The encounter took place near 'Sarsden Pillars', the pair of grand stone columns which stand at what was once the east entrance to Sarsden Park.

The man was just passing the pillars when another man unexpectedly appeared by his side in the dark. Although his strange companion hardly said a word, the man was still grateful for the company at such a lonely spot and the two walked together for a while.

They carried along in this fashion quite happily for some distance, until they passed a cottage and a woman came out carrying a lantern. As the light of the lantern fell on his travelling companion the man glanced around to get a better look at him and was shocked to see that the man was carrying his head under his arm!

On realising that he had been spotted, the headless figure promptly disappeared!

In Folklore of the Cotswolds, Katherine M. Briggs gives an account of the same story that differs in a number of details. In Briggs's account, the nocturnal walker is given a name and a profession, Mr Bayliss the brewer from Chipping Norton. Bayliss had a girlfriend in Milton-under-Wychwood, and would visit her there on a Saturday night and walk home at around midnight.

We are told that Mr Bayliss did not much enjoy his walks home alone as a number of times he had heard the sound of an invisible coach passing him in the dark at the point where the road passed the Sarsden Pillars. Consequently Bayliss was relieved when the figure of a man joined him on his walks at around this spot, although his companion would only walk with him as far as the pillars before parting ways. Briggs mentions that the stranger never spoke, but that Bayliss was a talkative man and happy to carry on the conversation single-handed!

In Briggs's version of the tale, Bayliss met the man two Saturdays in a row, but both times it was a dark, moonless night so he couldn't get a good look at him. However, on the third Saturday there was a bright moon shining, bright enough for Bayliss to see that his companion was dressed in the clothes of an Elizabethan gentleman, complete with a ruff around his neck, and carried his severed head under his arm!

On seeing this gruesome sight, Bayliss fled and did not stop running until he reached Downs Hollow Cottages, nearly a mile away, where he insisted on spending the night! We are told that Bayliss thereafter made a point of always passing Sarsden Pillars no later than 11pm, and so never encountered the headless stranger again.

Neither Harris nor Briggs speculate as the the identity of the headless stranger, but based on the events of both accounts, it seems that the figure must be connected in some way to Sarsden Park. In Briggs's account, the stranger turned off the path at the Pillars, presumably heading through them and off westward along the lane which was once the grand main drive into Sarsden Park.

The stranger's ruff singles him out as an aristocrat and the location where he is seen, at the entrance to a stately home, leads me to wonder if the stranger could have been a wealthy former resident of Sarsden House? Although the manor at Sarsden is mentioned in the Domesday book, I've struggled to trace the residents of Sarsden House further back thank 17th century, but I would love to discover that a previous resident met their end by beheading!

While it may be merely a coincidence, I note that the church at Sarsden Park is dedicated to St. Peter, the apostle martyred by beheading in AD 44!

While researching the location of this story I came across a real-life tragedy that look place within sight of the Sarsden Pillars in August 1932. Miss Bridget Daly, the 19-year-old daughter of Major and Mrs Daly of Over Norton Park, was driving home from Shipton-under-Wychwood when her car collided with a stationary car at the Sarsden Pillars crossroads. The driver of the other car, Mr Gilbert Greenwood of Blackpool, had pulled up at the junction in order to examine the signpost.

Miss Daly was reported to have been driving at high speed and the force of the crash sent her car somersaulting through the air before coming to rest on its roof over 100ft away. Miss Daly was flung from the car and her lifeless body was found with severe head injuries. Miss Daly died instantaneously, but miraculously her dog was unharmed. Despite the violence of the collision, Mr Greenwood, his wife, and their two children were also unharmed when Miss Daly's car collided with theirs.

At the inquest the jury return a verdict of 'accidental death', exonerating Mr Greenwood from any blame for the accident.

This accident came six years after seven people were seriously injured in another road accident at this spot. In April 1926, two cars driven by a Miss Silman and a Miss Thornton were involved in a head-on collision in poor weather at Sarsden Pillars crossroads. All passengers survived but all but two were hospitalised by the accident.

It's perhaps not surprising that Sarsden Pillars crossroads is no longer a crossroads, the junction having been staggered, presumably to improve its safety.