Thetford Castle

How Thetford Got Its Hill.

It requires no inventive novelist to provide Thetford and its neighbourhood with ghostly company. According to legend indeed, this spot early made its acquaintance with beings of the other world, for local folk-lore (a field amazingly neglected by many investigators), has it that the Devil presented us with Castle Hill, cleaning his spade at Thetford after digging Fendyke, near Weeting.

The writer of this article was one day amazed to be accosted in King Street by an old countryman who, without a smile, asked to be directed to "where the Devil scraped his spade!" A blank look of interrogation brought forth the fact that the Castle Hill was the object of the old fellow's search, and he was sent happily on his way to gaze upon what he firmly believed to be literally a diabolical addition to local scenery.

Another legend attaching to the hill, and associating it with the devil, is that his Most Satanic Majesty at midnight on All Hallow E'en (the eve of All Saints Day), is wont to ride furiously round the hill twelve times on a white horse. Many motorists have thought that one-way gyratory traffic was the invention of the devil!