Scarlett Memories

There are several mentions about this specific event. The earliest is recorded around 1890 when it was incorporated in “Story of My Life” by Augustus Hare. It was later republished by Montague Summers in 1929 and it was classed as an urban legend.
The events took place in Cumberland, specifically at Croglin Grange. Even the location was elusive, however Charles G Harper was kind enough to investigate in 1924. After visiting the area, He found no evidence that Croglin Grange ever even existed. He did however find two similar buildings called Croglin High Hall and Croglin Low Hall. Neither fit the description of the place in the book. Eventually, after much research, he came to the conclusion that Croglin Low Hall was the place Hare had referred to in the book, even though a chapel had not existed nearby in many years.

Croglin Grange was a low granite-brick farmhouse, standing on a hill overlooking a valley. Nearby was an ancient churchyard. The Fisher family, who owned the farmhouse, moved to a larger place and rented out Croglin Grange to a woman and two brothers, Amelia, Edward and Michael Cranswell. Several episodes took place between 1875 and 1876.
During the summer, Amelia was trying to sleep when a strange creature appeared at her window and began picking out the lead surrounding one of the window panes with a long fingernail, then removing it and putting its hand through the resulting gap to undo the window latch and let itself in. The vampire bit her in the throat. When her brothers came into the room, the monster was gone. While one brother tried to help his sister, the other went after the creature, however it disappeared over the wall and into the churchyard using gigantic leaps.
It was described as having a brown face and flaming eyes with a ragged general appearance. Amelia had been lucky enough to be still awake when the creature made its way from the nearby line of trees across to her window [the said trees apparently separated the property from the nearby churchyard]. It was also imbued with inhuman speed, as observed when it was making its escape.
After a trip to Switzerland, the three returned to Croglin Grange and the creature returned again. One brother shot it in the leg and was able to track it down to a vault in the local cemetery.
They waited until the next day to enter the vault and inside they found that all the tombs were destroyed except for one. It was here where they found the body of the vampire, later described as being in a shriveled and mummified state – with a fresh wound to the leg. They then burned it until nothing but ask was left of it.

Because this legend is so similar to “Varney the vampire”, a number of modern-day researchers have tried their luck at uncovering some extra details about the events. Most of the articles written in the last decades place the story anywhere between 1650 – 1720 at Croglin Low Hall [it was commonly called Croglin Grange until 1720].

§۞§ Related: §۞§
† Superstitions
† Legends
† Vampire Accounts