IT’S several hundred years since Cavaliers were last at Corfe Castle, but one villager reckons there might still be some around.

Keen fisherman Don Goodwin, 68, who has lived in the village for 24 years, was out at a playing field in the early hours last Friday morning collecting worms for bait when he saw a ghostly figure.

Don said: “I do a lot of fishing and I use a lot of garden worms. The way to get them is to go out on a wet night with a torch and a bucket.”

He chose the village’s playing field as his hunting ground and added: “This time of year it’s not worth going down there until about midnight. I’m used to other creepy-crawly things like deer and badgers and whatnot – it’s a spooky little place.”

Don said it was about 1.30am when the ghostly figure appeared.

He continued: “I looked up and there’s this chap standing in the middle of the field. I was thinking ‘What’s he doing here at this time of the morning?’”

Don's drawing of the figure Bournemouth Echo: Don's drawing of the "ghost"

Don said the figure must have seen him, as he had his torch on. He described the ghost as tall and said he saw it move as if to pick something up.

He added: “He had a long cloak on with a very high collar. I thought that was very unusual. He also had a small floppy-browed hat and he looked just like one of those Cavaliers.

Don made a drawing of what he saw.

“I bent down to pick a few more worms up and then I got back up and he vanished. It was a long way from the perimeter of the field and he would have had to run at full tilt to get to the bushes.

“It didn’t frighten me, but I didn’t know where he would have just disappeared to.”

Don also says he and other villagers often hear a gate at the park being opened and closed when there is no-one there. But before you accuse Don of having one too many whiskeys, he doesn’t drink.

Spooky.