had been originally left in.

 Soon afterwards, there were several instances of glass objects inexplicably shattering inside the house, despite no one being present around them. Even after the family removed all the broken pieces of glass, they would later find long shards of glass hidden under the pillows of the girls of the household. The blame was initially cast upon Colin and Leslie but the boys vehemently denied their involvement.

 After several weeks of the strange activity, Mrs Robson was awoken in the middle of the night by worried cries of Colin. When she went to comfort him, he claimed that an invisible pair of hands yanked his hair while he was sleeping. As Mrs Robin sat on the side of his bed, a sudden commotion in the hallway caught her attention following which she noticed a paranormal presence in the doorway. Eerily staring at her from the entrance of the room was a fur-covered humanoid with a goat-like face. The moment this entity became aware that Mrs Robson could see it, it immediately disappeared from sight, leaving behind no traces.

 Blaming the incident on her her imagination and drowsiness, the baffled housewife decided not to mention the encounter to anyone else. However, she was terrified when her neighbours revealed a similar sighting.

Paranormal Experiences of the Dodd Family

 Number 1 Rede Avenue, home to Issac Dodd, Nelly Dodd and their four children, was located directly next door to the Robson family residence. One evening, while having a drink with her neighbour, Nelly asked Mrs Robson if she had observed anything unusual in the weeks before. When asked why, she confided an unnerving encounter which had occurred several nights prior.

 Early that night, as young Marie Dodd had been suffering the effects of a severe ear infection, Nelly had gone into the kid’s room to comfort her. Just as Marie was on the verge of falling asleep, the girl suddenly sat upright in her bed before screaming uncontrollably. Unable to calm her daughter down, Nelly had pleaded with her to reveal what was wrong following which she pointed to something standing behind her.

 When Nelly slowly turned to see what her daughter was pointing at, she witnessed a terrifying creature standing at her shoulder, allegedly reaching out for her with its long taloned hand. The bi-pedal creature had the body of a man, but a face composed of features of a wolf and a goat. Instantaneously, Nelly began screaming in horror and her frantic cries merged with those of her daughters. The two women watched in horror as the creature dropped down onto all fours and quickly fled the room.

 Isaac Dodd, hearing their screams, came running across the landing towards the bedroom, before he suddenly stopped in his tracks upon hearing heavy footsteps run down the staircase behind him. The very next moment, he heard the house’s back door open. When he quickly made his way down into the hallway, he found the door wide open. Isaac had himself locked the door an hour before and was lost for words to explain how it had been opened. To further add to the oddity, there was no trace of anyone in the garden, despite the high fences encompassing it.

 In the days that followed the encounter, paranormal occurrences similar to those experienced by the Robsons commenced at the Dodd household. Glass bottles began breaking on their own and the kids of the family began making repeated claims of being beaten by an invisible hand. Eventually, the paranormal phenomena became so distressing that the Dodds moved away from their house in Hexham following which the paranormal events stopped.

Paranormal Experiences of Professor Anne and her Family 

 After persisting through several weeks of poltergeist attacks, the Robsons finally decided to pass the “Hexham Heads” to the staff at the local abbey. Just as they anticipated, the paranormal happenings stopped after the antiques were removed from their house.

 From the abbey, the Hexam Heads were sent to Southampton University for analysis, thus making their way to the desk of Anne Ross, a lecturer with commendable expertise in Pagan artefacts. During the course of her analysis, Anne discovered that the stone heads had Celtic origins. She eventually took them home, placed them in a box and subsequently forgot about them.

 A week later, Anne woke up from her slumber after feeling a presence in her bedroom. As her sleepy eyes darted across the poorly lit room, she caught sight of a dark shape standing concealed in the shadows. A few moments later, when the bipedal figure glided towards the door, she briefly witnessed a tall and slender frame. The entity was covered in black fur, with a wolf-like snout dominating its face. Anne saw the figure disappear down the stairs, but was too terrified to follow. Initially, she did not associate this event with the Hexham Heads, but a further encounter would prove her initial assumptions to be wrong.

Anne Ross (Source: Burials And Beyond)

 One evening, as her husband Richard was ill in bed, Berenice, their fifteen-year-old daughter, was taking him a meal upstairs. Moments later, she found her path blocked by a terrifying entity. As she tried to scream, the intruder vaulted the bannister and disappeared from sight. Although the young girl clearly heard the thump of its feet hitting the wooden flooring in the hall below, there was no trace of it on the lower floor.

