sometimes you find what you're looking
for and other times you get far more
than you ever Argand for as we headed
north in Scotland we stopped on a lonely
dirt road to turn at an old and barely
visible overgrown gate and then down a
path just visibly leading to a wood as
we turn from the idyllic Hills in the
distance the path before us led onwards
in the search for an ornate lost final
resting place of a forgotten and
enigmatic lady who once owned the lands
all around us the rarely told story of
her life and how she came to be here in
the middle of nowhere is a fascinating
tale of a woman living out of step with
her time misunderstood and mysterious to
this day the lady of this wood was a
reclusive and very religious woman who
loved animals she lived with many birds
dogs some tame foxes and a pet deer
named George who followed her around and
ate bread and milk from her hand in her
day she was seen as strange and is
remembered for her quirks more than her
deeds she never married and was a
recluse though she was considered very
attractive even until an old age no
painting was ever made of her but she
likely looked much like her mother
pictured here or her sister she was to
live all alone in a massive Gothic
mansion she had built on top of her
family's 1750s villa that was built by
her father her brother the Earl had then
expanded it in stages in 1808 using
famous architect David Hamilton and then
James Gillespie graham when he died
without a male heir she inherited the
vast estates and continued constantly
adding to it with a reverence for feudal
buildings creating a wild gothic
Victorian church like mansion with a
chapel a tower the second largest
stained-glass window in a British house
many suits of armor chandeliers and
oriental drawing-room a huge 50 by
30-foot hall crenelated towers and a
bedroom with a Cupid and Psyche theme
the lands all around had coal mines
farms and other operations that she
managed while personally overseeing the
construction
Dewar's strong will complete freedom
lack of a husband and her reclusiveness
many rumors in high society spoke of her
imagined scandals however she was known
to be generous especially with her
estates families giving them free coal
for heating her animals like George were
treated much like people and when they
died they were buried in their own plots
in time as she retreated into solitude
she was to claim the new house was
raised under bad and awful auspices and
that her dog would howl in the most
dreadful manner in the next room and yet
in spite of its cries would not leave
the dining room though her family had
ruled these lands for 500 years when she
died in her 70s she was the last of her
line in her will she gave much to the
poor the staff and servants her friends
and her animals her large funerary
procession of locals carried her into
the woods where she was interred in a
Grecian 1700s family tomb where lay her
father and brother surrounded by nature
and far from any buildings today her
house is said to be haunted by her ghost
that wanders looking fruitlessly for her
long dead pets her tomb in ton faded
into obscurity with few ever visiting
becoming one with the forest until one
day it became almost forgotten and here
our mystery begins abandoned Tales from
the Crypt the lost lady of the forests
vault of horror as we travel down this
faint trace of a path in search of her
resting place a Kipling poem comes to
mind they shut the road through the
woods 70 years ago weather and rain have
undone it again and now you would never
know there was once a path through the
woods before they planted the trees it
is underneath the compass and Heath and
the thin Andamanese only the keeper sees
that we're the ringed of broods and the
Badgers roll
there was once a road through the woods
where the otter whistles his mate
they fear not men in the woods because
they see so few you will hear the beat
of a horse's feet and the swish of a
skirt and the two steadily cantering
through the misty solitudes as though
they perfectly knew the old lost road
through the woods but there is no road
through the woods
[Music]
beginning to despair of finding the end
of the lost road or that we had truly
lost it along the way
I finally spied a color in shape in the
trees and slowing an old and crumbling
wall came into sight it was square and
certainly fit the profile of a cemetery
[Music]
a gateway led inside the enclosure was
this the lost tomb' a mound of falling
stones and grass overgrown heaves into
sight looking in all directions it's
clear this place is reclaimed by Nature
with not a sign of man walking to its
ornate front this is clearly the lady of
the forest tomb a dark hole beckons
inwards and a stone block lasts nearby
it's clear somebody has tried to get in
our curiosity gets the better of us and
we decide to enter the darkness please
be aware that what you are about to see
may be shocking but it's real and I've
always promised to show you everything
the good and the bad
[Music]
rusted gates greet us twisted and bent
downwards on the floor some refuse and a
broken human pelvis through the gate a
room of casket shelving empty
[Music]
in the front area lies a casket the wood
broken from around it the lead interior
has been cut into and torn back in the
back a leg bone a pelvis and other
smaller bones the skull is missing
[Music]
higher above it another casket lies
smashed apart the lead lining also
ripped open
on the floor
a third casket similarly defiled a
skullcap leg and arm bones ribs and
other parts are still inside
you
[Music]
the fine metalwork on the casket can
still be seen the slab sealing the
receptacle entrances have also been
two-faced
[Music]
but here on the floor I believe we have
found the lost lady of the forest caring
and thoughtful in life forgotten in
death by visitors now defiled by
strangers the position of the casket in
a side shelf suggests the first two
coffins in the front were the earliest
burials from research we know both her
father the Earl and her brother also
Earl preceded her and were buried here
first a look above at the top shelf
shows the skull is gone here too but the
jaw was dropped by the robbers this body
is most likely our lady's father who
built the tomb in the 1700s his bones
lie in a jumble in the broken coffin
it's a sad truth that a black market
exists for human body parts in most
nations one can only legally purchase
them if they are grandfathered
scientific specimens
I suspect the motive here was simple
greed and affront upon a woman who gave
so much in life and left with so little
we glanced around the interior despite
the outward decay there are no holes no
signs of water the ceiling perfectly
arches above untouched
[Music]
every other funerary shelf lies empty we
look around to see if there's a sign of
what the robbers left were plaques that
have not been taken
[Music]
then we notice it in the lady of the
forest coffin we remember what we first
saw earlier and turn back we do the only
thing we can we pick up her broken
pelvis left carelessly discarded by the
thieves and we gently return one small
part of her back to her resting place
[Music]
perhaps in time again she will find the
peace she sought in life in her vast
Gothic mansion filled with her beloved
animals who now surround her in this
silent forest leaving this place were
humbled by what we have found it seems
like there are life lessons to be
learned
be it the transience of wealth or even
our deeds sometimes it's an adventure
that brings us to these places and for
some urban explorers it's a sort of
meditation a reverence for the past or
the ability to leave this world for just
a moment it feels like today we have
done so and found the next and the lady
of the forest has allowed us to share
her law story in life with you but who
was left to speak for her or say goodbye
but these words slowly fading on a grave
in front of our eyes when I am dead my
dearest sing no sad songs for me plant
thou no roses at my head nor shady
cypress tree be the green grass above me
with showers and dewdrops wet and if
thou wilt remember
and if thou wilt forget I shall not see
the shadows I shall not feel the rain I
shall not hear the nightingale sing on
as if in pain and dreaming through the
Twilight the doth not rise nor said
happily I may remember and haply may
forget
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our next exploration as we take you into
the remnants of the asylum of seven
teeth and explore the infamous story of
a horrific murder that haunts it to this
very day