When young museum curator Fanshawe is sent to catalogue a debt-laden squire's archaeological collection, he uses a pair of homemade binoculars borrowed from his genial host to survey local 'Gallows Hill'. The glasses seem to give him a strange new ability and, ignoring all warnings about their necromantic creator, Fanshawe carries out his historical researches. But the bloody past of the area is best left undisturbed.