Early in the 1660s a peculiar dispute unfolded in Tedworth, a Wiltshire town that today goes by Tidworth. A drummer named Drury, once part of the army, faced accusations including forgery. Although his trial did not end in imprisonment, the judge presiding over the case, John Mompesson, confiscated Drury’s drum as a form of punishment and to prevent further trouble. Drury demanded its return, but the drum remained in the judge’s possession, and he even took it home to ensure it could not be reclaimed. This seizure sparked a grievance that would soon ripple beyond the courtroom and into the events that followed.
With the drum kept in the Mompesson household, disturbances began to mount. While John traveled to London on official business, his wife reported that the home, once a place of quiet routine, became a stage for unexplained noises every night. On one return from the capital, the judge was awakened by a loud knock at the outside door. He searched but found no one; the sound stopped briefly only to resume at the far door. When the family settled again, the unmistakable sound of a drum echoed from the roof. Night after night, the rhythm accompanied any attempt to sleep, turning a peaceful domestic space into a nerve wracking ordeal that strained the family and drew curious onlookers to the doorstep.
Inside the house, the phenomena grew bolder and more uncanny. The poltergeist began in the room where the drum was kept, performing songs for hours on end, so loudly that neighbors in nearby homes could not ignore it. The activity escalated to the point where beds were raised and lowered while the children lay beneath them, and scratching sounds could be heard from beneath the beds as if someone were dragging nails across the floor. Heavy footsteps filled the hallways, chamber pots were emptied on beds, and at times when the covers were pulled back, a knife lay atop the sheets. The relentless disturbances transformed a routine evening into a sequence of unsettling episodes that tested the family’s nerves and their belief in the unseen.
As an experiment, John scattered ashes over a floor in one room and locked the door, hoping to observe the phenomenon from a distance. When he returned, the ash bore patterns left by invisible movements, with signs of footprints, claw marks, and even letters visible in the dust. Horrible smells would invade the room, and objects were hurled through the air by unseen force. Servants faced aggression, and guests who spent the night discovered themselves in precarious, frightening situations. Word of the so-called ghost of Tedworth spread, drawing a stream of visitors eager to witness the events for themselves. In time, Rev. Joseph Glanvil arrived to examine what was happening and offered his own methods for inquiry into the haunting.
By the time Rev. Glanvil began his inquiry, the entity had found a voice. It produced animal sounds, then unexpectedly sang, and even spoke in the room of the children. On a night when the little ones slept nearby, the voice declared itself a witch, repeating the claim at length and with chilling regularity. The Reverend spent many nights at the house, attempting to raise questions that might reveal a natural cause, yet the poltergeist responded openly, as if it could speak directly to him. When Glanvil asked what the entity wanted, a voice answered that it had no needs from him, a reply that only deepened the mystery for those present.
One moment, the most confounding of all occurred when a piece of firewood suddenly levitated in the air. Mompesson fired at the wood, and it crashed to the floor, yet a fresh puddle of blood appeared on the surface. The room erupted in astonishment as the blood trail began to move, climbing the stairs and leaving a crimson lane that seemed to mark a path through the house. The spectacle left the witnesses speechless and added another layer to a case already steeped in disbelief and awe.
Drury, the man who had argued that his drum was taken in vengeance for his loss, eventually found himself in custody in a separate town. He confessed that his motive was revenge for the drum being seized, but the means by which the disturbances occurred remained mysterious. He was brought to trial for witchcraft and sent away to a colonial imprisonment, though reports offered that the voyage proved perilous and some claimed the captain and crew abandoned him along the way. Whether Drury truly caused the events or exploited the fear surrounding them remains a matter of historical debate, leaving the Tedworth case a lasting emblem of early modern hauntings and the enduring tension between belief and skepticism in this era.