Haunted Isle of Sheppey

by Neil Arnold

  Gwen reported how some of her friends worked at the hotel as maids. They lived in the attic rooms and would often dare each other to frequent the ill-lit corridors and if brave enough, to spend just a few short moments in Lord Nelson’s bed. However, when Gwen stayed in the room, strange things began to happen. She explained, ‘Everything moved – the bed, tables, chairs – everything, and it was not imagination. I’ll swear to it.’

  It was shortly after this bout of weird activity that Gwen had her actual sighting of the spectre, although she couldn’t grasp the meaning of it. She continued:

  None of it made sense. The clanking of chains and the car door were out of sequence in time. The car was too modern for this man of another age, but the sounds came together. I swear I saw him. I’ve had my leg pulled about it and people have made game of me suggesting it was my imagination. I think he’s probably some unhappy spirit – perhaps a murderer or the victim. History books tell of a great deal of smuggling from the pier to the hotel. Who knows? One thing’s for sure, he’s never harmed anyone.

  The Red Lion pub.

  The Red Lion is another reputedly haunted pub. It can be found at No. 61 High Street, Blue Town and is said to be the oldest pub in the area dating back to the late 1700s, once listed as The Swan Inn. It was rumoured to have been haunted by a ‘lady of the night’ who plied her trade at Sheerness docks. The ghostly woman was said to have been accompanied by an equally spectral dog. A team of ghost hunters who investigated the pub claimed that they heard phantom footsteps on the landing, whilst several members reported an overwhelming feeling of dizziness and sickness, as if they were onboard a boat.

  The Britannia Hotel used to sit at No. 75 High Street, Sheerness. Although it closed its doors in 1990 – it has since been taken over by a number of shops and solicitors – there are those who still recall their ghostly encounters. A Mrs Beryl Kingsnorth wrote to the Sheppey Gazette in February 1997 with her memories. She commented:

  I worked there as a barmaid from 1978 to 1980. I know very little of its earlier history except that it was originally a very fine hotel, attracting high ranking officers from the ships that came to the Royal Naval Dockyard. To me it seemed to be two pubs in one because the public bar was always very lively and popular with local people and the saloon bar was the favourite haunt of the seamen who came from the boats in the docks. My strongest memories however, are of the stories I was told about the ghosts which were supposed to roam around the cellar and the top floor. Whether one believes in them or not, there is no doubt that quite often the beer would stop flowing and upon investigation the landlord found that the gas taps had been turned off. One can only surmise that the ghost was either teetotal or just a spoilsport.

  Although Beryl never actually experienced anything troublesome at the Britannia, she was certainly in fear of the rumours; she added:

  One evening in particular, I remember. The landlord had to go out and said he would not be back in time to open up, so would I do it? I didn’t fancy the idea much but didn’t like to refuse and so it was with great trepidation that I arrived there. It was dark and I had to unlock the door to the public bar in Rose Street, which meant that I had to walk through the bar to reach the light switches. Having done that and already feeling nervous I then had to go upstairs to the office to bring down the tills. I could only carry one at a time because they were quite heavy and there were three of them. By the time I had done the journey three times I was absolutely terrified although I never saw or heard anything untoward. Imagination can be a wonderful, but also a terrible thing!

  The Victory pub, which was originally located on Victory Street and later moved to Railway Road in Sheerness, made headlines in 1991 when the Warne family temporarily moved in to manage the Railway Road premises. ‘Ghostly Goings On Haunt Pub Family’ was the headline the Sheerness Times Guardian ran on 31 January 1991 in reference to the family’s introduction to the festive peculiarities. According to the paper, ‘the couple [Dennis and Cynthia, accompanied by their sons, 19-year-old Adam and 8-month-old Christopher] arrived at the Shepherd Neame pub just before Christmas … and it wasn’t long before they noticed that there was something “different” about the place’.

