Mrs Baines’ Orchard

Who was Mrs Baines

Many years ago, behind a house at the top of Chapel Street in Penzance, grew a magnificent orchard. It was the envy of the neighbourhood and much coveted by the local children who would challenge each other to scale the wall and take the delicious fruit the owner was Mrs Elizabeth Baines and she was very proud of her orchard. However, she believed people were trying to steal her fruit and her pride in her orchard turned to paranoia and bitterness. She hired a man, named John, to stand guard over the fruit during the night armed with a blunderbuss. For a while, she was satisfied that her apples were safe, but it wasn’t long before her worries returned. She started to worry that her faithful servant had turned against her and was either neglecting his duty or worse, stealing the apples himself.

One evening she determined to find out. She crept down in the dead of night, dressed in a dark silk mantle, to check up on John. She walked stealthily around the orchard but John was nowhere in sight. She decided to teach him a lesson. She climbed into one of the apple trees and shook some apples from the tree for the lazy man to find. However, she had misjudged her servant. He wasn’t absent, merely asleep under a neighbouring tree. He heard the apples fall and leapt to his feet, discharging his gun at the suspected thief. The shot struck Mrs Baines and she fell to the ground screaming “I am murdered”. She never recovered from her injuries and died a short time later.

From then on, the orchard was guarded by the ghost of Mrs Baines. She was seen gliding amongst the trees, her silk mantle floating in the mist. She was highly recognisable with her white powdered hair, lace cap, ruffles and she carried a gold-headed cane. After a while, she began to haunt the house as well. She tramped through the house, slamming doors and rattling furniture & crockery. It got so bad that the house’s occupants appealed to a local parson who was known as a ghost layer.

He succeeded is chasing her to the sandbanks of western green (near the modern promenade). He single-handedly bound her to spin ropes of sand for a thousand years. Her only escape would be if she could spin one to reach from St. Michaels Mount to St. Clements Isle (near Mousehole). The sound of the whirring of Mrs Baines’ spinning wheel was often heard long after her ghost stopped appearing. Other versions of the story have her condemned to spin black wool into white.

Apple lore

Apple love divination

Peel an apple, slowly and carefully. Taking care that the peel remains in one long piece. Once complete, take the peel and throw it over your shoulder. The form the peel takes will take the form of the first letter of your future lover’s name. Alternatively, peel the apple as instructed above but then hang it on a nail behind the door. The initials of the first man who enters the house after you have done this will be the same as those of the person you are going to marry. When you’ve eaten your apple, you can use the pips to divine as well. Take an apple pip between your forefinger and thumb and flip it into the air saying ‘north, south, east, West, tell me where my love doth rest” and watch which way it falls.

Alternatively, a lady can test her lover’s intentions by placing two apple pips together onto some fire tongs. Name the left-hand pip after yourself and the right hand one after the one you wish to test. Place the tongs near the fire where the heat is most intense. If both pips fly off on the same side of the tongs then the two of you will be married. If the pips fly off in different directions, there will be no union, if both pips burn together without moving then the lover will never propose.

The Reenactment

For the Tract festival, the Mercian Enactment Society representative led her audience through the streets of Penzance associated with Mrs Baines until reaching the seafront. Throughout, the representative told the stories associated with Mrs Baines and, at the final destination, the audience could eat their apple and read the information provided; then they were encouraged to enact the lore associated with the apple.