Mystery of flowers – and beer – at Ampthill 'grave' of hare-courser

Flowers and four cans of Guinness were mysteriously left on the unofficial Ampthill “grave” of a notorious illegal hare-courser during the middle of Wednesday night.

Two beers had been drunk but the other two cans remained unopened in a bizarre tribute to a man called “The John Davis”.

Nobody in the Georgian market town had ever heard of him until a strange stone memorial suddenly appeared beside the main road four years ago. Carved into it were the words: “Here lies the greatest coursing man of all times, The John Davis”.

Underneath was a picture of a lurcher-type dog with the inscription: “Lived for the Land and Died on the Land. Loving brother of Alf, Bob, Jim and Ruby.”

Since then tributes have been placed there every year on October 22, the anniversary of Davis’s death in 2021, and on his November 14 birthday.

It is thought he may have died of a heart attack while taking part in illegal hare-coursing activities in a farmer’s field next to the road.

Then, it is suspected, his ashes were secretly buried in the middle of the night following a funeral service at Bedford’s Norse Street crematorium.

Ampthill resident Charlie Garth said yesterday: “It’s all very strange. Nobody in the town knows anything of this man John Davis.

“He seems well loved and highly thought of by some people. But we in Ampthill certainly wouldn’t want any connection with hare-coursing, which as well as being incredibly cruel is also, of course, illegal.”