A former rector, the Revd H. J. Fynes-Ointon, told me that he had no doubt whatever but that the church was haunted by a robed figure and he thought it might be the ghost of a former priest at St Magnus. His verger, who had been a regular soldier, a reliable and unimaginative man, had seen the ghost one Sunday evening after service. Everyone had left and the verger had locked the doors but all the lights were still on. He was busy putting some things away in a cupboard behind a side altar when he saw the figure of a priest immediately in front of him. He was on the point of asking how the priest had entered the locked church when the figure, only a matter of four or five feet from him, suddenly stooped down and seemed to be searching the floor. The verger, puzzled, asked whether he could help —what had been lost? Whereupon the figure straightened up, looked at the verger and smiled, and then faded away to nothing in front of his eyes. The rector told me that a former verger’s wife had twice seen a short, black-haired priest kneeling in the Lady Chapel. She particularly noticed that the figure wore an old-fashioned ‘sort of cassock’ and when she spoke the figure turned towards her and then disappeared. The same thing happened on both occasions.
Several witnesses of the ghostly priest at St Magnus have described the figure as ‘cowled’ or ‘wearing a hooded robe’ and it is interesting to recall that Miles Coverdale, in the vicinity of whose grave such a figure has been seen, was a friar and one-time Bishop of Exeter.
ST PAUL’S CATHEDRAL, CITY
One of the little-known stories about St Paul’s Cathedral (reputedly built on the site of a temple to Diana, a fertility goddess) concerns a secret stairway and the haunting of the Kitchener Memorial Chapel, formerly All Souls’ Chapel, at the extreme west end of the cathedral. In fact, the cathedral is honeycombed with secret passages and stairways and it is likely that many have yet to be discovered.
The Kitchener Memorial Chapel used to be haunted by a former official of the cathedral. He appeared in old-fashioned clerical clothes and had a fondness for whistling! Vergers and other members of the cathedral staff would find themselves being followed by the apparition, who, every now and then, would annoy and alarm them with a high-pitched but not unmusical whistle. After a time, it was noticed that the old parson whistled more often and more loudly in the vicinity of the Kitchener Chapel and at one particular spot in the chapel he would often disappear into the stonework.
When some structural repairs were being undertaken in the chapel a hidden doorway was discovered at the place where the whistling ghost often disappeared and when the little door was opened a winding stairway was disclosed that ascended through the heart of the cathedral to the dome.
When new stonework was incorporated in the renovations in the Kitchener Chapel, a secret stone doorway was fitted to the staircase that can be made to slide back by pressing a spring, but the stairway is one of a number of parts of the cathedral that is seldom shown to visitors. Special permission is required even to enter the Kitchener Memorial Chapel and it was hastily re-arranged when I entered, although as far as I know the ghost has not been seen for many years now.
St Paul’s Cross, the open-air pulpit that has never been used for preaching, beyond the north-east corner of the cathedral, is built on the site of the old cross, the foundations of which were discovered six feet below ground level in 1879. The old St Paul’s Cross, first mentioned in 1194, was called by Carlyle ‘a kind of Times newspaper of the Middle Ages’ since it was the official pulpit not only of London but of the whole country. Here, in 1441, Roger Bolingbroke, necromancer, was exposed with all his instruments during a sermon and he was afterwards ‘drawn, hanged and quartered’. In 1538, a crucifix, the Rood of Grace from Boxley Abbey, which had eyes that opened and closed and lips that seemed to speak, was exposed as having ingenious secret springs and was thrown down amid derision.
Before the Protestant Reformation the cathedral possessed many relics including ‘a piece of the true cross’, stones from the Holy Sepulchre and the Mount of Ascension, some hair of Mary Magdalene and some blood of St Paul. Legend has it that the fire in the eleventh century destroyed everything but left unharmed the resting-place of St Erkenwald, Bishop of London, buried about AD 700, and for centuries pilgrims flocked to the tomb and lavished riches of all kinds upon it. During the reign of Richard II, one Richard de Preston, ‘a citizen and grocer’, presented a remarkable sapphire that was supposed to cure infirmities of the eyes. Sacrifices in the shape of a doe in winter and a fat buck in summer were offered at the high altar for some centuries during the Middle Ages.