 With nothing similar taking place over the next week, the professor believed the matter concluded, only to receive an angry phone call from her husband while she was at work.

The Last Straw

 Pushing open the low wooden gate which led into her front porch, Berenice Ross bid farewell to her two friends, who had accompanied her along Rose Road. Aware that her parents would be at work for at least the next couple of hours, she retrieved the house key from its hiding place beneath the flower pot and let herself inside the house. She hung her school blazer and bag on her allocated peg and just as always, looked around for the family cat Tom who was less than a year old.

 The highly inquisitive ginger always waited in the hallway anticipating Berenice’s return but that day, the room stood dark and silent with no trace of the family pet. Calling out its name, Berenice paused for a moment as she heard Tom’s muffled cry emanate from the inside of the front room. Joyfully, the schoolgirl walked across the hall and opened the door before finding the small cat sitting in a corner of the room. When she reached out to pick it up, it uncharacteristically lashed out at her with its claws, hissing angrily. Startled by her pet’s aggressive behaviour, she slowly back-peddled into the hall.

 Berenice was halfway to the door when she heard a muffled thud emanate from the floor above her. Aware she should be alone in the house, the fifteen-year-old convinced herself assuming that she must have been hearing things. However, when she directed her attention back towards Tom, she heard another soft thud come from the ceiling above her. Parallelly, Tom gave a petrified mewl following which he retreated further into the living room.

 With her eyes fixed on the top of the staircase, Berenice started to slowly edge towards the front door when a foot appeared from the shadow, firmly planting itself on the topmost step. It rested there for a moment following which another foot descended onto the succeeding step. With thick layers of fur covering the feet and sharp menacing claws extending out from its long toes, they were like nothing she had ever seen. They began to continue their journey down the stairs as a nightmarish figure revealed itself.

 The face of the bipedal black-haired figure was dominated by a long snout, with a wide mouth filled with sharp teeth. The unwelcomed guest fixed its stare on Bernice before it opened its mouth even further, revealing a thick tongue lolling to one side. Bernice let out a long deafening scream in fear following which the terrifying creature reversed and disappeared.

 A couple of hours later, when Richard Feachem returned home from work, he found his petrified daughter shut in the living room. The door was barricaded and she had her beloved cat cradled in her arms. Upon listening to his daughter’s testimony of the incident, he immediately called Anne and delivered his ultimatum. Either she removed the “Hexham Heads” from inside their home, or he would take the children and leave.

  Having now become aware of the nature of the items in her possession, Anne hastily moved the stone heads from her house to storage at the University. Similar to the previous cases, the inexplicable occurrences stopped after the stone heads were removed from her house.

Obscure Origins

 Occasionally subjected to testing, the Hexam Heads would stay in the same storage for the next seven years, until they were then acquired by Frank Hyde, an engineer with an interest in the paranormal. Frank performed tests on them using a Faraday Cage but after he mysteriously vanished, the location of the heads and the results of his tests were lost with him. Some of the tests conducted at the university were published, but they only added further mystery to the origins of the artefacts.

The heads were so roughly carved, that it proved difficult to find techniques from any previous historical period to align them to. Furthermore, the lack of organic matter within the stone heads made it literally impossible to date them. It was concluded that they had been created from a natural grey sandstone rock possessing a high degree of quartz. This was in accordance with the rock formations found in and around Hexham, but there was no evidence to suggest that the Celts had ever settled in the region.

 In 1974, Des Craigie, a local tradesman, came forward claiming to be the creator of the heads. He had allegedly carved the stones for his daughters while residing at 3 Rede Avenue before the Robsons moved in. To validate his claims, he produced a number of copies carved from a composite material, moulded from local crushed stone. Although similar in nature, his claims were rejected by experts who cited the fact that the carvings and materials used were different. So, what were the Hexham Heads?

Conclusion

 The discovery made by Anne seems to be the most plausible explanation. The Celts believed that the head was the location of the human soul and that stone depictions of it are linked to the spirit world. A lot of stone heads have been unearthed in and around Britain over the years, often found near water bodies. This further accredits the claim as the Celts believed in water acting as a conduit for the undead.

 Over the years that followed, the families involved in the story have maintained their accounts of the paranormal phenomena without any deviation. With the stone heads lost, the likelihood of finding the link between their origins and the bewildering phenomena associated with them seems to be close to improbable.