By Lyn Funnell
You notice that the village of Burley in the New Forest is strangely different as soon as you drive into it. Several of the shops have Witch names and windows full of magical items for sale.
We parked and as we approached the main road, my daughter shouted, ‘Quick, there’s a pig crossing the road!’
I thought she was joking and I remembered the joke when a woman driver called out ‘Pig!’ and the man shouted, ‘Stupid cow!’ Then he drove round the corner and ran into a pig!
But there really was a pig crossing the road!
Groups of the famous New Forest ponies wander freely around.
I was surprised at how their colours vary.
Burley became famous because of one lady who practised White Magic; Sybil Leek, who lived there in the 1950s.
She walked around the village wearing a cloak with her faithful jackdaw Mr Hotfoot Jackson on her shoulder.
People would visit her for help with cures and advice.
But she wasn’t just an eccentric. She had a high IQ, she wrote over 60 books and she appeared on TV a lot.
She emigrated to the US where she worked as an astrologer and presented paranormal shows.
Sadly she died in 1982 aged 65.
But her legacy lives on. Her shop is very busy and thriving.
There are a couple more witchy shops in the village, and a few haunted properties.
The Queen’s Head, the pub opposite Sybil’s shop, was haunted by strange moaning noises coming up through the floor in their Stable Bar. Then in 1959 a tunnel was found underneath with evidence of smugglers. And the noises stopped.
Ghostly horsemen have been seen riding up and down the main roads.
A few miles away in Highcliffe, a blue plaque on a brick house that says Gerald Brosseau Gardener, the Father of Modern Witchcraft, lived here, 1938-1945.
Gardener was well-travelled and was fascinated by native medicine, especially in Malaysia and Ceylon.
But it was when he lived in Highcliffe that he became interested in British witchcraft, and he joined a local coven.
So the Burley area has a unique history that still lives on.
It’s well worth a visit.
