For generations, the people of the small village of Alderwick told stories about a bell buried beneath the hill north of the old church.
According to the legend, the bell had once belonged to a monastery that disappeared during a violent storm in the winter of 1684. Villagers claimed that the ground opened beneath the building and swallowed the monastery, its library and everyone inside. No ruins were ever found.
The only thing that remained was the sound of the bell.
It was said to ring from beneath the earth whenever someone in the village was about to uncover a secret that should have remained hidden.
In 1926, a schoolteacher named Eleanor Price began collecting local stories for a book. Most residents repeated the legend with amusement, but an elderly farmer gave her an unusual warning.
“If the bell rings three times,” he said, “do not dig where the final sound comes from.”
Eleanor believed the story might have originated from an old mine collapse. One evening, she climbed the hill carrying a lantern, a notebook and a small shovel.
At midnight, she heard the first bell.
The sound was deep and distant, as though it had travelled through layers of stone.
A second ring followed from somewhere farther up the hill.
Eleanor continued walking until she reached an ancient oak tree. There, the bell rang for the third time directly beneath her feet.
Ignoring the warning, she began to dig.
Less than half a metre below the surface, her shovel struck a flat stone. Carved into it were several names, including her own.
The date beside her name was the following day.
Eleanor returned to the village before sunrise and refused to tell anyone what else she had seen beneath the stone. The next morning, she disappeared.
Her lantern and notebook were later found beside the oak tree. The final page contained only one sentence:
“The monastery was never swallowed by the hill. It was built to keep something underneath it.”