Aerial view of Lulsley; on the left is Knightwick Station, now a house. The 'X' marks where Bates Bush is. It is a triangle where two roads lead off the Knightwick Lulsley road on to Hill Road. Many years ago at youthclub, our mentor John Foot told us the story of a man hanging himself in this triangle, and he called it 'Bates Bush'. We all thought that Bates must have been the name of the man who he spoke of. Now I have found the information below I can understand where his version of the tale must have evolved from.

Folk Lore of Knightwick.
In Mid-Victorian times Worcester people became very familiar with “Bates’ Bush,” a landmark on the route to Bromyard; where the railway established one of its numerous termini, while held up for lack both of funds and of any contractor so confiding as to undertake completion and trust to luck for payment.
While the permanent way decayed, and Sheriff’s officers carried away anything detached, archaeologists had time to study local folk-lore, in the pages of Jabez Allies.
“Bates’ Bush” derived name from a suicide who, in accordance with ancient usage and with a popular ditty, was “Bur-i-ed at four cross-roads, with a stake in his side.”
The crossroads were near to Rosebury Rock; and the stake was a branch from a maple; which took root, and in Allies’ day, now nearly a century ago, had grown into an old tree, begirt by others of spontaneous growth, which the antiquary trusted to carry on the tradition.
Allies did not, however, rely exclusively on the saplings. He enriched the legend of Bates with many supplementary ones, vouching some by additions of names and dates.

The Headless Man of Bates Bush.
One related that William Yapp, somewhere about the year 1800, returning at night from his father’s house at Alfrick Chapel, and on his way to Doddenham Hall, was passing Bates’  Bush, when his dog, a little in advance, came back out of Sandy Lane, howling mysteriously. Yapp, passing on, was scared by the appearance of a headless man, leaning with his back against the steep bank on Rosebury side of the lane; and himself ran for all he was worth.
This story, Allies notes, was related to him by Yapp’s sister. A place called “The Devil’s Pig Trough” was of ill repute as with such a name it deserved; and a man returning from near there was waylaid by a mysterious black dog, which worried him by sudden rushes and dodges all the way home.

“A Mysterious Horror.”
Much about the same date as Yapp’s adventure, a Lulsley man named Ball visited a friend in Knightwick, and a son who went at night to fetch him home, was set on near Bates’ Bush by some “mysterious horror.” This Allies had from the son.
A man named Parry related that he had been frightened by a ghostly black pig, supposed to come from “The Devil’s Trough” and to be an associate of the Black Dog.

 ©peh