  Like a number of witnesses to paranormal activity, the Warnes were initially very sceptical in regards to a possible haunting, despite hearing rumours from locals that the building had been ghost infested for a number of years. Dennis commented, ‘I’ve never really taken any notice of this sort of thing; like everybody else I’m too busy worrying about the land of the living.’

  However, as soon as the family moved in strange things began to occur. Dennis went on, ‘… pictures started flying off nails in the wall … there have been many times we have heard noises and seen things we cannot explain’.

  Former site of the Britannia Hotel with the Clock Tower in foreground

  One night in early January baby Christopher was asleep upstairs and the rest of the family were downstairs when suddenly they heard noises, as if furniture was being thrown about in the room above them. ‘We ran upstairs as quickly as we could,’ claimed Cynthia, ‘but when we got to the study there wasn’t a sign of anything.’

  Whether by coincidence, the former landlord, a chap named Mike Docherty, stated that whilst he and his wife were moving items out of the pub – they were leaving for another pub in Ashford – they returned to the room and found that the carpet had been rolled up all ready for the removal van!

  Those who knew of the peculiar happenings at the pub often spoke about how the unsettled spirit could well be that of an ex-landlord who committed suicide on the premises many years ago. The name of the man was Arthur, but was it him who was responsible for tampering with the pumps? Cynthia said:

  On Christmas Eve we were convinced that we had run out of coke and lemonade. The pump wasn’t bringing anything up from the cellar so we used bottles all over Christmas. When Dennis went down to the cellar, though, he discovered that the gas cylinder had been physically turned off. We are the only ones to go down there and we are absolutely certain that neither of us had done that.

  Just a short distance from Railway Road is Clyde Street. No. 55 is the site of the Blacksmiths Arms, which at the time of writing stands empty. In June 2013 Kent Online reported that landlord Mark Hughes had applied for permission to convert the pub into two terraced houses and a ground-floor flat. In the 1980s there was much talk of a ghostly presence at the pub. The occupiers then were Kevin and Mo Beddows who, up until 1986, experienced a number of uncanny incidents – but then the spectre left as quickly as it had arrived. Mo reported, ‘It was as real as any apparition can be – a presence to be reckoned with – a spirit who would silently move bottles around the bar and in the cellar.’

  Reputed pub ghosts always seem to spend much of their time in those damp cellars – ideal habitats, one would assume, for something so unearthly. The couple also reported the usual unnatural chills which they took as a sign that the presence was near. However, the Beddows believed that it was in fact their fault that the ghost disappeared. Mo added, ‘… he was harmless enough and we ousted him without realising it when the pub had a face-lift. What with all the alterations – including the conversion of a terrace house to create a pool and darts area – he just took off.’

  The Blacksmiths Arms on Clyde Street.

  Meanwhile, the ghost of a little boy was once said to haunt Halfway Houses Primary School situated on Southdown Road. The school used to be known as Halfway Primary, and part of it dates back to 1910. Betty Oldmeadow was the secretary there for more than twenty years. She commented, ‘I spoke to some retired teachers who used to work at Halfway School and they remembered a rumour about the old air-raid shelter there being haunted’. However, the young boy phantom appears to be a separate entity and it is believed that he fell ill and died but possibly still frequents the place.

  I was also contacted by a chap named Philip who told me several ghost stories related to Sheerness. He commented:

>   As a little boy I always grew up knowing and hearing stories from family and friends about ghosts etc. When I was young my parents told me about the time they were walking in the alleyways of Maple Street one evening [around 1965] while they were courting (their words) and trying to have that sneaky kiss when my dad saw what he thought was a sheet blow over the wall. My dad in his day would nick [steal] anything, as most youngsters would! So he jumped on the wall to get the sheet to take home. However the sheet seemed to disappear into the house. My parents were both startled by this so walked fast round to the front of the house where there was a lady sitting around a table calling in the spirits. They were both scared but they always disbelieved what they saw so much so that when they recall this story they say ‘but we don’t believe it’.

