Haunted Isle of Sheppey

by Neil Arnold

  According to the newspaper report, ‘the old poacher’s ghost has been sensed by many. And holidaymakers booking accommodation in the hotel have requested: “Anywhere – but not the ‘funny room’.” Mr Moyes took over the hotel in the late 1950s with his wife Emily, but little did they realise that the ghosts of the past would still linger on the premises, and remain unwilling to move on to pastures new. However, one night the Moyes slept in what became known as the ‘funny room’. It had been a particularly stormy night – as with all good ghostly tales – when they settled down in bed but Fred was soon to report that, ‘After a couple of days my wife flatly refused to sleep there anymore. She said there was something uncanny about the room.’

  Mr Moyes put the rumours of a ghost to one side until he was told by several customers of the ghoulish poacher. Even the hotel maid, a lady named Florrie Ford, came forward to mention the spectre and stated quite categorically that under no circumstances would she enter the haunted room. Despite his scepticism Mr Moyes decided to contact the previous hotel owners, a couple named Wright who had moved to Cranbrook. They were quite forthcoming with details of the reputed apparition and told Mr Moyes that in 1948 they had received so many complaints about the spectre that they decided to enlist the services of a psychic medium who pinpointed the area once inhabited by the poacher as a hive of paranormal activity. According to Mr Moyes the psychic went into a trance in order to attempt to contact the spirit and began to speak in gruff tones, as if the ghost had taken over her body. Apart from the spirit possession nothing else was gained from the medium and so Mr Moyes decided that the reputedly haunted room would have to be used for something else rather than a guestroom. Instead he converted it into a lounge bar, where visitors would stop by for coffee, and if they felt in the mood, they could slip a coin into the jukebox and spin one of their favourite songs.

  Fred seemed of the opinion that by modernising the room it would possibly remove the spirit but, according to the article, ‘People who have worked in the coffee bar, selling refreshments to holidaymakers, say they still get a shudder when they go into it.’

  Stranger still, Mr and Mrs Moyes’ little dog also refused to enter the coffee bar. According to the newspaper report however, no amount of activity was going to push Mr Moyes from his home. He said, ‘a ghost can be a most likeable thing’.

  There is one further detail to the story. Rumour has it that the miserable old poacher stashed his life savings beneath the floors of the building and that the reason that he still wanders the hotel is to make sure that his buried money remains.

  Whilst on the subject of Jetty Road, in the summer of 2013 I stumbled across a website which showed lots of old postcards depicting Warden Bay as it had been in the past. I was intrigued to read a post by a person claiming to live on Jetty Road who stated that ‘Although my house is only 25 years old, it was built on the site of an older one’. It seems that whoever used to live at the previous site could still haunt the area. The author of the piece, who went by the name William, added that due to leg trouble he’d spent the last few years sleeping downstairs and that on several occasions he’d heard the ‘ghost’ walking up and down his drive at night. He added that the unseen visitor appears to be wearing high or Cuban heels, as the footfalls are relatively loud and then followed by a sound suggesting that a bottle has been thrown in a litter bin. William, writing his account in 2012, concluded that the most recent visitation came on 22 July 2012 at 12.30 a.m. and then returned two hours later. William commented that, ‘This is the first time that the ghost has come twice in one night’.

  Creepy Cliffs

  It’s no surprise that due to its location overlooking the North Sea, Warden Bay has suffered cliff erosion over the years. The encroaching, frothing waves were certainly responsible for the disappearance of some buildings, including an old pub, over the years. Sheila M. Judge, along with numerous residents of the island, mentioned how the parish church had stood for so long on the precipice and that its old graveyard had long succumbed to the sea. However, this resulted in, as Sheila wrote, ‘tombstones, coffins and bones sticking out from the cliff face’. This would no doubt have been quite a macabre sight to anyone who braved the waters around the fragile cliff and some of these brave seamen would speak of feeling rather peculiar whilst sailing in the vicinity of waters that once quite literally swallowed a village and all of its fields. Of course, over time these cadaverous remains would eventually be swept out to sea, some of them eerily adorning the neighbouring beeches. It is said that one woman, who resided at Shellness, had collected a number of these ghastly oddments and displayed them in her house. To add to the Gothic atmosphere the woman strategically placed torches near them in order to give off a fiendish glow and cast weird shadows across the room.

