The Lost Deeramals of Basing House
by Rebecca Lyon
So, Gran always said there was something funny about the deer that you see, if you’re lucky, around Basing House, early in the morning, if it’s quiet. She wouldn’t wear glasses because she didn’t trust opticians (or beauticians) so there were a lot of things that she thought looked a bit off.
Anyway, it stuck in my mind because years later I got really into deer – roe deer, fallow deer, white-tailed deer, key deer, reindeer, any type of deer and after I returned from a few months studying Caribou in Canada and getting my heart broken (not by a deer,) Gran’s story popped into my head; I decided to do a bit of digging.
It’s probably against the law and you’re not even supposed to go in the grounds of Basing House outside of hours without paying, but I really needed to see these deer and there definitely wouldn’t be any around if I left it till the middle of the day.
Now, I’m very susceptible to ghosts and Basing House is literally teeming with them – it’s a very busy place for the paranormal. I got a sort of a feeling by the old gardeners’ bothy and dug (literally) a hole with the trowel I always carry in my backpack, which I also always carry.
The soil expelled a ferociously pungent cloud. I coughed and sifted the ground a little. A big bit of animal skeleton appeared from the earth. It was a massive camel femur. I kid you not. Then another, and another. I am telling you there is a literal camel graveyard in Old Basing – beautifully done too – they all seem to have reached a ripe old age and they’d been buried with rather nice blue glazed pots and leather tack that looks as if it had once been gilded. There are threads of silk and enamelled ruby beads that would once have formed part of lavish, glittering saddle cloths for these creatures.
Of course, both deer and camels are even-toe ungulate species, so I was fairly comfortable I knew what I was looking at. Actually, you could say that the Protylopus, that famous extinct genus of camel from the Eocene period, was very similar to our own native deer (except of course the golden Solomanesque horns) but this really was something unprecedented.
Somebody tapped me on the shoulder. I gulped. I turned round and it was a kindly looking, wrinkly old man, clearly a ghost. I made the sign of the cross just to be on the safe side and he blessed me.
‘I see you’ve found the camels then,’ he said. ‘About time somebody did. You know Time Team surveyed the whole place. Didn’t find anything except a series of small walls.’
I nodded sympathetically and was about to make small talk when I realised who he was.
‘Oh dear. Yes, the camels, but – excuse me for the personal question, but are you a Catholic priest by any chance? Did you get killed here? Back in the civil war?’
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘But don’t worry yourself child. It was a long time ago. It was horrible, truly truly horrible, but this was a place of sanctuary. They gave a home to me and my brother priests when no one else would. We were killed, but we died with the knowledge that we were in God’s hands, we were together, and that our faith in the world and our love for all its inhabitants would outlast our fragile bodies.’
I did try to reflect on what he’d said; he seemed very holy and that but I couldn’t help asking him what heaven was like and that if it was so nice why was he here and why he was so interested in camel bones that predated his birth by about a thousand years. You see, I know my even-toe ungulates and these bones, these Arabian Dromedary bones, were at least 2500 years old.
‘Well dear, yes, I can see why you may be puzzled but there is a very reasonable explanation,’ he said. ‘Heaven is a wonderful place, and many people are quite content spending time getting to know their dead relatives, eating anything they like without putting on weight, drinking what they want whilst never getting more than pleasantly merry, enjoying the benign abundance of a beautiful Eden of nature in perfect harmony, but I was getting rather restless without a cause you see, so I asked God if I could come back as a ghost and try to get the embassy rediscovered in the hope of promoting peace and understanding back here.’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘Come to think of it, a lot of the ghosts round here seem to be on some kind of mission; the headless cavalier by the old stables, the weeping lady in the walled garden, the giant in the orchard.’
‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘I’ll tell you about that some other time, but now – the camels, the embassy.’
I’d zoned out a bit as I was a little distracted by what looked like a flash of one of Gran’s funny deer running past right on the edge of my peripheral vision. An awkward pause ensued as I think he clocked that I wasn’t properly listening. ‘Sorry. What embassy? And what about the camels? How the hell did they get here? Sorry. No offence.’
‘Come with me,’ he said as he took me by the arm ( which I saw but didn’t feel) and we went over to the big old Ash tree on the edge of the old castle bailey. We sat down and I saw in this ghost’s eyes someone who had seen real suffering – as a witness and a victim, but his aura was calm, forgiving, sincere.
‘So,’ he began. ‘Just as this place was a refuge to Catholics in the Seventeenth Century, just so it was to a lost Zoroastrian and his embassy of camels 3000 years ago.’
‘Pardon?’ I said, thinking possibly my eyes needed to be tested. And my ears. And possibly other things too.
‘Basing House was built on the foundations of several much older buildings,’ he explained, which I knew as I’d watched the Time Team episode where they found the series of small walls. ‘Before the sieges and the fall of the Great Basing House, when I met my maker, there were important people here – Plantagenets, Normans, Royal Saxons.’
