On the A46 Stratford Road on the left, going from Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, is a conical hill known as either the Devil’s Nutting Bag, the Devil’s Nightcap or Alcock’s Arbour. It is more apparent visually though if you approach it from the Stratford Road/Trench Lane direction from the north, when it will be right in front of you.
The Devil’s Nutting Day
The devil appellations come from the legend that he was out gathering nuts one 21st September, appropriately known as the Devil’s Nutting Day. A rhyme from 1709 goes:
“The Devil as common people say, Doth go a nutting on Holy-rood day.”
Holy –rood day is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (21st September), and apparently the Devil unexpectedly met the Virgin Mary. Stories vary as to what happened next. Some say that he was so surprised that he dropped the bag of nuts. Another story says that she ordered him to drop the bag of nuts. Whatever happened, the bag of nuts became the hill. A Warwickshire saying was that anything dirty or dingy was said to be as, “the colour of the Devil’s nutting bag.”
Locked in a chest
The Alcock name comes from a robber called Alcock who kept his ill gotten gains locked in a chest in a cave inside the hill. There are documents from 1480 which mention a John Alcock. A partly filled in hole at the base of the hill marks where this cave was. The treasure is still said to be there, locked in a chest, with three locks and with a cockerel on top guarding. Someone did manage to open two of the locks once, but got torn to pieces by the cockerel when he tried to open the third. It is said that if the cockerel is given a bone from whoever put him there, then he will relinquish the treasure.
Some Roman coins were unearthed there. Which might be the origin of the treasure story.
Sources
“Haunted Warwickshire” by Meg Elizabeth Atkins. Page 90.
“Folk Lore in Shakespeare Land” by J Harvey Bloom. Page 126.
http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/legends/alcocks-arbour-aka-devils-bag-of-nuts/
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