Haunted London

by Peter Underwood

  The best-known ghost of Westminster Abbey is ‘Father Benedictus’, a monk said to have been murdered when the thieves robbed the abbey in 1303, although there is no record of any monk being killed inside the abbey. Those who have seen the apparition describe the figure as tall and thin, with a prominent forehead, sallow skin, a hooked nose and deep-set eyes. Among the witnesses were two young women who saw the form one Saturday evening in 1900. They were in the abbey for evensong and turning towards the south transept they saw a Benedictine monk standing silently watching them. His hands were hidden in the sleeves of his habit and his cowl was thrown back to reveal a domed head. His leisured gaze swept over the assembled congregation and then he slowly walked backwards, pausing occasionally to look contemptuously at some member of the public. At length he disappeared through a solid wall and one witness estimated that she had watched the mysterious and somewhat frightening figure for over twenty minutes.

  Father Benedictus is said to often walk through the cloisters between five and six o’clock in the evening and occasionally he is reported to talk to people, before vanishing into solid stone wall.

  Some years ago, the figure was seen by three visitors who stated that the cowled figure approached to within five feet of where they stood, and they noticed that his feet were an inch or so above the ground — the stones of the floor of the cloisters having been worn down since the monk walked there in the flesh. On the occasions when the figure is reported to have spoken, he is said to talk in what sounds like Elizabethan English and he once said that he was killed in the reign of Henry VIII. After giving a talk at the Wigmore Hall in 1967, a member of my audience, Mrs Cicely M. Botley, told me that she and two friends saw a brown-robed apparition inside the abbey on the night before the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth) in 1923.

  The unexplained figure of a khaki-clad soldier of the First World War, mud-stained and bareheaded with his eyes full of strange pleading, has been seen near the tomb of the unknown warrior. Sometimes he has been seen with outstretched arms as though imploring help or deliverance. One witness of this apparition told me that the figure seemed to be trying to say something but no sound of any kind accompanied the appearance, which lasted only a few seconds in the dying sunlight of a winter’s day. The form has become known as the ghost of the Unknown Warrior.

  A historical ghost haunts the Inslip Rooms in the deanery at Westminster Abbey where heavy footsteps have been repeatedly heard in the passage and on the stairs at dead of night. They are believed to be those of John Bradshaw, president of the High Court of Justice, who, during the Commonwealth, occupied these rooms. It was here that Bradshaw, having put aside all legal objections to the court, refused to allow Charles I to speak in his own defence and, having pronounced the death sentence on the king, finally signed the warrant authorizing the execution. Bradshaw’s ghost has also been reported to have been seen here.

  In June 1972, Dr Edward J. Moody of the Department of Anthropology at Lawrence University told me about the experiences of a film unit during filming in the crypt of Westminster Abbey, beneath Poets’ Corner. Among other happenings, I was told about the curious behaviour of a certain door which would not remain closed but opened by itself time after time; there was an odd and peculiar noise which almost defied description but which was noticed by everyone present although nothing could be discovered that might have accounted for it; and there was the curious action of some of the lighting apparatus when lights switched themselves off three times in succession.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE HAUNTED THAMES AND ITS MARGINS

  There is a theory that underground water might account for some of the sounds and movements of objects commonly attributed to poltergeist activity, a theory carefully tested and examined by a former president of the Society for Psychical Research, Guy Lambert, CB. I have discussed the matter with him on several occasions, both at the offices of the SPR and at The Ghost Club, and while I feel this may be the solution in some instances, I am quite sure it is not the answer in a number of cases.

  Whether or not the presence of water contributes to psychical phenomena, it is indisputable that a great deal of psychic activity is associated with water and London’s great river is no exception. It may not have such a spectacular apparition as the famous Flying Dutchman, long reputed to haunt the waters around the Cape of Good Hope, a spectre that has found an entry in not a few ships’ logs and the late Commander A. B. Campbell, RD, is among those who have personally assured me that they have seen the phantom ship in full sail in those wind-swept seas; but there are many and varied reports of ghosts and ghostly activity on the Thames itself and along its borders.