  There is an extremely peculiar legend from Warden concerning the mentioned church – that of St James – which succumbed to the sea many years ago. According to historian Wendy Kennett, ‘I have been told of how, if you stand on the lonely cliffs at Warden Point, you can hear, on a still night, the sound of church bells ringing under the water.’ St James’ church was, according to Wendy, ‘once part of the property owned by the crown until Henry III granted it to the Maison Dieu, the religious hospital of St Mary in Dover.’

  A ghostly image of St James’ church which once stood on the precipice of Warden Bay. (Image created by the author)

  Cliff ahead!

  Over the centuries the church had many owners and around 1636 fell into decay. Thankfully, it was restored by a county magistrate named De La Mark Banks [previously mentioned elsewhere as Delamark Banks], but by 1874 the ivy-strewn structure was literally perched on the cliff edge at Warden and eventually the concerns of one Henry Turmine – who visited the building in 1843 – were realised, as he once commented that despite its beauty, ‘In all probability the land will be washed away as far as, or beyond church, in about twenty years. The sea is fast encroaching.’

  In 1875 the church of St James was demolished and the remaining graves swept out to sea the following year. However, the romantic legend of this place claims that those bells still ring out – a phantom din heard by certain people on still nights. There are even those who claim that despite the church being demolished its image can be seen, emerging from the water-soaked beach. However, one only has to scour the realms of folklore to find that such a story is merely myth, and yet a popular one at that. In 2013 I published a book called Shadows on the Sea: The Maritime Mysteries of Britain and in it I covered a number of stories, nationwide, concerning sounds of phantom bells and alleged sightings of buildings that have long since been swallowed by the salty waves. Wendy Kennett added that, ‘On a Sunday afternoon in November 1971 half a cottage, two large concrete blockhouses and a garden slid down the cliffs at Warden Point … In future years perhaps there will be a legend not only of a lost church, but of a lost village under the sea at Warden.’

  At the cliff edge, looking out toward where the bells of St James’ church are still said to ring out.

  Warden was also said to be the home of a local witch who had curative powers, but was no doubt feared by some of the locals. There are rumours in certain quarters that the spectre of this wise woman still haunts the hamlet but despite her rather gnarled appearance, her ghost is, as in life, a rather harmless soul. Sheppey most certainly has a long tradition of folklore and suspected witchcraft (in 1651 it is recorded that a Thomas Sharpe of Minster asked jurors to give his wife – accused of witchcraft – a retrial), and it was once said that locals would hang good luck oddments and charms about their houses to ward off evil spirits. Even animals such as horses were protected by symbols of fortune to prevent them being attacked by witches. Intriguingly there were once pastures at Sheppey called Witches Field.

  Such nocturnal attacks are known as being ‘hag ridden’ and refers to people also. It was once believed, and greatly feared, that evil old crones would come in the night and enter people’s bedrooms – as stated earlier in this b
ook – or the stables of horses, and either straddle the animals and attempt to ride off with them, or simply exhaust them with malevolent powers. In the case of human victims, islanders were said to have been visited in the dead of night by an old hag-like spirit, which would paralyse its victim with fear and then sit across their chest, proving to be a crushing, suffocating weight. The spell would only be broken if the terrified victim could somehow snap out of the sleep paralysis by moving a finger or twitching a muscle. This bizarre, nightmarish scenario has also been called the ‘old hag syndrome’ and often involves witnesses who sleep on their backs. In the 1980s a Warden resident claimed to have had such an experience – waking one night she realised she could not move, and sensed a horrible atmosphere in the room. Then, to her horror she saw the form of an old hag which flitted into the room, all the while mocking her with a sinister grin. The victim, unable to move, then felt the hag sit upon her chest, but after what seemed like hours of gasping for breath the woman was able to ‘wake’ from the astral sleep and found no sign of the invader. Such encounters are also known as ‘night terrors’ or a ‘nightmare’, which derives from the Old English ‘mare’, referring to a demon or goblin said to haunt the sleep of certain people by riding on their chest.

