by Derek Acorah
The hotel has a restaurant, Hamptons, with excellent river views, also a riverside bar/brasserie, which has a secluded terrace and private moorings. It can also offer excellent facilities for business travellers, with a business centre and a range of rooms available for meetings, seminars and conferences.
During a stay here I regularly ‘bumped into’ a gent dressed in Elizabethan attire who Sam informed me was called Edward. This small snippet of information was all that I received, but I was taken by the frequency of Edward’s appearances and by the manner in which he conducted himself – he noticed none of the changes that must have taken place over the long years since he had walked the Earth plane, just carried on as he had over 400 years ago. He was happy.
I suppose that Edward still wanders around the hotel, oblivious to the fact that we are now in the twenty-first century.
Even though he has no idea that time has moved forward and that the Elizabethan era ended long ago, Edward remains very much ‘alive’ today.
The Carlton Mitre Hotel, Hampton Court Road, Hampton Court, London KT8 9BN; Tel:020 8979 9988
DEREK’S TIP
I would advise that unless you have a trained medium with you, you should not attempt to invoke spirits by using ouija boards or any similar device,especially if the location is reputed to harbour
a particularly nasty spirit.
Cleopatra’s Needle
Cleopatra’s Needle is a 60 ft tall Egyptian obelisk which stands on the Thames Embankment between Waterloo Bridge and Hungerford Bridge. It was made for Pharaoh Thotmes III in 1475 bc and given to the British by the Turkish Viceroy of Egypt in 1819. It is known as Cleopatra’s Needle as it came from Alexandria, Cleopatra’s royal city. It was brought to London in 1878 to commemorate the British victory over Napoleon 63 years earlier.
Some say Cleopatra herself cursed the Needle, and its-journey to Britain was certainly fraught with danger. An initial attempt to move the Needle failed when it toppled over into the sand. It remained there for many years until a cigar-shaped container ship, called the Cleopatra, was specially designed, at great expense, to carry it to London. The Cleopatra was towed by a steamship, the Olga, but in a storm off the Bay of Biscay she nearly sank. The Olga sent six volunteers to rescue the crew, but their boat sank and they all drowned. They are commemorated today on one of the plaques at the base of the Needle. The Cleopatra’s crew was eventually taken off by the Olga, and the Cleopatra herself, with the Needle, was cut adrift on the stormy sea. Five days later she was spotted floating off the north coast of Spain and was towed into the port of Ferrol. Another steamship, the Anglia, finally towed her home.
Today four plaques at the base of the Needle give a brief history of the Needle and it is flanked by two large bronze Victorian sphinxes. Underneath it lies a Victorian time capsule containing a set of coins, a newspaper, a razor, a box of pins, four Bibles, a railway guide and 12 photos of Victorian beauties. During World War I the plinth and one of the sphinxes sustained damage during a Zeppelin air raid. This can still be seen today. The Needle has a twin, which now stands in Central Park, New York.
It is not the Needle itself that is haunted, but the area surrounding it. Mocking laughter and anguished cries have been heard there and most of the suicides that take place along this stretch of the river occur at this particular spot, which some say is due to the encouragement of the spirit voices.
The ghost of one of the suicides has been seen on many occasions. He is a tall naked man who runs from behind the Needle, jumps onto its base and throws himself into the river without making a splash.
Cleopatra’s Needle, Victoria Embankment, London SW1
The George Inn
The George Inn in Southwark is the only galleried coaching inn left in London. There were once many such inns, but with the coming of the railways most were demolished. The George itself had a narrow escape. The Great Northern Railway used it as a depot and pulled down two of its fronts to build warehousing before a public outcry resulted in the preservation of the south face. Now the George serves as a pub and restaurant and even a stage set for Shakespeare’s plays. The ground floor is divided into a series of connecting bars. The Old Bar was the former waiting room and the Middle Bar was the coffee room. This was a haunt of Charles Dickens and the George is mentioned in his novel Little Dorrit.
