Edmund Jones reported that in or around 1757, a man named David Griffiths, who was a carpenter by profession, was walking near the river when he heard a strange noise. He described it as being like “the braying of an ass”, but it resonated with “something “hellish”. Then he noticed something next to him - “he saw a dark roller, rolling by his side”, which then went through a hedge, tearing it apart as it did so. Such was the shock of the encounter; Griffiths spent the next two weeks in bed.