'A reappearing phantom house'
In 1812 grisly and spine chilling murders were occurring on Hereford’s Callow hill and nefarious killers were waiting for their victims patiently in silence as horse drawn coaches full of wealthy people from London, Cheltenham, Bristol etc passed through Hereford on a regular basis on the journey to Wales and when the coaches crossed to the south of the river Wye they found that they had no other alternative but to climb the Callow hill, the present dual carriageway road wasn't constructed until 1840 and so the horse drawn coaches climbed a bendy and narrow lane which brought them to the hamlet of Callow.
In this hamlet was a small coaching inn named The Callow Inn and this stood next to the village church, this inn was ideal for overnight stops as food and accommodation were on hand so the horses and passengers would retire at The Callow Inn for the night. Upon arriving the guests would take their belongings to their rooms and then go down to the old tavern's bar for drinking, relaxing and socializing but for some of these people they were totally oblivious to the fact that they were soon to be at the hands of a killer.
It is known that two or three evil characters would visit the inn when learning that a coach of visitors were there and so the vicious threesome would wait , watch and select a victim and in a sly manner ply him or her with drinks all night up until all of the other passengers went to up to settle for the night, the poor unfortunate soul was then instantly murdered and the treacherous people would then carry their victim out of the inn and across two fields to an old abandoned house, at this house they stole everything from the body and dumped it there at the house, they would then return to the Callow Inn and enter the victim's room, clear out all of their belongings to set the scene that the victim had left on their own accord, the killers also made a cunning plan to make sure all of the other passengers were informed the next morning that the person had decided to stay a couple of nights in Hereford and would not continue the journey so then nobody would expect to see the missing traveller on board the horse coach.
This lie was used every time so the killers could cover their tracks, however this act reoccurred every time a coach would stay overnight at the inn and people soon became suspicious and so investigations went underway and the evil gang of murderers were eventually caught and immediately hanged, it as been said that the gang would have been executed at Callow tump which was once situated near Pembridge Close and near Belmont Road bridge. When the old house was inspected human remains of 18 to 30 bodies were discovered rotting away, soon after this discovery the locals burnt the horrid house down to the ground and then demolished and carted the remains away.
Since this demolition of the house witnesses have seen the house ablaze on Callow hill and their as also been sightings of the house appearing normally with two shadowy figures seen bent down low dragging bodies, the house is said to materialize on the hill on various occasions and the majority of witnesses of this have been strangers to the area travelling on the new Callow hill road. Hereford police have also had countless reports over the years of a house fire sighted on the hill and upon their arrival no house or fire as been in sight.
It is unknown where the original house was, upon entering the village of Callow you can see where the old Callow Inn once stood, this building is now a private home and is opposite the village’s church, behind the building is many fields that the murderers would of walked across and is the site of where the house would of stood, field sizes obviously have changed over the years so it is hard to locate the exact field, it is said that a large mound of grass can be found in one of these fields and that is where the house was, so presumably one of these fields is where the haunted hill is