The church of Breedon, in Leicestershire, stands alone on a high hill [inside the fort], the village being at its foot. The hill is so steep on the side towards the village, that a carriage can only ascend by taking a very circuitous course; and even the footpath winds considerably, and in some parts ascends by steps formed in the turf. The inconvenience of such a situation for the church is obvious, and the stranger, of course, wonders at the folly of those who selected a site for a church which would necessarily preclude the aged and infirm from attending public worship. But the initiated parishioner soon steps forward to enlighten him on the subject, and assures him the pious founder consulted the convenience of the village, and assigned a central spot for the site of the church. There the foundation was dug, and there the builders began to rear the fabric; but all they built in the course of the day was carried away by doves in the night, and skilfully built in the same manner on the hill where the church now stands. Both founder and workmen, awed by this extraordinary interference, agreed to finish the edifice thus begun by doves.

"In the north-west of Leicestershire are the ruins of Grace Dieu Priory and in the field alongside stands the remains of a monolith. In our research on the county Andrew York and I learned of a legend which stated that a 'White Lady' ghost could be seen in this field on rare occasions. It was supposed to be the ghost of one of the nuns belonging to the former priory. To our surprise we discovered that this was not merely a legend, but it was also claimed that people nowadays had allegedly seen the spectre, even that a country bus which which runs along a road down one side of the haunted field had, at night, stopped for a white figure only to find it was the ghost. It was our good fortune to learn of an eyewitness account of the phenomenon. According to this witness, on the bus one evening when one of these incidents occurred, the 'White Lady' was simply a softly glowing, misty column of light, not a figure at all, that floated off across the field. In daylight, this type of event, or something very similar, seems to appear more as a dark column of gaseous or cloudy substance - a veritable vapour.

Some old persons in the neighbourhood, still living, remember when it stood a very considerable height, perhaps 8 or 10 feet, in an artificial fosse or hllow. About fifty or sixty years ago the upper parts of the stone were broken off, and the fosse levelled, that a plough might pass over it; but, according to the then frequent remark of the villagers, the owner of the land who did this deed never prospered afterwards. He certainly was reduced [..] to absolute poverty, and died about 6 years ago in the parish workhouse.