WEST SMITHFIELD, CITY
A spot so full of historical associations as Smithfield is likely to be haunted by echoes from the past. St Bartholomew’s Hospital is here, the oldest hospital in England where men were treated who suffered from wounds sustained at the Battle of Hastings and from later famous battles such as Crecy, Agincourt, Naseby, Blenheim, Waterloo, the Crimean war and, of course, two world wars. For centuries, traders in clothing and food have held markets at Smithfield and as far back as 1180 it was famous for its horse races and the ‘show of fine horses for sale’. It stands on the site of an ancient tournament and jousting ground, where Edward III held festivities that lasted for seven days in honour of his mistress Alice Pierce (or Perrers) in 1374; Richard II held tournaments in 1390 attended by sixty knights from all over Europe, and it was frequently used as a duelling ground, for Shakespeare mentions a duel in which a ’prentice fought his master whom he had accused of treason. St Bartholomew’s Fair was instituted in the reign of Henry I and held annually for more than seven centuries. Ben Jonson used it as the subject of his play, written in 1614, and in 1668 Pepys met an extraordinary performing horse, a ‘mare that tells money, and many other things to admiration; and among others, came to me when she was bid to go to him of the company that most loved a pretty wench in a corner. And this did cost me 12d. to the horse which I had flung him before, and did give me occasion to kiss a mighty belle fille.’
But, most of all, Smithfield (originally Smoothfield) is famous in history as a place where many executions were carried out, and where many religious offenders were burned at the stake. At a spot known as ‘The Elms’ (from a clump of trees that grew there) on St Bartholomew’s Eve in 1305 William Wallace (c. 1272-1305), the Scottish patriot, was executed, together with his servant and two Scottish knights. In 1530, a cook named Roose (or Rose) was boiled alive for having put poison in the soup served to the Bishop of Rochester’s household, resulting in seventeen cases of poisoning and two deaths. In 1538, a prior of the Observant Convent at Greenwich was suspended in a cage over fire and roasted to death for denying the supremacy of Henry VIII.
It has been calculated that during the reign of Mary 270 persons were burnt to death in England for heresy, the great majority at Smithfield. The usual place of burning was immediately opposite the entrance to the church of St Bartholomew the Great, with the victim facing the east so that the great gate of the church was in front of him. The prior was generally present. In 1849, the exact site of the burnings was discovered during some excavations whilst a sewer was being laid. Three feet below the surface were found un-hewn stones, covered with ashes and charred human bones. At the same spot, strong oak posts were discovered in a fire-blackened condition together with a staple and ring.
Small wonder then that even today ghostly groans and occasional blood curdling shrieks are said to be heard by people passing this way at night. There have been reports of people hearing the crackling noise of burning faggots and wood, and occasionally people have smelt the appalling stench of burning flesh.
CHAPTER TWO
GHOSTS OF COVENT GARDEN, BLOOMSBURY AND THE STRAND
THE ADELPHI THEATRE, STRAND
The late Ellaline Terriss (Lady Hicks) first told me about the Adelphi Theatre ghost, for she was the daughter of William Terriss, the actor-manager who was stabbed to death on December 16 1897 at the doorway in Maiden Lane; his ghost haunted the theatre and a nearby Underground station for years a
fterwards, and perhaps still does. William Terriss had been a sheep farmer in the Falkland Islands (where Ellaline was born) and he had been a horse-breeder, a gold-miner and a sailor before becoming an actor. He had great success on the stage and was scoring a considerable triumph as the vigorous lead in the thriller Secret Service in which an ambitious and jealous man named Richard Prince had a very small part. Prince really believed that he could play the lead better than the experienced and popular Terriss and furthermore he thought he would be given the part, if only Terriss was not in the way... That chill December evening William Terriss dined early with a friend and at seven o’clock he made his way into ill-lit Maiden Lane. He was just opening his private door at the back of the theatre when Richard Prince sprang at him from out of the shadows and without a word stabbed Terriss twice with a dagger he had bought that afternoon, and the forty-nine-year-old actor slumped to the ground, fatally wounded. He was carried into the theatre and died twenty minutes later, his head supported by his distraught leading lady, Jessie Milward. Those who were with him at the end say that just before he died he mumbled something that sounded like, ‘I will come back.’
