GHOSTS & HAUNTINGS · UK HISTORICAL CASE
Location: Spedlins Tower area, near Lochmaben, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland
Period: Seventeenth-century setting; tradition told to Francis Grose in 1788
A prisoner is locked below a tower while his captor travels away with the keys. When help returns, it is too late. In the Spedlins tradition, the dead man’s cries continue until ministers bind the disturbance to a Bible—and the book itself becomes the object the household dare not remove.
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A tower beside the Annan
The story belongs to the Jardines’ old tower beside the River Annan, near Lochmaben. Ingram sets the central event during the time of Charles II, when Sir Alexander Jardine of Applegarth possessed it. The building’s confined spaces, locked doors and staircase become essential parts of the narrative.
The prisoner is a miller named Porteous. In the account he is suspected of deliberately setting fire to his own premises and is confined in the tower’s dungeon. The suspicion explains his imprisonment within the story, but the printed narrative supplies no trial record or account of a completed conviction. Its attention is on what happens when the keys and the person responsible for the prisoner are taken away.
The journey which leaves a man forgotten
Sir Alexander is called to Edinburgh and takes the dungeon keys with him. Only later does he remember the man he has left behind. Ingram repeats a suggestion that seeing keys at Edinburgh’s West Port brought his own to mind. A messenger is immediately sent back to release Porteous.
The messenger arrives too late: the prisoner has died of hunger. The tale turns on a failure of responsibility which cannot be repaired by the belated instruction. The locked room, the absent master and the long return journey make the tragedy understandable even before the supernatural part begins.
The household hears his demand
After Porteous’s death, disturbances begin throughout the tower. The household can rest neither by day nor by night. Ministers are summoned and eventually confine the spirit to the dungeon. There, according to the tradition, it can still be heard asking to be let out because it is dying of hunger.
Another detail gives the imprisoned presence a physical interaction with the outside world: bark is stripped from twigs pushed through the keyhole. The scene preserves a disturbing continuity between the living prisoner and the haunting. He remains behind the same boundary, asking for the release which should have come earlier, while people on the other side try to provoke or test him.
The Bible which must remain in place
The restraint is said to depend upon a large black-letter Bible used by the ministers and placed in a stone recess on the staircase. The book’s location becomes part of the household’s management of the disturbance. Later, when the family move to Jardine Hall across the river, the volume is left in the old tower.
One day it is sent towards Edinburgh for rebinding. With the book absent, Porteous reportedly escapes his confinement and crosses the river to the new house. The resulting disturbance includes the baronet and his wife being pulled from bed. The volume is recalled before completing its journey and put back in its former position.
This second journey mirrors the first. The removal of something essential from the tower creates the crisis; sending it back restores control. Keys carry authority over the living prisoner, while the Bible carries authority over the reported haunting. The geography between tower, hall and Edinburgh holds the sequence together.
What Grose’s informant said in 1788
Ingram identifies the antiquary Francis Grose among the earlier tellers and reports that a woman who spoke to him in 1788 would not remain in the house overnight if the Bible were removed again. Her statement is about belief and behaviour in her own time, long after the imprisonment was supposed to have occurred.
The later compilation then says that the book had in fact been removed and was kept at Jardine Hall, with the disturbance apparently quiet or disregarded. That final change is worth retaining. The tradition itself allows the household’s relationship with the object to alter over time, rather than insisting that the same rule continued unchanged into the compiler’s present.
A haunting shaped around unfinished obligation
Porteous’s story has a different centre from a castle apparition with no stated purpose. The voice continues the prisoner’s urgent demand. The bars and keyhole preserve his confinement. The ministers’ intervention does not erase the remembered wrong; it changes where the household believes its consequences can be heard.
The account reaches us through antiquarian retelling, and its seventeenth-century setting should be distinguished from Grose’s dated encounter with an informant. That provides two useful historical questions: what records survive of the alleged imprisonment, and how did later residents explain the cries, the niche and the carefully retained book? The source gives a clear route into both.
The map indicates the tower’s broad location. The building is private, and its appearance in a historical library does not create access rights. A modern photograph provides architectural context. The original narrative is best followed through the named places and objects, with the successive owners’ changing responses kept visible.
Timeline
Reign of Charles II — period assigned to the imprisonment in Ingram’s account.
Undated — ministers reportedly confine the disturbance to the dungeon using a Bible.
Later family move — the Bible remains at the tower while the household crosses to Jardine Hall.
1788 — Grose’s informant describes her fear of removing the book.
Later nineteenth century — Ingram reports that the Bible has subsequently been moved to Jardine Hall.
Sources and further reading
John H. Ingram, Haunted Homes, “Spedlin’s Tower”, pages 234–236
Public-domain compilation of the Porteous tradition, including the account associated with Grose’s 1788 visit and the Bible’s later removal.
Location note
Broad tower location on private property. The narrative’s dungeon and staircase are not identified as public visitor spaces.
Map location source · Checked 4 November 2026.
Related cases
Rerrick, 1695: Andrew Mackie’s household, the flying stones and Telfair’s nightly record