Friday, June 01, 2007

The Wreckers of Wick

A story from the "The Plough and Harrow", a pub recommended by my brother yesterday:

The bar is now one large room and all traces have been removed of the partitioned chamber which stood at the far end, along the dartboard wall. Perhaps this is a good thing, for there are gruesome stories told that this room was use to store the shipwrecked bodies washed up on the beach after having their ships captain confused by the infamous "Wreckers of Wick". They would tie lanterns around sheeps' necks and then let them wander the cliff tops so the captains would think they were nearing the docks of Barry or Cardiff and not the jagged rocks of the coastline or the deadly Nash sandbank.

It is said that the bodies were stored until the coffins were made in the carpentry shop next door before burial at the church just up the lane.

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