Blog 4 – Where the Nuns Slept and Spirits Stirred

There is no doubt that Higher Leigh Manor is spooky; full of shadows, unexplained noises and ghostly apparitions. 

It has a rather checkered history. Built between 1851 and 1855 by Henry Keene Bowden, it has been a large family home, a convent, a hotel, a woolly monkey sanctuary and is now part of Combe Martin Wildlife & Dinosaur Park, housing the Dinosaur Museum, the Tomb of the Pharaohs and a number of storerooms. 

My father Robert Butcher was still living in London when he purchased the Higher Leigh estate in 1985.  He sent his own team of builders to Devon to make a start on the rather derelict property. Imagine his surprise when they complained they had items thrown at them, lights switching on and off as well as water taps turning themselves on for no reason. These burly builders refused to work after dark because they were scared!  

Over the years there have been countless sightings of ghostly children, a tall rather imposing gentleman, the odd nun and even a pair of legs seen through the bannister of the main staircase! I assume at one time they had a body attached!

I personally recall being on the middle landing one early afternoon around 2pm when I heard footsteps on the back staircase leading to an old connecting room that was now shut off. I watched in amazement as the door of this room fully opened and then closed itself again! Obviously this ghost decided against the easier option of walking through walls! I didn’t wait to find out where it was heading to; I was heading out of the building pronto!

During the second world war the estate was gifted by the Snell family to four nuns of the Sacred Heart Convent, Honor Oak London, who relocated their pupils to Higher Leigh. They also schooled some of the local children living in Combe Martin . From what I have heard over the years, the nuns were quite formidable and punishments were commonplace.

There is an elevated walkway with leaded stained glass windows joining the main house to an outbuilding.The top floor of the outbuilding used to be the nun’s chapel when the building was a convent between 1944 and 1953.

One year, on Christmas morning, my husband ran up the main staircase to check on something in one of the rooms. As soon as he reached the landing he felt as if he had walked into a wall of ice; as cold as cold could be. When he passed through it he recalled that the temperature returned to normal. We came to the conclusion it was a line of nuns walking to the chapel for their xmas morning prayers! 

In the grounds of the park, in the area where we are currently building our new seal pool, there was a statue of Mary encased in a structure which has cherubs carved inside it. I believe it was the nun’s memorial garden. The statue has been damaged over the years but the structure is still here.  When we began developing this area we discussed whether to take the structure down, but I personally felt it was part of the house’s history and insisted on keeping it. During Storm Darragh in December 2024, this area was damaged the most, bringing down over 20 of our largest, oldest trees, missing this structure by inches!  We took this as a sign that it was protected by a higher force! My thanks to Jeff and Andrea who sent me this photo of the statue taken on their honeymoon in 1973. 

When some of our keepers lived in the Manor House they would often hear children playing on the top floor where the convent dormitories for the evacuees used to be. Occasionally one would mischievously knock or scratch the bedroom doors, a child’s voice in the background asking to be let in. I have personally seen a number of small orbs on the top floor, flickering lights which are supposedly bursts of energy. Young ghostly children have been seen by many people over the years; including some of our visitors. 

Nobody here at the park; unless they are non-believers, enjoys entering the Tomb of the Pharaohs alone, which is in the basement of the house and where the nun’s ‘cells’ were. Yes, that is the correct terminology, apparently the word cell stems from the latin word cella which means little room or hut. These were where they slept, studied or prayed.  Now it’s the Tomb of the Pharaohs; another of my father’s madcap ideas and was homage to my step- mother who loved anything Egyptian. My father had also lived in Egypt as a child in a military camp. 

Every halloween we dress it up with scary decorations and battery operated ghouls, witches and skeletons. Imagine the shock I had one year when attempting to hang a ghoulish figure from the rafters and it started moving and making a noise. It hadn’t yet been switched on!! 

There are many theories about what ghosts are; that they are memories imprinted into buildings replaying past events like a video; or souls of people who do not know they are dead; or even transient spirits who enjoy revisiting us here on planet earth. Nobody knows for sure. All I know is that Higher Leigh is not for the faint hearted. Occasionally we have visitors to the park that used to live in the building when it was a hotel or were schooled by the nuns during its years as a convent. They all had similar tales to tell.