SOME FLEETING BEASTS OF THE 1900s...

(Month and day unknown) 1940s KENT COAST

The Shirley family were having a picnic near local woods when they were horrified to see a flame-haired humanoid with huge, powerful jaws. The beast slipped into the woods never to be seen again.

April 16th 1954 Dumpton Park, RAMSGATE

Police Constable S. Bishop was a very credible witness to what has been described as a ‘walking fir-cone’, an animal which he commented on as, “…being covered in quills, having a long snout, a short tail, long claws…”, and being”…Alsatian dog-size”. A peculiarity indeed, or maybe a Pangolin, or Porcupine, but where did it come from ?

(Month and day unknown) Summer, mid-1950s GOUDHURST

Author Joan Forman was working and staying at the village school when she came face to face with a hideous creature whilst sleeping. She awoke around 3:30 am and noticed a dark form crouching by the bed on the left side. She described the thing as the size of a large domestic cat with two huge eyes like those of a lemur. However, its gaze unsettled her, it appeared to mock Joan for what seemed like thirty minutes or more, as she remained frozen, alone, and terrified in her bed. Only when the first glimmers of dawn peered through the curtains did the apparition gradually fade.
When Joan left the school after finishing her work there, another woman had a similar experience, only in another room.

THE 1900s...CENTURY OF THE BEAST.

December 16th 1905 GRAVESEND

London’s Daily Mail reported on a mysterious predator said to have killed up to thirty sheep locally. Many local men searched the fields and woods but to no avail, and then the killings stopped. In 1906 similar attacks occurred in Surrey and were blamed on dogs after one savage night when fifty-one sheep were killed. This was only the beginning....

THE JACKAL OF SEVENOAKS

March 16th 1905 SEVENOAKS

Farm & Home spoke of an elusive beast which author Charles Fort documented in his Lo! (1931) book. Many sheep were discovered locally, they had been disemboweled and bitten in the shoulder. Hardly the work of a dog which would have ripped and torn its prey for spite.
On the 1st March 1905 more than sixty armed local folk hunted the marauding creature and finally shot it. It was a jackal, which was killed by a gamekeeper.
Fort added: “ There is no findable explanation, nor attempted explanation, of how the animal got there”.
Blythe News reported, on March 14th that the jackal was on show at a Derbyshire taxidermists, with the Derby Mercury adding, on the 15th that the body of the creature was being exhibited by a Mr Hutchinson of London Road, Derby.

Image taken from postcard (Essenhigh Cork & Co.)

Into the 1800s...

(Month and day unknown) 1800s SUSSEX and KENT

The Puck Bird may well be a creature of folklore but at some point it has haunted these counties. Such a bird once bestowed disease upon cattle and was considered evil and a trickster. Anyone who should have dared walk by such a manifestation would have surely been cursed! Similar apparitions have been encountered all over the world,and perceived as bad omens instead of flesh and blood anomalies.

(Month and day unknown) 1800s between BOXLEY and BURHAM

Two men, including a Reverend Edward, who recorded the encounter, were walking near to Maidstone when, … “…at a point where the road ascends…in its course, we paused to take breath, and look’t back and were surprised to see some distance behind us, and standing on the way we had come, a lean grey dog with upstanding ears…I was struck by its size…it appeared as big as a calf.”

THAT FEROCIOUS HOUND AGAIN!

(Month and day unknown) 1745 Pilgrim’s Way, nr MEDWAY

A peddler was killed by a, “…lean, grey hound with prick’t ears”, which at first appeared behind the man and his friend and then up ahead. Where the man was mauled he was buried. Rumours suggested that the animal was something akin to a Puma or a Lynx, for what dog has the ability to remain elusive in its behaviour in order to hunt and kill ?

THE 1600s - STRANGE DOGS OR SOMETHING MORE ?

(Month and day unknown) 1613 GREAT CHART, ASHFORD

People congregating in the local church were terrified by a beast which materialised in front of them. It was the size of a bull, killing a few and injuring many, before vanishing into thin air, or, s legend claims, through the hole in the wall it had created after its chaotic entrance.

July (day unknown) 1654 Pilgrim’s Way, nr MEDWAY

In his book Saunters Through Kent author Charles Igglesden wrote of a ‘great dogg’ said to have savaged and killed a man on the, “…upper road”. Although the report is vague, some claim that the marauder was in fact a large cat.

STRANGENESS IN THE 1200s

June (day unknown) 1205 MAIDSTONE

The Abbot Ralph of Coggeshall wrote of a very strange beast that was discovered after a severe thunderstorm that rained down all over England. The beast itself was a messy carcass, something dark and hideous with an assortment of limbs, the belly of a human, the head of an ass and which it gave off a foul odour. No further record of this abomination exists but we assume that an air of the unnatural must have exhuded from it otherwise such a sight would not have been recorded.

(Date unknown) 1200s Scotney Castle, nr LAMBERHURST

A dripping wet humanoid said to have a coat of weeds sometimes emerges from the moat. Some legends claim that this is in fact the spirit of a murdered Revenue Officer who perished at the hands of smugglers but no-one seems quite sure whether this is man or monster.