  Philip continued:

  A fair few years previous to this [presumably in the early 1960s] my mum was babysitting for a family in the same road [possibly in the same house]. There were flowers in a vase on the table and the water in the vase kept turning to blood! This ‘water’ was tested and proven to be blood. The story was covered by local media and some of the major tabloids! My mum was very freaked out by this but since then is always reluctant to speak about it, often stating that ‘yeah, maybe it happened’.

  A few years later, Philip had been living at Wellesley Road in Sheerness and his neighbours, a big family, were a bright and cheerful lot until they moved to Maple Street. One wintry day Philip visited his ex-neighbours to give them a Christmas card, but, according to Philip, there was ‘a very strange feeling of nastiness from the house. The dog was scratching at the door and the family were no longer bright and cheerful.’

  Philip, although still a youngster, rushed home to his parents and told them how he’d felt uneasy but couldn’t really explain the peculiar atmosphere and attitude of the family. He added: ‘A few months later our friends had packed up and moved and the house was boarded. Later that year the family’s story was in the paper that they had moved away as their house was haunted by a ghost of a cat and a man in Victorian attire who took over the house. The house was later sold but this took many years.’

  I was extremely intrigued by this haunted house tale, but found another equally terrifying example in the Sheerness Times Guardian of 1 May 1981 under the heading, ‘Terror Spirit Stalks Hope St. Home’. A Sheerness resident claimed to have been ‘paralysed’ with fear after encountering paranormal activity. According to the report, 37-year-old Margaret Parsons had fallen ‘victim to evil spirits’ on the Saturday night previous and had remained in bed ‘unwilling to talk or eat’, according to her brother. The report continued that, ‘Today (Friday) she has an appointment to visit her doctor and her family hope she can be persuaded to overcome her terror.’ Margaret’s brother, Andy Ralph, and his wife Julie, who were in their late teens at the time, told the newspaper that Margaret had visited their home at Hope Street on the Saturday and had come face to face with the ghost of a man described as being about 50 years of age, wearing glasses and dressed in a pinstripe suit. When Margaret saw the spirit she, according to her brother, ‘appeared to be in a trance and kept saying, “get it out”. We were terrified. We all fled and there is no way we will ever go back to that place. Never.’

  Maple Street – an unlikely setting for a ghost story?

  The teenage couple had been aware of a peculiar presence in the house since that January and other relatives and friends had heard strange noises in the property but it was only Margaret who came face to face with the wraith. Despite the chilly encounter her husband Ron told the paper that ‘she remembers nothing of the experience … her eyes were bloodshot and when I looked into her eyes it was as though I was sharing the experience.’

  The Times Guardian added that, ‘the Ralphs, who have a seven-month-old daughter say they were fortunate to have experienced nothing more sinister than odd coins being thrown around a room, doors shutting themselves; a feeling of being watched and lights switched on and off.’ According to the paper the weirdness began on 6 January with Andy commenting, ‘I can pinpoint the date exactly because it was Twelfth Night and I had taken down Christmas decorations. From then on it’s been uncanny.’

  The family investigated the history of the property and discovered that a middle-aged man had lived alone in the flat and died in 1974 from pneumonia. A neighbour stated that the man’s name was Harry and that he was a quiet man, so it seemed a big mystery as to why the spirit – if it was that of the deceased gentleman – appeared to cause so much mischief. The same neighbour commented that, ‘I’ve never been aware of anything evil in the house and I’ve lived here a good many years. There are empty buildings either side and it’s possible that cats or rats could roam around making odd noises. It’s all very strange.’

  Hope Street – the former site of a haunted house.

  A spiritualist lady named Florence Grounsell was of the opinion that Margaret Parsons may have been unknowingly receptive to spirits and told the newspaper, ‘I would need her co-operation and that of everyone else who was in the house at the time to help drive out the spirits with the cross and prayer, but they are unwilling to return to the house.’

