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Legend of Loxley Common, Sheffield

Cave House possibly plays a part in the next story, for on a bitterly cold day in 1812, when the sun set early, and low storm clouds hung over Loxley Common. In a lonely cottage on the bleak moorland, a mother sang over her sleeping baby. LomasRevill, gamekeeper to the lord of the Manor, was late, and for his wife it was a weary vigil, relieved only by the visit of a woman friend from one of the cottages on the hillside. When she had gone Mary Revill watched the flickering uncanny shadows cast by the log fire, until eventually, weariness overtaking her, she nodded off to sleep.

Struggling fitfully the moon sought to pierce the heavy snow clouds, but with little success and the wind howled across the common. As the hours passed the storm mounted in intensity and blinding snow swept across the landscape until it was shrouded in a thick mantle of white. The following day was New Years Eve, and as morning broke, cold but fine, an acquaintance from the adjacent hamlet of Wadsley called to exchange the compliments of the day with the dwellers in the lonely cottage. The visitor knocked and knocked again, but getting no response she tried the latch and finding the door would open, she entered the room. A horrible sight met her eyes! Poor Mary Revill lay on the floor in a pool of blood-murdered! Whilst in the cradle near the body the baby lay fast asleep.

Outside the cottage the world was clad in white. During the night the snow had drifted all along the heath and piled itself upon the crags, which formed a rough boundary between Loxley Common and Wadsley Common. Leading from the cottage and right across the ridge and over the open common were large footprints, some partly obliterated by the drifting snow, but all leading in one direction, to a cave like well, on the crown of the hill overlooking the valley. The footprints went distinctly to the cave, into it and disappeared. Strangest of all, as far as can be discerned, there were no footprints leading out of the cave. When the news of this terrible crime spread around the neighbouring hamlets there was much weird speculation. Who was the murderer? What was the mystery of the footprints to the cave?

Meanwhile, Lomas Revill had been found in the gamekeeper's cabin far out into the woods. When told of the tragic death of his wife he accepted the news with little show of surprise or emotion. Though he had been seen in the village inn, much the worse for drink, on the night of the tragedy, no one could swear that the gamekeeper hadn't spent the night in his cabin. The moorland murder remained a mystery and for years the good folk of the area gave the cave a wide berth after night had fallen. As time went by, Lomas Revill became a strange man, prematurely aged with white hair, even though he was only forty-two years old.

Another New Year's Eve came and once more the common was deep in snow. At the local inn someone remarked that he hadn't seen the gamekeeper for a number of day's so deciding to investigate, a number of men made up a party and went along to the cabin in the woods. No trace could be found of Lomas until they tramped over the common to the old cottage, and there in an outbuilding, they found his body hanging from a rafter. Later a search of the cabin in the woods revealed a hunter's knife, rusted in gore, and a pair of blood stained gaiters. Folk who had known Lomas Revill well said that he had always acted strangely when New Year's Eve came round and that he had often been heard to mutter that he couldn't stand life any longer.

Wanderers over the common and the lanes about, thought of Frank Fearn's gibbet, creaking in the wind on the Edge only a stones throw away and all but the stout hearted feared to pass at night lest they should hear the clanking of Frank Fearn's chains or encounter the ghost of that poor unfortunate mother. For many years afterward a number of cottages stood empty, falling into ruin, because of the common's association with the murder of Mary Revill, and were demolished in the clearances in the early 1900's.

The ghost of Mary Revillis said to roam the common, and is known as the White Lady. In THE SHEFFIELD INDEPENDENT of February 5th 1920 several people reported they had seen a woman in white, moaning, with her hands in the air gliding silently over the heath near the Worrall to Loxley Road near to the old pit workings, and again during the mid 1980's

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