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Date Posted: Tuesday, March 20, 10:16:01 GMT-4
Author: Thomas Vreemdeling
Subject: Re: philosiphus broom
In reply to: kieven 's message, "philosiphus broom" on Saturday, March 17, 10:22:00 GMT-4

I don't know about a "Philosophus Broom", but one Theophilus Broom is mentioned in a number of books on ghosts and hauntings (such as Peter Underwoods "No Common Task" or J & A Spencers "Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits"). According to these, Broom was originally a Royalist but defected to Parliamentarians in horror at atrocities carried out in the name of the King.

After the Restoration in 1660, the bodies of a number of notables who had fought against the King were exhumed and their severed heads placed on stakes as a warning to other "traitors". At the end of his life, Broom seems to have wanted to avoid this fate and left instructions for his head to be severed after death and hidden to prevent this happening to him. He died on 18th August 1670 aged 69, and although his body was buried in the local church, his head was (and presumably still is) preserved at a farm near Chilton Cantalo, Somerset.

Most of the stories of ghostly activity seem to relate to the attempts of later occupants of the farm to remove and bury the head. Some accounts suggest that screaming sounds were heard when the skull was taken from the premises, while one attempt to bury it failed when the gravediggers shovel broke.

I'd be interested to know the circumstances under which you "collided" with him, as I don't recall anything in the books about other phenomena or more recent activity. Does anyone have any other information to indicate that this is more than just a legend.

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