Shankend

Shankend Manor was an Elizabethan mansion built in Scotland overlooking the railway line to Edinburgh Waverley. It is featured in the paranormal book, Railway Ghosts and Phantoms.

History

The manor was built in Elizabethan times to manage the countryside around it.

In the First World War, the Manor was used as a prisoner-of-war camp for German soldiers being held prisoner. In 1917, a Cholera outbreak hit the camp, and the prisoners were buried where they fell.

By the 1930s, the Manor was left abandoned, and hasn't appeared on any road map since the 1970s. Whether the Manor is still standing or not is uncertain.

Spectral aura

In the 1950s, the Manor was associated with its foreboding aura of evil that seemed to surround it. The late Derek Cross visited the Manor in 1955 to photograph the nearby railway line, and both he and his dog were so overcome by a sense of evil that they stayed no more than ten minutes before leaving.

Some claim that the aura is a result of the unsettled spirits of the dead German prisoners who were kept at the camp. Others believe it may be the atmosphere of the Manor itself rather than the prisoners kept there.

Geography

Shankend is located north of Hawick, close to Whitrope Siding. The Road Atlas of Britain from 1969 shows it to be on a small B-road leading North away from Hawick.