Lasting Rose

During the last century, Rhymer Greenshill, that wandering minstrel of the 19th Century, delved pretty deeply into most local legends, and his ballad, "The Ghost Riders" offers an explanation for the spooky happenings in the Wood, which hugs the left hand side of Bridgenorth Road as it leaves Himley Village.

A couple of miles away in the Kingswinford direction, lies Holbeache House, the scene of the last skirmish between the fellow-conspirators of Guy Fawkes and the forces of  the Sheriff of Worcester.
Stephen Lyttleton, kin to the Lords of Hagley, rode hotfoot to his house at Holbeache after the plot misfired and Guy Fawkes had been captured. With him rode Sir Everard Digby, Catesby and the Winter brothers John and Robert. With a retinue of servants and a wagonload of gun-powder, they crossed the Stour, determined to put up a last stand at Holbeache.

Well-armed and provisioned to withstand a lengthy seige, they must have felt pretty secure, that is, until they discovered that their gun-powder had become wet during the fording of the Stour. Amidst the gunfire and the plunging of the panic-stricken horses, the servants used furniture from the room to build a roaring fire, around which they placed the casks of damp powder. A spark from the fire ignited the gunpowder and a tremendous explosion took place, blowing the roof off the building and killing half-a-dozen of the occupants.
Stephen Littleton and Robert Winter mounted up and managed to escape in the confusion, and were swallowed up in the dense woodland of Pensnett Chase. Lyttleton's young groom, who fought alongside his master in Holbeache House, wounded severly above the throat, managed to climb aboard one of the terror stricken horses and dash through the fire, smoke and the cordon of men-at-arms, and reach the woods, but whereas his master had raced away in the Pensnett Direction and higher ground, young Grove headed for Wombourne and into a section of fenland a mile or so from the house. He was caught there and brutally murdered by the men-at-arms.
We have ample evidence that Rhymer Greenshill based his ballads on actual happenings, and there is justification for believing that Gideon Grove died in this manner. Furthermore, there is no doubt about the Wombourne legend of the "Phantom Horseman" who has repeatedly been sighted within the last decade is none other than the Ghost of Gideon Grove!