‘These camels are a lot older than that though,’ I interjected, keen to make sure he knew I had read the Basing House guidebook.
‘Yes, I know. I’m coming to that. Basically, a Persian young chap named Arman got into a bit of trouble at home. His father and his father’s brothers were big nasty bullies and Arman longed to escape. He had a stout constitution and he was noble and kind, so he set off to find a new home with a strong little wooden boat and two camel calves and a backpack rather like your one. Anyway, by the time he’d got to Southampton, the camels had multiplied due to their successful adaptation to seafaring life. He bumped into some time travelling joker from 1990 who told him to go to Basingstoke because he’d heard the streets were paved with gold, the cuisine was second to none and the nightclubs were positively popping, so he trekked from Southampton to Old Basing with his ever-multiplying herd of happy camels. When he got here, he was welcomed with open arms. There was a community disagreement going on amongst the Bronze Age farmers that we won’t get into here as it’s quite a touchy subject, so they were glad of the distraction of someone new. He had lots of tales to tell of the wonders of Persia and of his travels lots of skills to share such as watercolour painting, how to juggle, and he ran a course in rudimentary roller-skating. The upshot was Arman stayed here with his camels, settled down with a local and had a family.’
I sighed, and looked wistfully across the rabbit-hummocked grass at the camel graveyard I’d discovered.
‘And the camels died,’ I said, with a sad reverence.
‘No!’ the monk said standing up, the heavens suddenly opening and sunlight streaming down upon his face. He opened his arms in jubilation before quickly closing them again to point something out: ‘Well, yes individually,’ he added hurriedly, ‘but more generally, no!’ He opened wide his arms again whilst ascending exultantly up from the ground. He kept moving up and up into the sky.
‘My job is done!’ he called down. ‘You see don’t you! Spread the word! I’m going to rest easy in heaven now, my task completed.’ At that moment he was so far up he was shouting, and I wasn’t entirely clear.
‘Sorry!’ I called up ‘What exactly happened to the camels? Why didn’t they die? Or didn’t quite die? What?’
But, by now, the priest had ascended up into the celestial realm and all I could see were two little soles gradually disappearing up into the clouds.
Anyway, I decided I might get into trouble for the unofficial excavations, so I covered everything back up and didn’t bother to tell anybody. I thought fondly of my funny old gran then got the bus into the town centre as I’d arranged to meet my friend in Starbucks at 11.
by Rebecca Lyon
So, Gran always said there was something funny about the deer that you see, if you’re lucky, around Basing House, early in the morning, if it’s quiet. She wouldn’t wear glasses because she didn’t trust opticians (or beauticians) so there were a lot of things that she thought looked a bit off.
Anyway, it stuck in my mind because years later I got really into deer – roe deer, fallow deer, white-tailed deer, key deer, reindeer, any type of deer and after I returned from a few months studying Caribou in Canada and getting my heart broken (not by a deer,) Gran’s story popped into my head; I decided to do a bit of digging.
It’s probably against the law and you’re not even supposed to go in the grounds of Basing House outside of hours without paying, but I really needed to see these deer and there definitely wouldn’t be any around if I left it till the middle of the day.
Now, I’m very susceptible to ghosts and Basing House is literally teeming with them – it’s a very busy place for the paranormal. I got a sort of a feeling by the old gardeners’ bothy and dug (literally) a hole with the trowel I always carry in my backpack, which I also always carry.
The soil expelled a ferociously pungent cloud. I coughed and sifted the ground a little. A big bit of animal skeleton appeared from the earth. It was a massive camel femur. I kid you not. Then another, and another. I am telling you there is a literal camel graveyard in Old Basing – beautifully done too – they all seem to have reached a ripe old age and they’d been buried with rather nice blue glazed pots and leather tack that looks as if it had once been gilded. There are threads of silk and enamelled ruby beads that would once have formed part of lavish, glittering saddle cloths for these creatures.
Of course, both deer and camels are even-toe ungulate species, so I was fairly comfortable I knew what I was looking at. Actually, you could say that the Protylopus, that famous extinct genus of camel from the Eocene period, was very similar to our own native deer (except of course the golden Solomanesque horns) but this really was something unprecedented.
Somebody tapped me on the shoulder. I gulped. I turned round and it was a kindly looking, wrinkly old man, clearly a ghost. I made the sign of the cross just to be on the safe side and he blessed me.
‘I see you’ve found the camels then,’ he said. ‘About time somebody did. You know Time Team surveyed the whole place. Didn’t find anything except a series of small walls.’
I nodded sympathetically and was about to make small talk when I realised who he was.
‘Oh dear. Yes, the camels, but – excuse me for the personal question, but are you a Catholic priest by any chance? Did you get killed here? Back in the civil war?’
