Haunted Isle of Sheppey

by Neil Arnold

  I believe that as I was not aware of his death, that my mind was still receptive to his signal which is why I could see him clearly and interact with him. I believe that as the brain is made up of electrical impulses it can at times act like a radio receiver and that instead of the constant static and lack of signal that most people encounter, when atmospheric conditions are favourable and other conditions are present that we sometimes have just for a few moments or so a clear signal that we pick up. I was still on Mr Jenkins’ wavelength, so to speak, which is why I saw him and no one else did.

  Mai Griffin is an international artist and writer of fiction who spent some of her childhood growing up in Sheerness after her father had been posted on the island during the war. One evening in 1938 Mai had been asleep in her bedroom when her father came in to check on her. Outside the window a beautiful fat moon was hanging in the night sky and Mai’s father fetched her mother so they could both observe the eerie glow. Suddenly however, Mai’s mother – who had been sensitive to spirits throughout her life – noticed the apparition of her aunt Agnes who although smiling, shook her head and pointed to the clock on the mantelpiece – the hands standing at 11.30 p m. Mai’s mother looked back at the ghost of her aunt but the apparition was nowhere to be seen. She sensed, though, that this appearance was a warning of sorts. Mai’s father had not seen the ghostly figure and tried to play down the apparition until the following day, when a telegram arrived from Mai’s grandfather stating that his wife’s uncle had passed away at 11.30 the previous night – the same time the apparition had appeared. Mai and her family were to have many strange episodes, but this was the last to occur in Sheppey before they moved to Lancashire in 1939.

  A number of ghost stories may have no foundation to back up their existence, but at times there is no doubting the power of a yarn. One such tale attached to Sheerness was passed around between many youths going back over several decades and was said to have concerned an old couple who lived and worked in the town. According to legend, the elderly gentleman had a wooden leg and it was always his wish to save up as much money as he could and eventually purchase for himself a false leg made of gold. Although this took some time to achieve, he eventually saved up enough money to be able to afford this luxury golden leg. Sadly however, due to his age, the man passed away shortly afterwards and was buried with his false leg. However, after the death of her husband the woman began to struggle with the local business they had run for many years and in desperation decided that the only way she could pay the mounting bills was to exhume her husband’s grave in order to obtain the golden leg, which she could sell on. One clammy night, or so the story goes, the woman visited her husband’s grave and by the glare of the moon dug the soil until she retrieved the golden leg which she unscrewed from her partner’s body. A few nights later, whilst sitting in bed, the woman began to feel rather ashamed by her actions but was suddenly alarmed by the creak of the back door, which suggested that someone had entered the house. At first the woman thought she must have imagined it but again came the creak.

  Surely just the wind? she thought to herself until the door shut with a bang and was followed by the sound of a few thuds echoing through the kitchen. The woman, now frightened that there might be an intruder in the house, could only remain quiet under her bedsheets as the thudding took to the stairs.

  Thud! Thud! Thud! up each wooden step until the noise reached the bedroom door.

  ‘Who’s got my golden leg?’ A voice snarled in question near the door, leaving the woman a tremor as she realised it was the spirit of her dead husband.

  ‘Who’s got my golden leg?’ The spectre repeated in frustration, and then opened the bedroom door.

  The woman peeked over the top of her sheets in horror at the sight of her ghastly gaunt husband, who, bereft of limb, approached the bed – his face screwed up in the dim light and the thud of his one remaining leg ceasing as he reached the bedside. And with that the despicable wraith boomed, ‘You’ve got my golden leg,’ and with a gnarled, dirty finger pointed at his widow …

  The ending of course is down to the storyteller, but one can’t argue that it’s one of those spooky legends, probably passed down through generations, and that has stood to the test of time due to its vague yet eerie nature. One can imagine schoolchildren huddled around a flickering log fire at Halloween, keen to spin this wild tale of vengeance from the grave!

  Another ghostly tale from Sheerness concerns small premises situated just off the main High Street on the Broadway. At the time of writing it operates as a women’s clothes shop called Youwomen, but back in the 1990s the building, at No. 18, housed Threshers (a convenience store selling alcohol, wine and certainly a spirit or two).

  Youwomen – formerly Threshers, at Broadway, Sheerness.

  In October of 2013 I spoke to a Sheppey resident who worked at the store in the early 1990s. She told me:

  I originally come from London but have lived on the island almost forty years and whilst working at Threshers heard that at some point in the past the building had been a bakery which harboured a cafe at the rear. There were always strange stories attached to the place when I was there and customers would often come into the shop and remark upon the nice smells, as if something was being baked or toasted, even though we never sold toast or cakes etc. Then the delivery men who used to bring the alcohol often commented how they were too afraid to go downstairs into the cellar area. The toilets were down there and the men, even if they needed to go to the loo, wouldn’t use ours because they said there was some ‘thing’ down there. Other female members of staff reported sensing a presence and one of the women would always find it impossible to turn the alarms off in the shop and so she’d have to phone me at home and I’d have to come into the store.

