by Tony Locke
Kate Walker was found guilty of the murder of Julia Martha Thomas. She was hanged by William Marwood on 29 July 1879 at Wandsworth Prison. She was the only woman to ever be hanged there. It is reported that her last words were, ‘Lord, have mercy upon me.’
There is one last twist to the story. After the execution the Victorian commentator Mr Henry Mayhew met a boy who knew Kate Webster. A few days after she had murdered Mrs Thomas she had offered the boy and some of his friends a free meal with these words: ‘’Ere you lot, I’ve some lovely pig’s lard ’ere. You kids can have it free of charge. Don’t go saying that Kate Webster never gives you nothing.’
He said she then gave them two big bowls of lard and hunks of bread.
‘Eat it all up now, me dears. It’s awful good for you. And when you’ve finished lick the bowls and sell them. You’ll get a copper or two for them.’
More than a century after the murder the West London Coroner Alison Thompson formally acknowledged the skull found as that of Julia Martha Thomas. Police were able to provide conclusive evidence proving that the skull was that of the victim. Julia Martha Thomas and the ‘Barnes Mystery’ case can now be laid to rest.
8
LEAP CASTLE, THE MOST HAUNTED CASTLE IN IRELAND
BIRR, COUNTY OFFALY
Standing on an enormous throne of solid rock, Leap Castle was once the stronghold of the warlike O’Carrolls and its eventful history is mostly written in their blood. In the sixteenth century, O’Carroll of the Leap held a lavish banquet at his family fortress and invited a rural branch of his own clan to partake of his hospitality. No sooner had the unfortunate guests sat down to dinner than he massacred every one of them. Inter-clan bloodshed was a common occurrence and members of the tribe attended family get-togethers or reunions at their peril! Following the death of Mulrooney O’Carroll in 1532, a bitter dispute over succession arose. As siblings battled each other for leadership of the clan, ‘one-eyed’ Teige O’Carroll is said to have slain his own brother, who was a priest, as he celebrated Mass in ‘The Bloody Chapel’ of the castle.
However, the days of O’Carroll occupancy were drawing to a close and they were about to lose possession of the castle in a suitably bloodthirsty manner. In the seventeenth century, a daughter of the clan fell in love with an English soldier named Captain Darby, who was being held prisoner in the castle dungeons. She smuggled food to him and eventually engineered his escape. As they were making their way down the staircase, her brother suddenly confronted them. The captain silenced him with a single sword thrust. Since his lover then became the heiress to Leap Castle, it passed into the ownership of the captain’s family when the two were married.
The last of the family to own Leap Castle was Jonathan Charles Darby, who arrived here on 16 July 1880. In 1909, his wife Mildred wrote an article for the Occult Review describing how she had held several séances at the castle, during which she had attracted the unwelcome attentions of an elemental – a primitive and malevolent force that attaches itself to a particular place. This is Mildred Darby’s account: ‘I was standing in the gallery looking down at the main floor, when I felt somebody put a hand on my shoulder. The thing was the size of a sheep. Thin, gaunt and shadowy, its eyes, which seemed half decomposed in black cavities, stared into mine. The horrible smell gave me a deadly nausea. It was the smell of a decomposing corpse.’ Mildred’s occult dabbling also appears to have awoken other malevolent forces within the walls of Leap Castle and it was at this time that its fearsome reputation became firmly established. Elementals, such as the one Mildred Darby claims to have seen, are thought to be terrifying and unpredictable.
The Darbys remained at Leap until 1922. Being the home of an English family, it became the target of those struggling for Irish independence. Destroyed by bombs and completely looted, nothing but a burnt-out shell remained. The Darbys were driven out.
