I Do Like A Good Mystery

Our first proper day at Nidd Hall in North Yorkshire.

We decided to do the history walk. As with a lot of these country houses, there is a huge historical background. The house was owned by Rawson family in the eighteen hundreds, and was owned by the Greystoke family at one point. The Greystoke family is of course synonymous with the fictional character of Tarzan.

There is a church which contains the Rawson family vault right next to the Hall (hotel). But within this churchyard lay this one particularly puzzling gravestone.

The story went that Miss Rawson was out for a morning ride when she found this body next to the nearby railway line. Obviously the body couldn't be left at the track side, so she had it arranged to be brought back to the hall. Alas, nobody came forward to identify or claim the body, so she had the poor unfortunate interred in the churchyard.

Things like this always get me wondering. Who was this poor chap? Why wasn't he missed. The fact that this gravestone exists leaves a permanent reminder of this never to be solved mystery.

The gravestone reads:

"Here is interred the body of a man who was killed on the railway on the 16th of August 1874. His name was never known.

This stone is erected to marks is grave by Miss Rawson of Nydd Hall"