Ellaline’s husband, Sir Seymour Hicks, went to Bow Street police station to identify Prince, who had been seized in Maiden Lane, and found the murderer screaming and cursing and foaming at the mouth. Back at the Adelphi, Sir Seymour knelt by the dead body of his father-in-law and said afterwards ‘In utter silence I heard a voice say to me, “Are there men living such fools as to think there is no hereafter?” and I knew beyond doubt that I would meet William Terriss again.’ At the subsequent trial Prince was found guilty of murder, but insane, and he spent the rest of his life in Broadmoor where he died in 1937 at the age of seventy-one. Soon after the murder, actors and actresses at the Adelphi were disturbed by strange tapping and rapping noises that seemed to emanate from the dressing rooms used by William Terriss and his leading lady, and this was just the beginning. Over the succeeding years, unexplained footsteps, the strange behaviour of mechanically sound lifts, odd noises, strange lights, the overwhelming impression of someone being present in the deserted theatre at night (especially in the vicinity of the two main dressing rooms) and the feeling of being watched, all these apparently inexplicable impressions and occurrences have been attributed to the ghost of William Terriss, and his ghost has been seen in Maiden Lane.
One summer evening in 1957, a visitor to London who knew nothing of William Terriss or the ghost story, encountered a tall and handsome figure dressed in old-fashioned clothes, seemingly quite solid and normal in every way. A figure that passed close by but which disappeared completely at the doorway where Terriss had been struck down.
In March 1928, June, the well-known musical comedy actress, was occupying the large dressing room used by Jessie Milward at the time of Terriss’s death. Terriss had been in the habit of tapping a couple of times with his stick on the door of his leading lady’s dressing room as he passed — a little reminder that he was in the theatre. June usually refreshed herself with a light meal between matinee and evening performances, which she consumed in the very pleasant dressing room with its three windows and open fireplace; afterwards she often had a nap until about seven o’clock. On the day in question she had just settled on the chaise-longue for a rest when the couch began to vibrate and lurch, for all the world as though someone was kicking it from underneath, but a careful search revealed nobody under the chaise-longue and nothing that might account for the peculiar movements. No sooner did she lie down again than the movements recommenced and she felt a number of light blows on her arm and then she felt her arm gripped tightly by an invisible hand. Suddenly she noticed a greenish-coloured glow of light hovering in front of the dressing table mirror. Rising from the couch where she had been trying in vain to rest, she walked towards the dressing table, watching the luminous glow all the time. Arriving there and still observing the pale-green light flickering in front of the mirror, she put out her hand towards the light, whereupon it instantly vanished, but she saw raised weals on her arm where ‘something’ had gripped her forearm. After a moment she heard a couple of taps that seemed to come from behind the mirror and then there was silence.
The stage door of the Adelphi Theatre in Maiden Lane where William Terriss was murdered and where his ghost has been seen in recent years.