Following its destruction by fire in 1922, workmen who had commenced gutting the interior discovered an oubliette, a small dungeon whose name derives from the French oublier, meaning ‘forget’, behind a wall of the bloody chapel. This room had a drop floor and prisoners were pushed into the room, whereupon they fell to their deaths – either impaled on a spike below or, if they were unfortunate enough to miss the spike and die a quick death, they slowly starved in the midst of rotting, putrid corpses. One theory is that some of the remains were those of Scots mercenaries hired by O’Carroll, who had them murdered when it came time for payment. Mysteriously, among the bones, workmen also found a pocket watch made in the 1840s. Could the dungeon still have been in use back then? No one will ever know.
Over the next seventy years, it remained an empty shell, its fearsome reputation ensuring that the locals shunned it, particularly at night when all manner of ghostly beings were known to stir within its moss-clad walls. From across the fields people would watch the window of the ‘Bloody Chapel’ suddenly light up, as though hundreds of flickering candles were blazing within. Some who dared walk amongst the ruins experienced alarming encounters with a lustrous lady wearing a billowing red gown. The castle has since been restored to its former glory and is now a family home. Do the spirits still wander through the house? Well, you’ll have to ask the present occupants.
9
LEGENDS OF HOWTH CASTLE
COUNTY DUBLIN
Howth Castle is located near the village of Howth in Fingal, Dublin. Built in the mid-fifteenth century, it has had a long and interesting history. There are a number of stories told about the castle that may or may not be true. However, they do make for interesting reading.
GRACE O’MALLEY
It is said that in the sixteenth century, when Grace O’Malley was returning from a visit to Queen Elizabeth I, she landed at Howth harbour. Grace headed to the castle, intending to dine with Lord Howth and re-stock her ship in preparation for her voyage back to County Mayo. However, when she arrived she found the gates locked, which was a clear breach of the rules of Irish hospitality. She was outraged.
The story goes that the young heir to Lord Howth was down at the seashore with his nurse, looking at her ship, and Grace was so angry at the insult dealt to her by his father that she ordered the child to be taken and put aboard her ship. The boy was taken to her castle in Clew Bay, County Mayo. Negotiations took place. Lord Howth insisted that no insult to her was intended. He told her that it was customary for the gates to be locked when the family were at dinner.
She refused to release the child back to his father until an agreement had been reached that in the future when the family went to dinner the castle gates would be left open and an extra place would be laid at the table, in accordance with the rules of Irish hospitality. Lord Howth agreed and the custom was strictly observed until his death. There is a painting of the abduction of the young heir of the House of St Laurence hanging in one of the state apartments of the castle.
NICOLA HAMILTON
There is a painting in the drawing room of the castle that is linked to another story. The painting is of a beautiful young woman. On the back of the frame there is an unsigned, undated note. It tells us that at one time there was a black ribbon around the wrist of the young woman that was accidently removed when the picture was being cleaned.
The woman in the portrait is Nicola Hamilton, who was born in 1667. As a young girl it is said that she made an agreement with John Le Poer, Earl of Tyrone, that whoever died first would return from the dead and appear to the other. Le Poer was the first to die and it is said that he appeared to her one night and told her about her future.
He told her that her husband, Sir Tristram Berisford, would soon die and that her son would grow up and eventually marry an heiress. He also told her the time of her own death. It would be in her forty-seventh year. All these predictions are said to have come to pass. To convince her that he had really appeared to her in the flesh, so to speak, he grabbed her wrist and his touch left a permanent scar. The black ribbon was worn to conceal this scar.
THE WHITE
RAT
The White Rat of Howth appears when evil threatens the House of St Laurence or so the story goes. Folklore tells us that its first appearance was around the seventeenth century, when it appeared to Lord Howth.
One stormy winter night, a ship was seen to be in great difficulty in Howth Bay. The storm was so bad that the ship was dashed against the rocks. Those watching from the shore could do nothing to save her and she was smashed to pieces. It was thought that no one could possibly survive but early next morning a young woman was found washed up on the shore, still clinging to a piece of the ship’s wreckage. She was brought to nearby Howth Castle but she was not expected to live.