The George’s ghost is believed to be a former landlady, Miss Murray. She kept the pub for 50 years in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and has since been seen floating around its rooms. She seems to be averse to modern technology, for computers crash in the pub, new tills malfunction and digital cameras often fail to take any pictures at all.
Haunted locations often seem more prone to unexplainable technical malfunctions and it does seem that Miss Murray has taken a strong dislike to the ‘magic’ of modern technology at the George Inn. Alternatively, she may simply be having a little fun!
The George Inn,77 Borough High Street, Southwark, London SE1 1NH; Tel: 020 7407 2056
DEREK’S TIP
If possible, take along with you more than one video camera, as this will increase your chances of capturing ghostly activity on film.
Heathrow Airport
Heathrow Airport lies 15 miles west of London. It is Britain’s largest airport and also the scene of several hauntings. Airline employees have often reported feeling hot breath upon their necks and hearing a man howling and barking like a dog. When they have turned round, no one has been there. This ghost is believed to be that of the highwayman Dick Turpin, who was hanged in 1739 and apparently enjoyed playing jokes like this when he was alive.
Inevitably there are also the ghosts of people who have died in plane crashes. One foggy night in March 1948 a Belgian Airlines DC3 Dakota crashed on approach into Heathrow. All 22 people on board were killed, but as the rescue crews were sorting through the wreckage a man in a hat emerged from the fog and asked if they had found his briefcase. As they stared at him, he faded away. They later found his body in the wreckage. Since that night he has been seen many times. He apparently appears out of nowhere and walks along the runway as if still searching for his briefcase.
Another businessman who haunts the airport also seems worried. He wears a grey suit and haunts one of the VIP lounges. Sometimes he simply appears from the waist down.
London Heathrow Airport, 234 Bath Road, Harlington, Middlesex UB3 5AP; Tel: 0870 000 0123; Fax: 020 8745 4290; Website: www.heathrowairport.com
DEREK’S TIP
You do not have to limit your investigation to the interior of a building. There are numerous places outdoors where spirit activity has been noted or ghost sightings have been reported. Ancient battlefields or sites where villages and houses once stood are just as likely to render up paranormal activity.
The Lyceum Theatre
The Lyceum is a Grade II listed theatre in the heart of London with a capacity of over 2,000. The original theatre built on the site opened in 1772, but was razed to the ground by fire in 1830. It reopened in 1834, having been rebuilt with the now familiar porticoed frontage. It was renamed The Royal Lyceum and English Opera House, though generally it remained known simply as The Lyceum.
The theatre gained the reputation of being unlucky after a number of owners went bankrupt, but its fortunes changed after American ‘Colonel’ Bateman took over, assembling a new company headed by the great actor Henry Irving. Irving’s performance as Hamlet in 1874 ran over 200 nights, an unheard of success in its day.
Most of that theatre was eventually demolished due to lack of funding to implement new fire regulations, though the portico and façade were retained as part of the current theatre, which opened in 1904. Once again there was a notable performance of Hamlet on the premises, this time by Sir John Gielgud in 1939. In the same year plans for a road extension and roundabout threatened the future of the theatre, but they were eventually scrapped and after the Second World War the theatre became a dance hall and then a music venue. It now hosts
large-scale musicals.
The ghostly figure of a woman has often been seen in the stalls area holding a man’s severed head. This is supposed to be the head of Henry Courtenay, the local landowner who was beheaded on the orders of Oliver Cromwell at the time of the Civil War.
The actor William Terris is also supposed to have been seen in the theatre (see page 58).
The Lyceum Theatre, 21 Wellington Street, London WC2E 7RQ; Tel: 0870 243 9000 (box office)
The Old Vic Theatre
The Old Vic was built in 1818 and was known as the Royal Coburg Theatre until 1833. On its opening night it presented a melodrama, an Asiatic ballet and a harlequinade, and today it continues to present a wide range of work from classic drama to innovative contemporary work.