  ADELPHI

  Very few Londoners or visitors to London have been inside the Adelphi Arches, that oblong ‘underground village’ of subterranean streets, vaults and arches that cover an acre of ground between the Strand and the Thames.

  The four Adam brothers built the famous area that they called Adelphi on the site of Old Durham Palace over two hundred years ago. This was before the construction of the Victoria Embankment and to overcome the difficulty of building on muddy foundations immense arched vaults were constructed. Some of these vaults remain. A few have been modernized and serve as garages but the arches in their original form were long used by Messrs Sichel as wine and cask cellars. In one of these dark arches, marked on the Drummond Estate map as ‘Jenny’s Hole’, resides the ghost of a murdered girl.

  The old Adelphi, pulled down by the Drummonds in 1936 and replaced by the present concrete-and-glass monstrosity, had been known and loved by scores of famous people. Charles Dickens (who had worked as a boy in a rat-ridden boot-blacking warehouse nearby) loved to wander about the ‘dark arches’; David Garrick lived there and entertained Dr Johnson, Boswell, Sir Joshua Reynolds and others in his house over the arches; Benjamin Disraeli knew the old Adelphi, as did Rowlandson; the King and Queen of the Sandwich Islands both died at the Adelphi in 1823; Bernard Shaw lived there, and Thomas Hardy and Sir James Barrie; even Napoleon Bonaparte stayed briefly at the old Adelphi and may have wandered moodily about the arches. Now all they would recognize would be the arches themselves, dark, mysterious and at times terrifying, the haunt of the homeless and drug-addicts — and Jenny’s ghost.

  In 1875, at the spot now known as Jenny’s Hole, the body of an unknown young woman was discovered. She was a poor Victorian prostitute and she had been strangled, probably by one of her customers, on the squalid pile of sacking and rags where she plied her trade.

  Even today, the dark corner harbours the ghost of poor Jenny. Her pale rag-clad form has been glimpsed from time to time briefly before it disappears into these ancient and solid walls, but more often muffled screams — the last sounds that Jenny ever made — hang for a moment on the air. There is also sometimes a frenzied tattoo as her heels rattle again against the unfriendly stone before silence returns to the arches and they resume their centuries of quiet.

  BLACKWALL TUNNEL

  Victorian Blackwall Tunnel, London’s one nineteenth-century tunnel which still serves its original purpose (although now more than doubled in size and set off with handsome motorway approaches) had its share of tragic accidents during construction and inevitably there have been fatalities to users of the tunnel in recent years, among them a youngster who periodically haunts the scene of his death. One report circulating in October 1972, told of a motorcyclist who gave a young man a lift at the tunnel entrance on the Greenwich side. Arriving at the other end of the tunnel, he turned to say something to his passenger (who had mentioned his address) and to his dismay found that he had no one on the pillion-seat. Fearful that the young man had fallen off in the tunnel, the motorcyclist returned to the Greenwich side in the hope of preventing an accident. He traversed the whole length of the tunnel four times but could find no trace of the young man he had picked up. More than a little worried, next day he went to the address mentioned by the youngster, only to lea
rn that the boy he described had been dead for some years. Similar stories are reported from time to time from various parts of the country, an interesting phenomenon that represents twentieth-century folklore.

  BUCKINGHAM STREET, STRAND

  Buckingham Street, which leads to Watergate Walk (containing the old Water Gate, a relic of the Duke of Buckingham’s York House that stood here) near Charing Cross, seems to have several ghosts. There are reports of a ghostly, smiling girl at Number 14, where William Etty, the artist, painted his nude studies. Perhaps one happy and carefree moment as one of the girls ran into the house has somehow become impinged on the atmosphere, for reports of the female phantom suggest a hurried and happy form, soundlessly running into the house.