When Lord Howth heard that a survivor of the wreck had been found, he went to the room where she was being cared for to see her himself. He was immediately struck by her beauty and ordered that she must get every assistance to help her recover. Once she had recovered from her terrible ordeal, he begged her to remain with him in the castle and to this she agreed. He became infatuated with her and believed he was madly in love. He pleaded with her to marry him over and over again but over and over again she refused. She begged him to find another, someone more suited to his position.
Eventually he became frustrated and, realising he would never get her to agree to marry him, he decided to find another to marry. His Bride was from a noble family and well suited to his position. The young woman told him that it was now time for her to leave. She gave him a ribbon that had strange symbols on it and asked him to wear it at all times on his wrist in memory of her and their time together. The following day she left Howth Castle, never to be seen again.
His new bride was extremely interested in the ribbon he wore all the time, especially when she found out it was a gift from someone she considered a rival. One night when he was fast asleep she carefully untied the ribbon and removed it from his wrist. Later she said that she had only taken it over to the fire to look at it but for some reason it was sucked into the flames and immediately burnt. Lord Howth was not amused and it is said that he predicted ill fortune would be the result.
A few nights later Lord Howth had invited a number of friends to a feast in the Great Hall when all of a sudden the castle hounds chased a large rat into the dining area. The rat leapt up onto the table right in front of Lord Howth. It looked at Lord Howth and seemed to be begging him to save its life. Lord Howth ordered the hounds away and rescued the rat, who accompanied him everywhere thereafter, much to everyone’s amazement. Needless to say, his wife was not a happy lady. The rat followed them everywhere and would not even stay behind when they were visiting.
In a way what happened next was, to all intents and purposes, the rat’s own fault. It just wouldn’t listen. Lord Howth decided to travel to France with his brother. They loved going on hunting trips and touring the French countryside. The rat was, as far as they were concerned, back in Ireland. They were sitting by the fire in their hotel when who should appear, all soaking wet and with a pronounced limp, but the rat. Lord Howth’s brother, fed up of the rat at this stage, jumped up, grabbed the poker and before anyone could do anything to stop him he hit the rat right between the eyes, killing it stone dead.
Lord Howth jumped up and, seeing that the rat was dead, cried out, ‘Holy mother of God, you’ve murdered me!’
He died that very night.
They say the rat still haunts the castle.
10
LOFTUS HALL
COUNTY WEXFORD
Loftus Hall, County Wexford, is an old mansion, with passages that lead nowhere, large dreary rooms, panelled walls and a tapestry chamber with a story to tell. It was built on a limestone promontory stretching out into the Atlantic Ocean by one de Raymond, a follower of Strongbow, who settled there. After the Rebellion of 1641, it was forfeited and became the property of the Loftus family. It’s described as ‘a wild and lonely place’.
THE GHOST STORY
The story that follows is said to have occurred when Charles Tottenham and his family came to live in the mansion in the middle of the eighteenth century. Charles Tottenham’s first wife was the Honourable Anne Loftus (the second daughter of the 1st Viscount Loftus).
The story begins on a stormy night in 1775 when a young man turned up at the front door unexpectedly and was welcomed into the mansion. Anne and the young man became very close, and one night they were in the parlour playing cards. Around this time it was not considered well-mannered for a girl to play cards, but Anne refused to be dictated to and insisted on playing. When a card was dropped on the floor she went to pick it up and noticed that the young man had a hoof in place of a foot.
It’s said that Anne screamed and the man went up through the roof in a puff of smoke, leaving behind a large hole in the ceiling. Anne was in shock and was put in her favourite room in the mansion, which was known as the Tapestry Chamber. She refused food and drink and eventually died without ever leaving the room. It’s said that the hole in the ceiling could never be properly repaired and it’s alleged that even to this day there is a part of the ceiling which is slightly different from the rest. This, of course, is a myth, since the present house was built more than a century after the events described. However, it was believed that the stranger with the cloven hoof returned to the house and caused persistent poltergeist activity.
