Bonnie Prince Charlie

(Written by Wayne Anthony & Richard Felix)

When Charles Edward Stuart and his small army of Highlanders reached Derby on 4 December 1745, one of their most important tasks was to send a party the seven miles from Derby to Swarkestone to try to secure the bridge over the River Trent.

Swarkestone Bridge is the longest stone bridge in England, and in 1745 it was the only bridge across the River Trent between Burton and Nottingham. For the prince's army it was also the only way to London and probable victory.

Seventy Highland soldiers, probably cavalry, were sent to secure the bridge, and they reached it four hours before Government troops, who had been ordered to destroy the bridge to stop Charlie's army from crossing it. Those 70 Scottish soldiers held Swarkestone Bridge until 6 December. Some of them went over it to Melbourne, to warn locals to prepare billets for the Highland army when they crossed over on their way to take the throne from King George II.

This was not to be, of course, the decision being made at Derby to turn back. Thus, Swarkestone Bridge was the farthest point south reached by Bonnie Prince Charlie's troops.

Some 102 years earlier there had been a skirmish on Swarkestone Bridge between troops of Bonnie Prince Charlie's great-grandfather, Charles 1, and those of Oliver Cromwell during the English Civil War. Sir John Harpur of Swarkestone fortified his own home, and the bridge as well. Sir John Gell, the Parliamentary commandant of Derby, led his own regiment out of the town and hurled them against the Royalist barricades at Swarkestone Bridge. Seven or eight men were killed during that skirmish.

There have been many strange sightings at Swarkestone, one of the most interesting coming from a gentleman who claims: "I was walking my dog. It was late at night and it had just started to rain when in the distance, I could hear the sound of horses' hooves. I thought at the time that it was locals out for a late ride. This thought was soon dismissed as the noise of horses' hooves became accompanied by the sound of clatter and talking which became louder and louder. My curiosity aroused, I waited in anticipation for the late riders to appear. They never did, although the noises became louder still, until, in the end when I thought that I could take it no more, the noise and the chaotic clatter stopped.

My dog Harvey, with me all the time that the clamour was taking place, seemed not to have been affected by what had happened. Further along Swarkestone Bridge, I met a lady who also was walking her dogs and asked her if she had seen or heard anything. She looked at me blankly, stating that she did not know what I was talking about. I also asked two other people in the vicinity but they, likewise, denied hearing anything. Several months later, I was telling an elderly aunt about my experience. She did not seem unduly surprised and when I had finished she told me that she too had heard something similar in 1948. My aunt also told me that what I had experienced was apparently the ghosts of Bonnie Prince Charlie and his Highlanders trying to cross the bridge."

Is it possible that this gentleman heard the ghosts of a cavalry detachment belonging to Bonnie Prince Charlie as they were being recalled back to Derby for the long retreat to Scotland and the eventual destruction of the Highland army at the Battle of Culloden?

Or could it have been the battling troops of Charles I and Cromwell's armies re-enacting a skirmish on Swarkestone Bridge on 5 January 1643?

Click here to discover more ghostly goings on at Swarkestone Bridge...