  Next door, at Number 12, Samuel Pepys lived for twelve years, while he was Member of Parliament for Harwich and publishing his Memoirs of the Navy. The staircase is probably original, and it is in the hall, facing the stairs, that the ghost of Pepys has reportedly been seen.

  In 1953, the ghost was seen by Miss Gwyneth Bickford as she ran down the stairs. The stairs are wide and shallow and she was perhaps four steps from the bottom, alone in the lighted hallway, when she saw a figure standing against the wall between two doors. She stopped dead in her tracks, very frightened. She did not think of a ghost but was alarmed by the fact that someone was there when she had thought the hall was deserted. Afterwards, out in the street, she began to realize everything she had seen.

  The house in Buckingham Street where Samuel Pepys lived for nine years, and where his stocky-looking ghost has been seen, smiling and happy, in the hallway at the foot of the stairs.

  The figure had appeared to be quite solid and he stood firm on his feet, which were placed a little way apart. He was stockily built and about five feet, five inches in height. The whole appearance was of a grey figure and the outline was slightly blurred, but what impressed Miss Bickford most of all was the expression on the man’s face. His lips and eyes were smiling just as though he was tremendously pleased to see someone. Looking back, Miss Bickford cannot think why she was so startled as no one could have looked more friendly and kind.

  The figure wore knee breeches and stockings. His coat was open, he was bareheaded and did not wear a full-bottomed wig, as in most of his portraits. Miss Bickford found that as far as she could establish, the clothes worn by the figure were the right period for Samuel Pepys, and she feels sure that the form she saw was indeed the great diarist, revisiting his beloved London: how different he must find it!

  CHEYNE WALK, CHELSEA

  A house in fashionable Cheyne Walk — that delightful riverside promenade bordering Chelsea Reach — has long been haunted by several ghosts. The occupant and others saw a phantom bear in the garden on several occasions and since the garden had, in Tudor times, formed part of a royal estate it was thought that the ursine phantom dated from bear-baiting days, and that the ghost was the spectre of one of the maltreated animals. Once, several guests drew the attention of the occupant to a figure, something like a Dutch doll, that appeared to be leaning out of an upstairs window. A dog that belonged to one of the guests growled savagely and then showed terror, crouching low to the ground, shivering and whimpering. While they were still watching it, the figure suddenly disappeared.

  Unexplained sounds were often heard in the house, especially the sound of some heavy object being dragged over bare boards. Once these sounds seemed to pass through the room in which a number of people were gathered. They all heard the sounds but nobody saw anything to account for the noise.

  Once, the occupant of the house hurriedly left a visitor in the middle of a sentence and rushed out of the room. Afterwards he explained that he had seen a woman with her throat cut, lying on a chesterfield in the room. There are rumours of a murder having been committed in the house, long, long ago.

  CHURCH STREET, CHELSEA

  A house at the river end of Church Street, Chelsea, almost opposite old Chelsea Church, had a resident ghost that was seen by many people but never by the lady artist who lived there.

  One morning, the artist was working with a woman model and, dissatisfied with the face she had painted, the artist replaced it with the face of a pretty young woman from her imagination. She was pleased with the result, for the face had a suggestion of sadness, which the artist felt added a dimension to the picture.

  After the picture was finished a friend came to the studio and seemed to receive something of a shock when she looked at the recently completed painting. All the blood left her face and she turned to the artist. ‘I thought you said you had never seen the ghost here?’ she challenged. ‘You must have — for you have painted the face of the ghost into this picture.’

  Once, when the artist had a friend staying with her, the visitor heard footsteps tramping up the stairs at dead of night. They seemed to enter the drawing room and then retreat down the stairs and out into the yard. Next day, in broad daylight, the visitor saw the ghost of a pretty young woman standing by a window in the drawing room, looking out towards the river.

