The Clifton sturgeon and the Wardour owls

Chambers listed several omens of death attached to old families. The Arundells of Wardour were warned when two owls of enormous size were seen perched on the battlements of their house. The Cliftons of Clifton Hall in Nottinghamshire knew a death was coming when a sturgeon forced its way up the Trent, on whose bank the house stands. A Roman Catholic family of Middleton in Yorkshire was said to be warned by the apparition of a Benedictine nun.