  The rugged cliffs around Warden are said to be haunted by smugglers.

  6

  EERIE EASTCHURCH

  The town of Eastchurch, described by historian John Marius Wilson as ‘a hamlet, a parish, and a sub-district in Sheppey’, is recorded in Domesday Book as Eastcryne. The town, which boasts the remains of the once glorious Shurland Hall, has been known for its smuggling history.

  Haunted Water

  Records from 23 October 1769 state that a Grace Davis drowned herself in the Old House pond at Eastchurch. Grace, who was married to a fellow named Isaac, was, according to researcher Augustus Daly, ‘duly buried in woollen, in strict accordance with a then existing Act of Parliament’. Some folk wonder why the poor woman chose to take her own life but local gossips suggested that she had in fact been murdered by her husband. Whatever the case, Grace has never been able to rest and her ghost was said to appear on the anniversary of her death, rising from the murky depths of the pond at midnight. Despite this being a rather forlorn tale, it seems that few have seen the ghost of the drenched woman, but what an arresting sight it would most surely be to see of a night; this unfortunate ghoul emerging from the water. Mind you, the Gazette & Times of 27 October 1988, probably in accordance with Halloween festivities, also reported on the well-known local spook tale:

  Local historian Mrs Lisa Tyler was working in a bar in Leysdown about twenty years ago when a couple came in, both looking deathly pale. She asked them if they were all right, and they ordered double brandies. She said, ‘They told me they had been driving along when suddenly they saw a woman standing in the road in front of the car. She was wrapped in wool. They stopped the car abruptly and got out. – No one was there!!!

  Had the petrified couple seen the ghost of Grace Davis? Some say that the pond is that which can be found at the Lower Road junction facing White Horse Hill, and in the vicinity of the Post Office and the Working Men’s Club, whilst author Sheila M. Judge spoke of the waterhole being situated ‘adjacent to a house at the eastern end of Eastchurch High Street, where it bends very sharply right’. Whatever the case, the particular pond in question has since been filled in, but does the sopping wet ghost wrapped in wool still appear? In the Times Guardian of 21 August 1964 there is mention of another ‘mystery woman’ under the heading ‘Eastchurch ghost hunt’. The article remarks that journalist and author Peggy Martyn Clark is on the hunt of ‘a wrath [sic] of a woman’ that emerges from ‘a building somewhere near the Orchard at Eastchurch’. Details are vague but the report does go on to state that the mysterious figure walks towards the church before disappearing. Oddly, the snippet also states that ‘there is a link maybe between this ghost and the sheep’s wool thieves of over a century ago’, although the article does not go into detail as to what this link is. It is interesting to note that with this vague tale, there is also mention of a ghostly woman and wool, as in the case of the spectre of Grace Davis. However, there seems to be so much confusion in so many ghostly tales, with some locals confusing the haunted pond with another waterhole at Shurland Hall. And speaking of Shurland Hall …

  The haunted pond at Eastchurch from an old postcard. (Author’s collection)

  A ghostly woman was said to have risen from the murky depths of the pond at Eastchurch – the place where she perished in 1769. (Illustration by Simon Wyatt)

  The Sinister at Shurland Hall

  According to the Eastchurch parish website, ‘King Hoestan of Denmark arrived in Sheppey with 350 ships in 892 and in 893 built earthworks in the area now known as Shurland Hall.’ The main structure of Shurland Hall was built in the sixteenth century, on the previous site of a thirteenth-century castle.