  Originally, when I began speaking to the woman, I thought this was just going to be another case of odd bumps in the night and phantom smells until she matter-of-factly told me about the day she finally witnessed the resident spectre:

  Around 1992 or ’93 I saw the ghost, and it was that of an old lady garbed in a waitress-type uniform – a black dress with a white pinny and small white hat of sorts. I saw her on the stairs going down to the cellar and toilet area. I was the only person to actually see this figure and I wish I’d asked her who she was and why she was there but it’s the last thing you think of when you happen to come across a ghost! Around eight years later the store closed but I heard that the hairdressing staff who worked in the salon that opened upstairs had experienced a few odd things too. I also recall that the ghostly presence didn’t seem to like my female boss at the time and on one occasion she was pushed across the room by an unseen assailant.

  I was so fascinated by this reputedly haunted building that I visited Youwomen during mid-October 2013 and I was made very welcome by owner Michelle Gobbi, who told me that the store did indeed have a ghost and that it was still up to its old tricks. She commented:

  I’ve been at this store about thirteen years and there’s been numerous bouts of activity such as exploding light bulbs, items going missing, objects falling off shelves and a strong smell of toast. There appears to be a presence downstairs too; on one occasion a woman was in the shop with her small daughter and the young girl began talking to someone although there was no one there.

  This wasn’t the first time that Michelle had experienced the paranormal though. She was quick to add:

  I lived at Naval Terrace at Blue Town for just a couple of years with my husband and on several occasions I saw a fleeting form out of the corner of my eye in the kitchen area, which was in the basement. It was dark in colour and either a small child or an animal but it always seemed to be flitting across an adjacent room. It took me a while to tell my husband about what I’d experienced and then found out he’d seen the same thing too. We didn’t stay in the house very long, mainly because it was too big, although one night my young son began crying in his room and when I went to his aid he was standing looking out towards the window a
s if speaking to someone. It was a big house but it didn’t feel right to me.

  Michelle never did find out what exactly was haunting the Georgian building but regardless, No. 6 Naval Terrace always gave her the creeps.

  For a short moment I’d like to return to the Broadway to speak of a haunted hotel. The Royal Hotel can be found at No. 29, just a stone’s throw away from Michelle’s store. The grand-looking hotel dates back to the early nineteenth century and was formerly known as Kent House when it operated as a pub. There are said to be a number of ghosts residing at the hotel, including an elderly lady who frequents a certain sofa upstairs and a batch of spirits, some of them ghostly children, in the cellar.

  It’s fair to say that you’d expect a number of old buildings to give off the occasional creak and groan, but in the Sheerness Times Guardian of 26 August 1960 there was a report in reference to a peculiar set of noises at Sheerness. The story appeared under the heading ‘Things That Go Bump in the Night and the Day’ with mention of two teenagers named Andrew Potts and Brian Finch who had contacted the newspaper to speak of a tormenting sound which often reverberated around the house of Andrew’s parents. The residence, situated on Coates Avenue, was being plagued by ‘queer noises’ that had been experienced since the Easter of 1960. When asked what the strange noises sounded like, the teenagers responded, ‘We’re no scientists but so far as we can make out, the noises are static with a 50-cycle hum and the house seems to receive them rather like a guitar string. Things like doors and windows are affected, and they vibrate quite noticeably.’

  Naval Terrace – No. 6 was thought to be haunted.

  Some suggestions put forward at the time included machinery being operated not far from the house that may have caused such disturbances, and yet investigations revealed nothing that would give off such a peculiar cacophony. Andrew added, ‘It doesn’t worry me much but our next door neighbours are very bothered with it. They say it keeps them awake.’

  The newspaper article concluded that, ‘A guess has been hazarded that only people with ultra-sensitive hearing can pick up the vibrations, and yet Brian stated quite categorically that people standing outside the house have heard the mysterious vibrations too.’ Oddly, the noises were said to have been more frequent during the weekends but it seemed unlikely that such vibrations were connected with the house; as Brian noted, ‘They seem to come from the west …’

  The Royal Hotel.

  Such mysterious hums and drones have been reported throughout Britain for many years, resulting in witnesses having to move premises after getting no explanation from authorities. Whether such irritating sounds can be blamed on spirits no one is sure, but if some type of clandestine operation is taking place elsewhere in the country and causing such distractions, then maybe it could also be responsible for some of those ‘haunted houses’ in which occupants claim that pictures, mirrors etc. are falling off the walls of their own accord and items of furniture are moving across the room.

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  MYSTERIOUS MINSTER

  The marshes which back onto the town of Minster are said to stretch towards the centre of the island, nearing Sheppey’s highest point. The actual centre of the island was once marked by an old tree that fell down in 1915. The name of Minster is said to derive from the monastery founded in the area. To avoid confusion with the town of Minster-in-Thanet, Minster is often called Minster-on-Sea or Minster-in-Sheppey and was mentioned in Charles Dickens’ work The Old Curiosity Shop. In Minster can be found the Abbey Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Sexburgha, which was founded in AD 664 by Queen Sexburgha. According to the Sheppey Website, ‘The Abbey itself is built in the centre of a former Druid or pre Druid place of worship.’ This site is marked by three ancient wells, whose waters are said to aid fertility. It was historian Augustus A. Daley who wrote, ‘The Isle of Sheppey, moreover, and in particular Minster-on-Sea, in the dim vista of dark and bygone ages, has played an important part, worthy in every respect, to be recorded in the pages of history.’