When June’s dresser, Ethel Rollin, arrived, June related her experiences and then heard for the first time about strange happenings at the theatre. Time after time, the dresser said, just after June had gone on stage, a couple of raps would sound at the door but when she opened it, there was never anyone there. During the course of a séance held in the dressing room, at which psychic investigator Harry Price was present, nothing of real interest happened, but no strange lights or tapping noises were reported for some months afterwards. Four years later, when people suggested that the whole affair was a publicity stunt, June reasserted that she had heard the noises, felt the blows on her arm and seen the strange light; she was still satisfied that her dresser had answered unexplained knocks at the dressing-room door. In 1962, two members of the theatre staff saw what might have been a similar light to that seen by June thirty-four years earlier. It was after everyone else had left the theatre and the dark stage was lit only by two pilot lights. Without warning, one of the stage-hands felt uncomfortably cold, although a moment earlier he had felt normally warm, and in looking about him for some explanation for the sudden and extreme drop in temperature he saw a curious glowing light that seemed to be lit by some kind of inner radiance. Glancing at his companion, he saw that he too was staring at the strange form which seemed to float just above the stage and to be shaped something like a human body. The two men fled in terror and next day reported their experience to the manager, asking to be transferred to work away from the front of the stage, but on being told that they had probably seen the long-established and harmless ghost of the famous William Terriss, they agreed to continue working as before!
Albery Theatre (formerly the New) where the ghost of Sir Charles Wyndham has been seen backstage.
THE ALBERY THEATRE, ST MARTIN’S LANE
The Albery Theatre (formerly the New) in St Martin’s Lane, was built by Sir Charles Wyndham, and his ghost, a handsome figure with wavy grey hair, has been seen backstage, crossing the otherwise deserted stage and disappearing in the direction of the dressing rooms. Film and stage actor Barry Jones told me that he was talking to an actress at the New, during a break in rehearsal, and they both moved aside to allow a grey-haired man to pass them. He nodded an acknowledgement as he went by and then crossed the stage and disappeared from view towards the dressing rooms. His distinguished appearance intrigued Jones and after a moment he too crossed the stage and asked an attendant who was standing beside a door (through which the man must have passed) which way the man had gone, but the attendant said no one had passed him for some time and he had never seen anyone answering Jones’s description in the theatre. Suddenly Barry Jones realized that the figure he and his fellow-actor had seen was Sir Charles Wyndham who had also built the theatre that backs on to the Albery and which bears his name.
Aldine House, Bedford Street, Covent Garden, where a suicide returned in August 1972.
ALDINE HOUSE, BEDFORD STREET, WC2
One of the household staff told me in August 1972 that he had four times heard noises he could not account for in the vicinity of a small room on the first floor of Aldine House, Bedford Street, when it was occupied by Dents the publishers. The noises — the sounds of heavy breathing, coughing and footsteps — were heard over a period of three months, and my informant told me that on the last occasion (on Wednesday 16 August 1972) he was so certain, although he saw nothing, that ‘something’ was there that he ran away and left the light on in that particular room, fearing what he might encounter if he went inside.
The coughing on this occasion sounded very close at hand, almost over his shoulder. He always heard the noises during the early evening, ab
out 6 p.m., when he was touring the building, putting out lights and closing windows. When the housekeeper reprimanded him for leaving a light on, the staff member immediately admitted that he had indeed left the area of the old building very quickly because he had become frightened, after hearing noises that he could not explain. The housekeeper replied that he was not surprised for other people had noticed mysterious noises on that particular landing and indeed his wife had, on one occasion, heard such odd sounds that she had become frightened and telephoned her husband on the internal telephone, from a nearby office, and he had come down at once with a torch and investigated, but nothing was found that might have caused the noises. That time the noises were heard much later at night.
The housekeeper also discovered that many years ago a man had committed suicide in the room where the noises seemed to originate. At the time of the disturbances the building was in process of changing hands — perhaps the ghost was worried about what might happen to its habitat!
I found it interesting to note that the ‘phenomena’ seemed to be mounting in intensity. At first slight noises suggesting someone in the room, then distinct footsteps and louder noises until on the last occasion they seemed to be outside the room and at the very elbow of the staff member doing his rounds. Furthermore, each person who experienced the noises was certain that someone or something was in the room as they reached the corridor leading to the room; on the occasions that the noises were heard they somehow ‘sensed’ that there was something there before they heard anything, although on scores of other occasions they found the area quite normal in every respect.
Haunted London Page 4
