Bassa Villa by Jennie Hart

 Far down on the Cartway

At the low end of town

Stands the old Bassa Villa

 ‘The Magpie’ of renown

 

Half-timbered, imposing

On the bank of the river

Bassa Villa has a story

Which makes people shiver

 

Year fifteen ninety-three

Was the time it became

The Magpie, an ale house

And tragedy brought fame

 

It may be a legend

For no proof remains

Yet the story lives on

Of two poor drowned bairns

 

They played in the cellar

And none heard them shout

The Severn seeped in

And they couldn’t get out

 

Charlotte and William

Were the children who died

Left a mother grief-stricken

No infants by her side

 

Her death left her restless

She inhabits the rooms

Eternally mourning

The babes in their tombs

 

Glasses fall from the shelves

With no obvious cause

There are unexplained groans

From old windows and floors

 

For a time the young children

Were carved into stone

They watched from the terrace

The fierce waters below

 

Now they are long gone

No statues look down

But the woman in black

Still haunts the Low Town