Despite being described as ‘a licensed pit of darkness, a trap of temptation, profligacy and ruin’ by Charles Kingsley in the 1850s, the theatre has considerably influenced dramatic art. It is said to be haunted by the ghost of Lillian Baylis, who managed the theatre in the early twentieth century, and Eric Ross, an actor who died during the Spanish ’flu epidemic of 1917–18. There have also been reports of a distraught actress re-enacting the sleepwalking scene from Macbeth.
The Old Vic Theatre, The Cut, Waterloo Road, London SE1 8NB; Tel:0870 060 6628 (box office),020 7928 2651 (administration); Fax:020 7261 9161; Website: www.oldvictheatre.com
Osterley Park House
Osterley Park House, set in 357 acres of garden, parkland and farmland just off the A4 in Hounslow, west London, was originally built by Sir Thomas Gresham, Queen Elizabeth I’s financial adviser, in 1562. In 1683 it was bought by Nicholas Barbon, who used it as security to raise a large sum of money, but the house fell into disrepair and Barbon himself died in debt. In 1713 the house was acquired by Sir Francis Child, the founder of Child and Co. bank, in payment of the loan, and it became the Child family’s country house. In 1761 Sir Francis’s grandson, also called Francis, commissioned leading architect Robert Adam to transform it into the elegant neo-classical villa that can be seen today.
The ghost at Osterley is known as ‘the lady in white’. She is a beautiful lady in a white flowing dress who appears near the left-hand arch under the main stairway leading to the entrance of the house. She then moves towards the doorway and disappears. She usually makes her appearance at 4.30 in the afternoon and has been seen by both estate workers and visitors to the house.
The lady’s identity is not known for certain, but it is possible that she is the ghost of Sarah Anne Child, the family’s sole heir, who eloped to Gretna Green in 1782, when she was 18, with John Fane, son of the ninth Earl of Westmorland. Her father was so angry at the marriage that he changed his will so that the estate did not pass to the Westmorland family. Eventually it was inherited by Sarah’s daughter Sarah Sophia Fane and passed down her family until it was given to the National Trust in 1949.
Today the house and grounds are open to the public. There is a tea room, shop, farm shop and educational facilities, and the property may be hired for weddings and private functions.
Osterley Park House, Jersey Road, Isleworth, Middlesex TW7 4RB; Tel:020 8232 5050 (visitor services), (01494) 755566 (info line); Fax:020 8232 5080; Website: www.nationaltrust.org.uk
Red Lion Square
Red Lion Square, in the West End, is said to be haunted by three famous parliamentarians: Oliver Cromwell, John Bradshaw and Henry Ireton. They were all involved in sentencing King Charles I to death at the end of the Civil War. Bradshaw was president of the trial and was afterwards appointed Permanent President of the Council of State and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster by Cromwell. Cromwell himself became Lord Protector and his son-in-law Henry Ireton was appointed Lord Deputy.
After the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, a court was appointed to try those regicides who were still alive. Ten were found guilty and were sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered. Ireton had died in 1651, Cromwell in 1658 and Bradshaw in 1659, but they were all posthumously tried for high treason, found guilty and also sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered. In January 1661 their corpses were exhumed from Westminster Abbey, dragged to the gallows at Tyburn, hung in chains and decapitated. The decomposing heads were then displayed on poles outside Westminster Hall, while the rest of their remains were thrown into a pit in a field. This has since become Red Lion Square and the ghostly parliamentarians have been seen walking across it, deep in conversation.
See also Oliver Cromwell’s House at Ely, page 41.
Red Lion Square, London WCIR
DEREK’S TIP
Don’t rush things. Patience is required, as spirit people are not performers who just turn on and turn off, appearing on demand. If they are prepared to make themselves known, they will do it in their own good time. Always remember to thank them for their efforts.