  Several visitors asked about the loud raps and sound of heavy footsteps that seemed to climb the stairs in the early evening, from the direction of the Elizabethan cellars, remnants of a former house that once stood on the site. Once, during a party, six sceptical and mundane guests heard the sounds and, learning that they were of ghostly origin, diligently searched the whole house and every inch of the cellars but could find no cause for the noises.

  Miss Geraldine Cummins, one of the world’s leading ‘automatic’ writers, told me she believed that Black Magic had been practised in the old house and that earlier still the house had been used as a brothel. She wondered whether the ghost of the sad-faced young woman was one of the girls who had worked in the brothel.

  Mrs Hester Dowden, a reputable and highly-respected medium, held an exorcism in the house and believed that she had succeeded in exorcising the ghost. Thereafter, the owner was dogged with bad luck, but she loved the house and fought to the last to retain a charming fragment of the old village of Chelsea, but eventually she had to go and the house was pulled down and an ugly modern villa built in its place. This in turn was destroyed during the Second World War.

  The vicinity of Cleopatra’s Needle holds a strange fascination for suicides and has a tall, nude ghost that disappears into the river without a ripple or splash.

  Haunted London seen from Waterloo Bridge.

  THE EMBANKMENT

  The Embankment in the area of Cleopatra’s Needle and Waterloo Bridge had, and perhaps still has, a strange fascination for suicides and I have been told that it is a fact known to the older members of the River Police that there are more suicides and attempts at suicide in the immediate vicinity of this granite obelisk, which was originally erected in Egypt about 1500 BC, than on any other particular stretch of the Thames. There have been reports of a strange and shadowy figure, tall and nude, that disappears over the protective wall into the river, although there is no sound of a splash. The sound of groans and mocking laughter have been heard here, for which no explanation has ever been discovered.

  Waterloo Bridge was haunted for a time by the ghost of a headless man following the discovery of a bag containing a dismembered body near one of the abutments of the bridge. The ghost was reported to appear on several successive nights near the spot where the remains were found. The body was never identified and the ghost was only seen for a few weeks.

  Elliott O’Donnell related at The Ghost Club the experience of one police officer who was crossing Waterloo Bridge at night when he heard someone running after him and, looking round found himself face to face with a well-dressed young woman who appeared to be in a highly agitated and excited state. She implored him to go with her, as she had just left someone in great trouble. She led the officer, from whom O’Donnell had the story first-hand, back off the bridge and along the Embankment. As they approached Cleopatra’s Needle he saw a young woman in the act of throwing herself into the river. He rushe
d forward and just succeeded in preventing the tragedy. After he had managed to bring her back to the safety of the pavement, imagine his surprise on looking at her, to see the exact counterpart of the young woman who had fetched him — in both features and dress! On turning to the latter for an explanation, he discovered that she had vanished. Subsequent questioning ascertained that the young woman he had rescued had no twin sister or indeed any close relative or friend and she had seen no woman of any description on the Embankment that night.

  ISLE OF DOGS

  A riverside district comprising Cubitt Town and Millwall, within the borough of Tower Hamlets, is known as the Isle of Dogs, although it is actually a peninsula and not an island. The basis from which both the Isle of Dogs and the neighbouring suburb of Barking take their name is reputed to lie in the legend of a ghostly hunt. In ancient times, the forest of Hainault covered this part of Essex, culminating in a swamp of Thames mud, and the legend tells of a handsome young huntsman and his bride who elected to spend their wedding day boar-hunting. The bride, eager to make a mark on her big day, outran the rest of the hunt and, forgetful of the dangerous ground, dashed wildly on until she found herself engulfed and sinking, slowly but surely, into the treacherous quagmire. Her husband, too late to rescue her but determined to try, plunged gallantly into the slushy wasteland and was also lost in his efforts to save his impetuous young bride. This sad wedding day is regarded as the origin of a skeleton horseman and hunting dogs that have been seen at nights in the locality, a story that is perpetuated in a very old poem:

  A hideous huntsman’s seen to rise,