Rule Family of Moco

Tales of the Moco Ghost

Shepherds often lived in lonely spots and were peripatetic, changing farms and employer on a regular basis.  It was common for their employment to become their nickname – Shepherd.

Charles Rule was no exception. He was born in 1868 at Radwinter, Essex and after marrying Louisa Woodley at Ashdon in 1895, they had children Frederick Charles Woodley Rule in 1895 at Ashdon, Alice Emma in 1900 at Lt Chishill and Nellie Louisa at Lt Henham in 1905 and by 1911 the family was back at Lt Chishill, living in a cottage at North Hall Farm. Charles was known as Shepherd Rule.

After their time at North Hall Farm, Charles moved his family to Moco at Steeple Morden, probably around 1913, where his employer was almost certainly Charles Frohock the tenant of Church & Moco Farms. By this time, the farmhouse and cottages at Moco were largely disused and the Rule family were probably the only residents.

Not long after their arrival the First World War started in July 1914. Son Frederick, just 19, was an early enlister on 6 November 1914. He joined as a Private in the Hertfordshire Regiment, later transferring as a lance-corporal to the Labour Corp. The Royal Air Force was created 1 April 1918 and Frederick transferred to the new service. He married Violet Lois Lee from Aylesbury in the third quarter 1918, when he was presumably still serving? The relevance of his military service will become clear.

Soon after moving to Moco the family decided that the cottage felt strange. They lived in one half of a double tenement and the other was empty. With the arrival of the War it felt stranger as they would hear footsteps along the passage and imagined it was Frederick home on leave, however, there was never anybody there and the footsteps seemed to stop at the same point each time.

Shepherd Rule wanted to know what was going on and enlisted the help of a neighbour (presumably a distant one?). They worked out where the steps apparently stopped and reckoned there was a cavity or small blocked-off room, so they knocked an opening and accessed the empty void, which offered no clues as to any strange goings on.

That night, Shepherd Rule woke feeling an enormous pressure on his throat. It eventually eased, although there was no rational explanation. Describing what happened to his neighbour later that day, the neighbour said that he had had exactly the same experience. Difficult to explain and to believe? Apparently, thereafter, there were no more footsteps or strange experiences. It seems possible that the family had somehow picked up on the other ghostly experiences, which had been reported only 13 or 14 years before? Or perhaps living in an old cottage in such a lonely spot took the human mind in odd directions?

The family may have been the last residents of Moco? They moved to Bassingbourn after the War and were living there in 1921 and Shepherd Rule died and was buried at Bassingbourn in 1944.

More about Moco:

Moco     Moco Farm     Moco Farm Modern     Murder of Elizabeth Pateman 1734     Moco Ghost

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