Northern England
Barrock Fell, Cumbria
The Black Swan, York
The Civic Theatre, Darlington
Clifford’s Tower, York
The Coach and Horses Hotel, Chester
Dunstanburgh Castle, Northumberland
East Riddlesden Hall, Yorkshire
Kirkstone Pass Inn, Cumbria
Marston Moor Battlefield, Yorkshire
The National Railway Museum, York
The Octagon Theatre, Bolton
The Old Original, Oldham
Pontefract Castle, Yorkshire
The Prospect Shopping Centre, Hull
The Shakespeare Public House, Manchester
The Snickleway Inn, York
Tynemouth Priory and Castle, Tyne and Wear
Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle upon Tyne
Whitby Abbey, Yorkshire
Winter’s Gibbet, Northumberland
Ye Olde Black Boy, Hull
Ye Olde Man and Scythe Inn, Bolton
I am a northern lad, so how could I not love northern England? I was born in Liverpool in the north-west and that city itself abounds with stories of hauntings and ghostly sightings. I have conducted one or two investigations in Liverpool around the Rodney Street area (as documented in The Psychic Adventures of Derek Acorah) and I can guarantee that anybody who is looking to visit this city on a ghost-hunting expedition will not be disappointed.
Of course there are many other towns and cities in the north of England where a plethora of ghosts walk. Travel north following the M6 to the ancient town of Lancaster with its castle and history of the Lancashire Witches, then go to the Lake District and beyond to Carlisle. Turn right and follow Hadrian’s Wall through Northumberland. How can anybody who is looking for a paranormal experience be short of locations to investigate? But of course my heart will always belong to Liverpool and its haunted history.
Barrock Fell
Barrock Fell, in Cummersdale, to the south of Carlisle, was occupied by the Romans in the late fourth century. They built a small fort and signal station there, possibly to guard the important road to the south.
The fell is not haunted by Romans, however, but by a notorious highwayman, John Whitfield of Cotehill, who terrorized the neighbourhood in the mid-eighteenth century. Finally, in 1768, a young boy witnessed him shooting a man called William Cockburn on the road near Armithwaite and he was caught, tried and sentenced to be gibbeted on Barrock Fell. Hanging in his iron cage and starving to death, he cried out in agony for several days until a mail coachman passing by finally put him out of his misery by shooting him. Now it is said that his ghost can still be heard crying out in torment.
Barrock Fell, Cummersdale, Carlisle, Cumbria
The Black Swan
The Black Swan is one of York’s most traditional pubs. It has a medieval timber-framed exterior and a classical seventeenth-century interior. It was originally built in 1417 and for many years was the home of the Bowes family. William Bowes was Lord Mayor of York in 1417 and 1428, and Sir Martin Bowes became jeweller to Queen Elizabeth I and the Lord Mayor of London. There may have been a secret side to this eminent
family, for there is evidence of a secret passage leading from the house to St Cuthbert’s church and of a secret room, which may have been used for cock fighting. The first record of the house being used as a pub was in 1763.
Today the Black Swan offers pub lunches, live folk music and two en-suite bedrooms, each with a separate annex for children. A function room is available for business meetings and special occasions.
Several ghosts have been reported in the Black Swan. A beautiful young woman in a long white dress has been seen staring into the fire, her face hidden by long black hair, and a Chaplinesque figure in a bowler hat wanders aimlessly through the rooms as though waiting for someone. The strangest ghost is a pair of male legs!
The Black Swan, Peasholme Green, York, North Yorkshire YO1 7PR; Tel: (01904) 686911
DEREK’S TIP
I can recommend the use of pendulums in investigations, especially those constructed of quartz crystal. When close to a spirit energy, pendulums have been known to swing or spin. The closer you go to that energy source, the more rapid the movement of the pendulum.
The Civic Theatre
The Civic Theatre, Darlington, formerly the New Hippodrome and Palace of Varieties, opened in 1907. Its first managing director was Signor Rino Pepi, an Italian who was originally a quick-change artist and impersonator. He had a small bed-sitting room and kitchen, now the telephone sales office, behind the door to the left of his box. He would often enter his box through this door, accompanied by his wife and beloved Pekinese dog. He died in November 1927, but is supposed to haunt the theatre to this day, along with his dog. Staff claim he has tapped them on the shoulder in order to make his presence known.