A number of Protestant clergymen apparently tried and failed to put a stop to this. The family, who were themselves Protestants, eventually called on Fr Thomas Broaders (a Catholic priest, who was parish priest of the surrounding area from 1724 to 1773. He was also a tenant on the Loftus Hall estate) to exorcise the house, which he managed to do in spite of fierce opposition from at least one of the hostile spirits. The success of Broaders led to many concessions being made to local Catholics, whose religion was still technically illegal.
Fr Broaders later became parish priest of the united parishes of the Hook and Ramsgrange for almost fifty years. Eventually he became Canon Broaders. He died in January 1773 and on his tomb in Horetown cemetery is the following epitaph:
‘Here lies the body of Thomas Broaders, Who did good and prayed for all. And banished the Devil from Loftus Hall.’
The apparent success of Father Broaders’ exorcism did not end the ghostly visitations at Loftus Hall. The ghost of a young woman, presumed to be Anne Tottenham, was reported to have made frequent appearances in the old hall, especially in the Tapestry Chamber, until the building was finally demolished in 1871.
Although the present Loftus Hall is an entirely new building, interest in the ghost story has remained strong and many aspects of the story seem to have attached themselves to the newer house.
SUBSEQUENT EXPERIENCES
The father of Revd George Reade stayed with a large party at the hall some time around 1790. His room was the Tapestry Chamber. He is said to have reported that, ‘Something heavy leapt upon his bed, growling like a dog. The curtains were torn back and the clothes stripped from the bed.’
He suspected that some of his companions were playing tricks, so he shouted to warn them and fired his pistol up the chimney to frighten them. He then searched the room and, of course, found nothing. The door was locked, as he had left it when he had gone to bed.
When the 2nd Marques of Ely was at the hall, his valet, Shannon, was put in the Tapestry Chamber and woke the whole household with his screams during the night. The curtains of the bed, he said, had been violently torn back and he saw ‘a tall lady dressed in stiff brocaded silk’. He fled in terror.
Some time later George Reade and his father were staying at the hall. George knew nothing of his father’s earlier experience and chose the Tapestry Chamber as his bedroom. One bright moonlit night he was sitting up late reading an article in Blackwood’s Magazine when he saw the door open. A tall lady in a stiff dress passed noiselessly through the room to a closet in the corner, whereupon she disappeared. For some reason the idea of a ghost never entered his head and he went to sleep.
The next night the experience was repea
ted. He rushed towards the lady, threw his right arm round her and exclaimed, ‘Ha! I have you now.’
His arm passed through her and came ‘with a thud against the bedpost’.
The figure went on and her silk brocaded gown ‘lapped against the curtain’. Next morning he told his father, who said nothing, and the whole incident left little impression on him.
He slept in the room without disturbance ‘many a night after’. Some years later, George Reade was again at the hall and heard the valet, Shannon, tell the housekeeper that ‘he would sooner leave his lordship’s service than sleep in the Tapestry Chamber’. Reade asked him why and Shannon then told him the story of Anne, which he had never heard before.
In 1858 the 4th Marquess, who succeeded in 1857 at the age of 8, came to the hall for the bathing season with his mother (the Lady of the Bedchamber) and his tutor, Revd Charles Dale. The tutor was put in the Tapestry Chamber and came down to breakfast one morning in an obviously nervous state, but refused to say anything.
In the autumn Lord Henry Loftus, uncle of the Marques, wrote to George Reade to tell him about Charles Dale and added that a Mr Derringey had slept in the room and had had ‘a splendidly fitted dressing case’ ransacked during the night. He asked him what his own experience had been. Reade wrote to Dale, then in a parish in Kent. In his long letter, Dale said that he had slept in the Tapestry Chamber for three weeks without disturbance – and without knowing anything about Anne Tottenham. Then one moonlit night he had had the same experience as Reade’s father: something heavy jumping on the bed, growling, and tearing off the bedclothes.