  In 1999 a Minster woman claimed that she was attacked by a giant bird whilst she was riding her horse in the vicinity of Mill Hill. She told a local newspaper, ‘It’s the most bizarre and frightening experience. I was thrown and the horse bolted … the bird had an enormous wingspan.’

  The Face on the Wall

  In 2012 I gave a talk on the Isle of Sheppey to a Women’s Institute group. Whilst at the meeting I was shown a newspaper cutting with a photograph that had been taken at the Isle of Sheppey Academy on Minster Road. The article, posted on Halloween 2012, was featured under the headline, ‘Freaked out by ghostly face on wall’, and appeared to show the form of a face next to a stairwell. The image was snapped by a Lisa Gransden, who had been attending a school reunion at what was formerly the Lady Anne Cheyne School. The woman in question had been taking a tour of the buildings and was taking several photographs on the site but didn’t notice the unusual manifestation until she had returned home. Lisa was spooked by the appearance of what seemed to be a face, commenting, ‘I have shown it to people and everyone says it looks like a face’. But why should there be such an apparition in that area? Well, according to Lisa, ‘apparently a boy fell through the roof at the school and died some time ago – I don’t know how true that is though’.

  Sadly, the photograph hadn’t reproduced well in the newspaper but the original image most certainly seemed to show a face superimposed upon the wall.

  The Sheerness Times Guardian from Halloween 2012 showing the ‘ghostly face on the wall’ as mentioned in the Minster segment.

  The Ghoul of the Gatehouse

  Minster Gatehouse, constructed between 1123 and 1139, now functions as a museum and can be found on Union Road. It is all that remains of a magnificent monastery and over the years may have even been used as a jail. The building was said to sport two gargoyles, used to ward off evil spirits. Rather contradictory, when you consider that some believe that the building was once used by those involved in the darker arts. It seems also that these gargoyle deterrents do not seem to have worked; for many years people have mentioned a grey lady said to wander around the gatehouse. A few years ago I conducted a ghostly talk in the gatehouse for Halloween – the perfect setting for a spooky tale or two – and a number of people spoke about the figure of a woman (some believed it to be a nurse or a nun) said to walk the premises. Roger Betts, resident of Sheppey and former employee at the gatehouse commented:

  Minster Abbey Gatehouse Museum on Union Road.

  I spent lots of hours in the Gatehouse both during the day and at night and never had any personal experiences of ghosts, but I heard lots of tales. I will say that when I was in there, often on my own, there was always a friendly atmosphere to the place. The Grey Lady story I heard involved a lady in a full length petticoated [sic] dress walking up the steps alongside the Highlanders, crossing the road and walking up the path to the church. I did have a lady visitor one day, with her husband, who I was showing around and she suddenly stopped and said ‘Have you ever had any happenings here?’

  I said ‘No, why?’ and she said ‘Someone just spoke to me; a voice said “Hello Master.”’ We decided that the reason she was called master may have been because she was wearing trousers.

  There seems to be some confusion as to whether the reputed ghost of the gatehouse is in grey or white attire. Sheila M. Judge, in Strange Tales of Old Sheppey, writes that with Henry VIII in power ‘the nuns were driven away and most of the monastic buildings quickly given short thrift’, but that ‘since this traumatic event, as the villagers of old would tell, the spirits of the banished nuns have wandered nightly about the site of their former home’, accompanied by a phantom prioress who in life ‘had been notable for her great piousness and devotion’ but now seems forever in limbo haunting the site. Even so, psychic medium and Sheppey resident Mia Dolan, who is well known for her appearances on ITV’s Haunted Homes series, once told the Kent Messenger of her eerie experience at Minster Gatehouse. The encounter
had been her first-ever paranormal experience, and she was just 13 at the time. It was a summer evening and Mia had been attending a youth disco which was held every Monday night at around 6.00 p.m. Mia decided to walk through the grounds of the abbey to get some chips and upon returning saw a woman dressed in white standing near what she often called the Wishing Well Gate. At first Mia thought that the woman in question had been dressed for a party, but as she approached to within 30yds, the figure vanished. Mia told the newspaper, ‘I was so shocked. I went back into the disco and said I’d just seen this person vanish and they all said, “Oh yeah, yeah.”’

  Mia believed that the ghostly figure was a nun and this may have been confirmed by a Mr and Mrs Waters, who in the 1970s were taking a daytime stroll around the gatehouse when they saw a ghostly woman who walked straight through the gate in front of them and disappeared. However, despite the sightings, others argue that there is a more complex explanation for this woman in pale dress. Brian Slade of the Sheppey Archaeological Society was, according to author Cassandra Eason, ‘… led to uncover legendary treasures and a host of artefacts dating back to the Bronze Age by the personage he describes as the White Lady’.