The Sunken Church 

Charlene Lowe Kemp

The Sunken Church is located in Bramcote in Nottingham in the UK. The Domesday Book records a settlement here in ‘Bruncote’ and a simple wooden structure is likely to have orginally been here before the rebuild in stone. Now only stands the tower as a new church was built and parts of the old church was used to construct the new but it was agreed that the tower would be preserved to house some memorials. Within the tower the timber frame of 1586 in still insit. It is known by locals as the sunken church but no body knows why…only people can assume that from afar away it appears to look as though it is sinking into the ground.

It is reputed to be haunted by a phantom monk. In 1978 the village policeman witnessed a strange figure in the churchyard. He observed it until it stopped by a gravestone, at which he then shone his torch towards it. The light from the torch shrone straight through the shadow and on to the gravestones behind it.

Then the figure began to approach the policeman in a gliding like motion. The policeman walked closer the shadow stopped and again retreated to a gravestone. By this time the policeman had radioed his inspector who came out to assist, they searched the area but could not find anyone. 

The policeman described the figure as wearing a black ankle length coat and wearing some sort of three cornered hat. With a high collar pulled underneath It. He was unable to see a face.

Shortly after his experience an elderly local gentleman came forward who believed that what had been seen was the ghost of a phantom coachman. He explained that many years ago a female servant in the village was killed by a coachman. The coachman was sorry for his crime, so sorry that he committed suicide before he could be arrested, somewhere in the vicinity of the sunken church. His ghost is often mistaken for that of a monk, and was also witnessed by another two policemen on another night as they drove near the church……