The Cold Bath Road Mystery
Below you will find a flavour of the Cold Bath Road Mystery. To experience it fully with many more artworks and amazing puppetry and storytelling performances you will need to go to the Cold Bath Road in Harrogate. More details of the project and performance times are HERE.
The story here is by Matthew Bellwood. To go alongside the story the performances by puppeteer Vivien Mousdell and my own artwork below you'll also find work from the very talented Serena Partridge and Kate Maddison.
The story here is by Matthew Bellwood. To go alongside the story the performances by puppeteer Vivien Mousdell and my own artwork below you'll also find work from the very talented Serena Partridge and Kate Maddison.
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On the morning of the 7th of June 1907, Emmeline Larkspur, a botanical artist and keen student of Natural History, disappeared whilst visiting Harrogate, in the company of her sister, Evangeline Thompson.
Although her work has since fallen into obscurity, Miss Larkspur’s illustrations, paintings and lithographs were popular in their day. They graced the homes of many of Britain’s leading Natural Historians and she received many commissions from the Royal Horticultural Society, in whose journals and archives her work is still preserved. Her disappearance was therefore a matter of some concern and was reported nationwide. The case was a strange one, as Miss Larkspur was an invalid. A childhood illness had left her unable to walk unaided and, on trips about town, she was generally transported in a bath-chair, pushed by a servant or a relative. At the time of her vanishing, she had been staying in Harrogate at The White Hart Hotel, where she had resided for the better part of two weeks. During this time, she had occupied herself by taking the waters, visiting with friends and making a series of studies of the local flora and fungi. On the day of her disappearance, Emmeline had been due to meet her sister for lunch, at one of Harrogate’s famous tea shops. She failed to arrive on time however and Mrs Thompson returned to The White Hart Hotel, to find that Emmeline had departed that morning in a state of agitation, and that she had not, as yet, returned. |
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As fate would have it, Miss Larkspur never went back to The White Hart. Nor did Evangeline Thompson ever see her sister again. She was last sighted in the company of her maid, Mary Tewitt, making her way up Cold Bath Road in the direction of the disused bath-house which once stood there.
Miss Larkspur’s empty bath-chair was discovered a few days later, on the 10th of June, inside the bath-house. The doors to the building were all locked and the windows boarded over. There was no sign of Miss Larkspur or Mary Tewitt. Emmeline’s shawl, which she carried with her always, had been left in the chair. Found alongside it were a set of illustrations, upon which the artist had been working at the time, a small box of highly poisonous mushrooms, which the artist had been in the process of sketching, and a bag of Farrah’s Harrogate Toffee, of which she was reputed to be fond. How the bath chair came to be inside the building and what became of its occupant and her maid remain to this day a source of speculation. Indeed, her vanishing became one of the 20th Century’s most celebrated unsolved cases and we offer you here some clues and stories which may shed light on what happened on that fateful day in 1907. These clues are based on information found in the Police Records of the time, Miss Larkspur’s own journal and a memoir written by Mrs Thompson, who became, in her later years, a celebrated folklorist and teller of tales. |
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A lace handkerchief belonging to Emmeline was discovered by John Cox, a pupil at Western Junior School, on the 8th of June 1907. It was found near the bath house on Cold Bath Road and was handed in to the local police. On opening it, they found to their surprise that it was full of flowers, which, according to the finder, had not been there before.
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“I saw the stag again last night. He seemed to be standing outside my window, as though floating on a cushion of air. I felt that he wanted me to go with him and follow him into the night, but I knew that I could not, for I was only dreaming.” Extract from Emmeline Larkspur’s journal, 05th July, 1907
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The subject of Emmeline Larkspur’s final drawings was the fly agaric mushroom, (Amanita Muscaria). The mushroom, with its famous red cap and white spots is familiar from fairy tales and is found all over Northern Europe. Often thought to be poisonous, the flesh, when eaten, can cause hallucinations – both auditory and visual.
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“Before she contracted polio at the age of twelve, my sister and I used to often play by an old well that stood near our childhood home. We used to pretend that the well was a doorway to another world and that enchanted animals and other strange creatures would rise up from the cold waters and sing to us. Although, as an adult, she devoted her life entirely to the Natural Sciences, my sister never forgot those wonderful tales that we told when we were girls.” From the memoirs of Evangeline Thompson, 1934.
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“Saw the most beautiful butterfly in the Valley Gardens this morning, sunning itself on a rock in the stream. I cannot help but envy its freedom, for though I know that there are many more afflicted than I, there are days when I still find myself frustrated by my confinement, and I long simply to run in the sun, as I did when I was a child.” Extract from Emmeline Larkspur’s journal, 03rd July, 1907
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“I saw Miss Larkspur at around 1 o’clock by the school on Cold Bath Road. She seemed alert but preoccupied and kept scolding her maid, and urging her to push her faster in her chair, as though she might be late for an appointment. “Do you not hear the music Mary?” I overheard her saying. “Do you not hear the music of the stag? It is quite beautiful! But we shall lose it if we do not hurry!” Statement given by Miss Rachel Pinkerton to Police on June 09th, 1907
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In 1923, Mrs Thompson published a children’s story called The Door to the Otherworld. In the story a little girl named Emmeline, escapes from an unhappy life in an orphanage by passing through a magical doorway by an ancient well. She enters the land of the fair folk and, after several adventures, becomes the ruler of the kingdom and lives happily ever after.
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