In June 2018 the Burton Mail reported that Ian Griffiths, a Swadlincote psychic medium, had acquired a broken piece of wood said to be from an old tree at Calke Abbey. A Ticknall couple had found it near a pond in 2003, believing it to be driftwood, and said a face appeared in it. They took it to the historian Richard Felix at the Derby Heritage Centre, where it was kept until Mr Griffiths took it on.
Mr Griffiths told the paper the wood showed a woman wiping a tear from her eye, and said he had contacted three spirits through it, one of whom he identified as Caroline Hudson, nee Dexter. According to the article, records from Ticknall show that in January 1840 the bodies of two 15 year old boys were found under the ice, missing for nine days, after they were believed to have gone sliding on their way home from work. A joint grave stands in Ticknall churchyard. Mr Griffiths said Caroline was the mother of one of the boys.
The drowning is documented by the paper's account of local records. The link between that tragedy and the face in the wood comes only from the medium's claims, and a face seen in a log is a classic pareidolia case. The paper itself invited readers to say what they saw, reporting a woman, a pug, an owl and a monkey. The entry is a single report, filed here with that caution. The pin marks Calke Abbey and is approximate.
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