  The teenage couple and their daughter were so troubled by the alleged spiritual encounter that they stayed at the house of Margaret and her husband, Ron, until they could find another flat. However, the following week a Broad Street resident wrote to the newspaper with his take on the alleged haunting, stating:

  Sir – All compassionate people will feel the utmost sympathy for the plight of the residents of the house in Hope Street – For so long in the history of mankind, such odd happenings, which at first seem attributable only to the presence of evil spirits or some allied supranormal cause, upon careful investigation result in a completely rational explanation. If we set our feet firmly on the ground and recognise that there is no such thing as the supernatural we shall have made a good start. People believe what they want to believe, that is why so many resort to so-called psychic mediums or the ritual of religious exorcism with a crucifix and holy water to deal with those demons.

  The sceptical enquirer was certainly quick to debunk the possibility of a ghostly figure prowling the Hope Street property, and like that equally dismissive neighbour agreed that, ‘Perhaps a loose floorboard or a broken hinge might show the cause of what they imagine is the presence of evil spirits.’ The Broad Street resident concluded:

  The view down Hope Street.

  In the two chapters entitled ‘The omnipresence of demons’, and ‘The expulsion of embodied evils’, in his monumental work, The Golden Bough, Sir James Frazer sets out the amazing catalogues of magical rituals and religious incantations employed by priests and magicians to exorcise evil spirits. The neighbours of the troubled residents in Hope Street, who said: ‘There are empty buildings on either side and it’s possible that rats or cats could roam around making odd noises,’ is almost certainly on the right.

  Despite his theories, the author of the letter failed to explain the entity that Margaret Parsons had reputedly encountered and, judging by local gossip, others had experienced the same activity.

  Mr Frost’s Chilly Encounter …

  In July 2013 I was contacted by a Bob Frost, a Sheppey resident who was keen to speak of a weird encounter he had had a few decades previously. He wrote:

  It was 1966 and I was employed as deckhand on the Trinity House pilot cutters in Sheerness docks. We operated as two man crews, deckhand and cox, on shifts covering 24/7, 365 days a year, based in an office that still sits on the sea wall near Garrison Point Fort. The fort lies at the end of the dock road and the road has a high wall running down its length with the working docks inside.

  Sheerness docks – this way for ghosts!

  The office has a clear view looking down at the road and wall, and at that time there was a building used as the customs and excise offices alongside the road. It was the early hours of the morning and we had a slack shift and I was feeling peckish so decided that t
ea and toast was called for. Our office building had a fully functional kitchen but the toaster was a bit fierce and my toast burnt. I stood at the sink scratching the burnt bits off my toast when, through the window, out of the corner of my eye I caught a movement. Coming down the road, partially shielded by some trees, appeared to be someone in a white raincoat heading towards the customs building. As they got closer I realised that the lights on the road had gone out automatically at 01:00 hrs and I shouldn’t be able to see anyone in the dark. As the figure cleared the trees I saw what I can only describe as a tall luminous man dressed in Elizabethan clothes striding down the road. He must have been in sight for over a minute when he went behind the customs building to appear out the other side and carried on down the road. At this point I realised that he was actually walking just above the road and not on it. As he got nearer the fort he disappeared through the wall into the area of the dry dock. By this time I had dropped my toast and it took a few seconds to get myself back into mode.

  I went into the office and told the cox that I had just seen a ghost. He didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘Son,’ he said, ‘I’ve seen hundreds of them down here.’

  Site of Sheerness docks.

  Shortly after this I left Trinity House to join the merchant navy. Roll the clock on to 1993 and I found myself back in the docks on security. In an idle moment I was recounting my tale to my workmates when one told me that a guy on the other shift had reported seeing a ghost come through the wall while he was patrolling the dry dock. I spent many hours patrolling the docks on night shift but never saw anything else, but always had a sense of peaceful contentment whilst being there. At the time of the incident Sheerness docks was in the period between the naval dockyard having closed and the commercial docks really taking off with a ferry terminal etc. On a personal basis I was young and fit, having just left the army, and drink was taboo at work and drugs taboo period. I can describe what I saw but don’t know what it was. Was it a replay from the past? A lost soul perhaps? I just know what I saw and the fact that I was fascinated but not frightened.