  Sadly, all that remains of Shurland Hall is the gatehouse, but over the years the fortified manor house had many owners and distinguished visitors including Henry VIII and his soon-to-be wife Anne Boleyn who were, as guests of Sir Thomas Cheney, said to have stayed there in the October of 1532. The de Shurland family resided at the manor house for more than two centuries – the descendant of Sir Jeffrey de Shurland being Sir Robert de Shurland, who was mentioned in the introduction. Some believe that, since the unfortunate passing of Sir Robert, the castle is cursed. Charles Igglesden wrote of a man who, many years ago while restoring the castle, died of an injury inflicted by a horse – or is this merely a spook story continuing the already famous legend? Either way, Sheila M. Judge confirms the suspicions, stating, ‘There was reported to be a curse on anyone rash enough to live at Shurland; the tenants often died suddenly, while still young, and allegedly due to accidents involving horses.’ Shurland Hall has been described as the most ‘historical place in Sheppey’ and such was its reputation for being a fortress that not many dared to lay siege upon it. In 2009 the BBC website reported that the hall was to be renovated but one question remained: did the reputed ghosts of the building still loiter in the area?

  The restored façade of Shurland Hall, off the beaten track.

  Charles Igglesden also wrote of a frightful spectre said to inhabit the hall. In his twenty-eighth volume of A Saunter through Kent with Pen and Pencil he speaks of a female informant of his who told him of many a resident spook. This woman says, ‘Strangely enough I myself never had any fear, although no one else would stay in the hall at midnight in the dark. I had no fear either of the ghostly lady in black silk or the big black dog sometimes seen or of the ringing of the bells from some unknown cause.’ Three ghosts in one building does seem a rather extraordinary amount, but that’s not all: ‘then there was the sound of the horse’s hoofs outside the front door …’ Of the belief that Sir Robert de Shurland still frequented the local wilds on horseback, Igglesden’s informant added, ‘… and it was said that a hearse passed by. We would rush to the door and open it, but nothing was to be seen.’ And that’s not all, she continued: ‘All bedroom doors were locked at night and any dog would whine if you tried to get him to pass into one of these rooms and absolutely refuse to enter. Door handles would keep turning, and fingers would run over the panels of the door.’

  Considering that some villages throughout Britain are known for their handful of ghosts it seems quite amazing that Shurland Hall should boast so many within its confines, but just when you thought it was safe to turn off the bedside lamp Igglesden’s source concludes that, ‘Huge hairy spiders infested the place, and it was always said that they foretold death. Outside at night owls screeched and weird noises kept the inmates of the mansion awake and it was difficult to persuade guests to stay.’

  I guess we can all sleep safe in our beds, however when we find that Igglesden’s original article on the hall can be traced back more than a century ago. Presumably many of the spirits have long since drifted away, leaving the ominous-looking gatehouse to i
ts own devices. Some believe it is quite possible that the woman who allegedly committed suicide in the Old House pond is the same ghostly figure seen wandering around the grounds of the hall. Around the grounds people have reported that whilst walking their dogs, their pets have refused to enter certain spots and at times freeze and cower with fear. Occasionally a peculiar atmosphere has also been felt around the murky pond. On 8 August 2013, however, a Christdeena Ellis was featured in an article for Kent Online under a heading which claimed that the 44-year-old author had ‘captured [a] ghostly maid in window of Shurland Hall’. The feature was accompanied by a photo which Christdeena had taken of the hall, and appeared to show a whitish figure standing in one of the windows. The article added that Christdeena had been writing a book about the hall but ‘was left scratching her head by a photo she took apparently capturing the figure of a woman in a top window’.

  Shurland Hall was once believed to be ghost-infested.

  The large pond outside Shurland Hall. People and animals have sensed a strange atmosphere in this area.

  Mrs Ellis was always of the opinion that the hall had been ghost-infested, commenting that ‘There have been major battles there and it has been built over a thirteenth-century castle so I think there is paranormal activity there definitely and I’m quite intrigued by the ghostly maid. She looks like a seventeenth- or eighteenth-century maid and she could have been a worker there.’

  Sadly, the image shown by the website is extremely inconclusive and like a majority of reputed ghostly photos is open to debate; some argued that the photo could have been some type of reflection or light anomaly. Mrs Ellis added that she’d also photographed some orbs around the building, but again, these objects have never been proven to be ghostly. Mrs Ellis sent her photograph to a paranormal investigator who commented that the image is ‘very odd indeed’ but many others who have looked at the photo cannot see anything untoward at all.