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘But don’t worry yourself child. It was a long time ago. It was horrible, truly truly horrible, but this was a place of sanctuary. They gave a home to me and my brother priests when no one else would. We were killed, but we died with the knowledge that we were in God’s hands, we were together, and that our faith in the world and our love for all its inhabitants would outlast our fragile bodies.’
I did try to reflect on what he’d said; he seemed very holy and that but I couldn’t help asking him what heaven was like and that if it was so nice why was he here and why he was so interested in camel bones that predated his birth by about a thousand years. You see, I know my even-toe ungulates and these bones, these Arabian Dromedary bones, were at least 2500 years old.
‘Well dear, yes, I can see why you may be puzzled but there is a very reasonable explanation,’ he said. ‘Heaven is a wonderful place, and many people are quite content spending time getting to know their dead relatives, eating anything they like without putting on weight, drinking what they want whilst never getting more than pleasantly merry, enjoying the benign abundance of a beautiful Eden of nature in perfect harmony, but I was getting rather restless without a cause you see, so I asked God if I could come back as a ghost and try to get the embassy rediscovered in the hope of promoting peace and understanding back here.’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘Come to think of it, a lot of the ghosts round here seem to be on some kind of mission; the headless cavalier by the old stables, the weeping lady in the walled garden, the giant in the orchard.’
‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘I’ll tell you about that some other time, but now – the camels, the embassy.’
I’d zoned out a bit as I was a little distracted by what looked like a flash of one of Gran’s funny deer running past right on the edge of my peripheral vision. An awkward pause ensued as I think he clocked that I wasn’t properly listening. ‘Sorry. What embassy? And what about the camels? How the hell did they get here? Sorry. No offence.’
‘Come with me,’ he said as he took me by the arm ( which I saw but didn’t feel) and we went over to the big old Ash tree on the edge of the old castle bailey. We sat down and I saw in this ghost’s eyes someone who had seen real suffering – as a witness and a victim, but his aura was calm, forgiving, sincere.
‘So,’ he began. ‘Just as this place was a refuge to Catholics in the Seventeenth Century, just so it was to a lost Zoroastrian and his embassy of camels 3000 years ago.’
‘Pardon?’ I said, thinking possibly my eyes needed to be tested. And my ears. And possibly other things too.
‘Basing House was built on the foundations of several much older buildings,’ he explained, which I knew as I’d watched the Time Team episode where they found the series of small walls. ‘Before the sieges and the fall of the Great Basing House, when I met my maker, there were important people here – Plantagenets, Normans, Royal Saxons.’
‘These camels are a lot older than that though,’ I interjected, keen to make sure he knew I had read the Basing House guidebook.
‘Yes, I know. I’m coming to that. Basically, a Persian young chap named Arman got into a bit of trouble at home. His father and his father’s brothers were big nasty bullies and Arman longed to escape. He had a stout constitution and he was noble and kind, so he set off to find a new home with a strong little wooden boat and two camel calves and a backpack rather like your one. Anyway, by the time he’d got to Southampton, the camels had multiplied due to their successful adaptation to seafaring life. He bumped into some time travelling joker from 1990 who told him to go to Basingstoke because he’d heard the streets were paved with gold, the cuisine was second to none and the nightclubs were positively popping, so he trekked from Southampton to Old Basing with his ever-multiplying herd of happy camels. When he got here, he was welcomed with open arms. There was a community disagreement going on amongst the Bronze Age farmers that we won’t get into here as it’s quite a touchy subject, so they were glad of the distraction of someone new. He had lots of tales to tell of the wonders of Persia and of his travels lots of skills to share such as watercolour painting, how to juggle, and he ran a course in rudimentary roller-skating. The upshot was Arman stayed here with his camels, settled down with a local and had a family.’
I sighed, and looked wistfully across the rabbit-hummocked grass at the camel graveyard I’d discovered.
‘And the camels died,’ I said, with a sad reverence.
‘No!’ the monk said standing up, the heavens suddenly opening and sunlight streaming down upon his face. He opened his arms in jubilation before quickly closing them again to point something out: ‘Well, yes individually,’ he added hurriedly, ‘but more generally, no!’ He opened wide his arms again whilst ascending exultantly up from the ground. He kept moving up and up into the sky.
‘My job is done!’ he called down. ‘You see don’t you! Spread the word! I’m going to rest easy in heaven now, my task completed.’ At that moment he was so far up he was shouting, and I wasn’t entirely clear.
‘Sorry!’ I called up ‘What exactly happened to the camels? Why didn’t they die? Or didn’t quite die? What?’
But, by now, the priest had ascended up into the celestial realm and all I could see were two little soles gradually disappearing up into the clouds.
Anyway, I decided I might get into trouble for the unofficial excavations, so I covered everything back up and didn’t bother to tell anybody. I thought fondly of my funny old gran then got the bus into the town centre as I’d arranged to meet my friend in Starbucks at 11.
