Walford's Oak

Walford's Oak is an eerie tale based on a true account which fascinated the poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. Somerset, England, 1797: On a stretch of road near the village of Over Stowey, two women encounter a frightening murder scene. Horrified, they run to the local inn where they learn that murderer and victim—a handsome charcoal burner named John Walford and his pregnant wife—are ghostly apparitions of a tragic event that transpired eight years earlier. The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who has recently come to live at Stowey, hears the story and develops a fascination for the tale of the unhappy young man who was hanged for his crime. Coleridge's musings form the basis for Walford's Oak. John Walford is only a teenager when his father marries Cybele Reynolds, a mysterious beauty whose checkered fortunes have taken her from London's drawing room elite to the tawdry life of a Bristol whore. But after several years of marriage, Cybele's interest turns to her husband's son. She and John begin a passionate and secret affair which promises to bring ruin to them both. When John meets pretty Ann Rice and vows to wed her, Cybele does all she can to spoil the romance. In a defiant rebound, John takes up with a village woman who lures him to her bed; when she becomes pregnant John is forced to wed her. Walford's Oak is a haunting story of madness, delusion, witchcraft and a savage passion which could never die.