The Mammoth Book of True Hauntings

by Haining, Peter

  Secret of Peel Castle

  Source and date: Westminster Gazette, 5 June 1929

  “Will anything be brought to light about the Moody dhoe?” Peel folk are asking uneasily in connection with the excavations now being made at Peel Castle. Moody dhoe is Manx for black dog and Peel Castle for centuries has been famed – if for nothing else – for its tradition concerning the apparition of a black dog, which is said to haunt the place. When the castle was used as a soldiers’ garrison the black dog was often seen, it is said, and more than one had died from trying to find the creature in the dark passage where it lives. Superstitious folk about Peel believe that it is as well to let sleeping dogs lie and they hope that no effort will be made to pry into the secret of the closed passage.

  Ghostly Visitation in Suffolk Rectory

  Source and date: Daily Mirror, 10 June 1929

  Ghostly figures of headless coachmen and a nun, an old-time coach drawn by two bay horses which appears and vanishes mysteriously, and dragging footsteps in empty rooms. All these ingredients of a first-class ghost story are awaiting investigation by psychic experts near Long Melford, Suffolk. The scene of the ghostly visitations is the Rectory at Borley, a few miles from Long Melford. It is a building erected on the part of the site of a great monastery which, in the Middle Ages, was the scene of a gruesome tragedy. The present Rector, Rev G E Smith, and his wife made the Rectory their residence in the face of warnings by previous occupiers. Since their arrival they have been puzzled and startled by a series of peculiar happenings which cannot be explained, and which confirm the rumours they heard before moving in. Mr Smith has heard the sound of slow, dragging feet across the floor of an unoccupied room and a servant girl brought from London suddenly gave notice after two days’ work, declaring emphatically that she had seen a nun walking in the wood at the back of the house. Finally, comes the remarkable story of an old-fashioned coach, seen twice on the lawn by a servant, which remained in sight long enough for the girl to distinguish the brown colour of the horses. Mr Smith has explained that the previous Rector of Borley, now dead, often spoke of the remarkable experience he had one night when, walking along the road outside the Rectory, he heard the clatter of hoofs. Looking around, he saw to his horror an old-fashioned coach lumbering along the road, driven by two headless men. [This was the first report of the ghosts of Borley Rectory that would soon become known as “The Most Haunted House in England” as well as the most publicized and controversial case of supernatural activity in the twentieth century.]

  1930–39

  The Ghost of Charles Dickens

  Source and date: Daily Star, 10 July 1930

  Among the many memories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who died this week it has been recalled that the creator of Sherlock Holmes claimed to have been in contact with the creator of Scrooge, Charles Dickens. In September 1927, Sir Arthur, whose interest in Spiritualism is well-known, told a public meeting that he had spoken with the spirit of Charles Dickens. At a séance at Sir Arthur’s country house in the New Forest, an instrument like a planchette spelled out the word BOZ. In a later exchange about the unfinished novel, Edwin Drood, Sir Arthur said that the spirit of Dickens had told him, “The poor chap had a hard time. I always hoped you would put Sherlock on his track. I don’t know which is better – to solve the mystery in your notebook or let it remain a mystery.” [On 4 January, 1977, the Daily Telegraph reported that a “Dickensian Ghost” was believed to be haunting BMA House in Tavistock Square, which stands on the site of Tavistock House, Charles Dickens’ home. Several cleaners had talked of strange occurrences in the library including a mysterious figure, the opening and closing of doors and “a mysterious swaying of the heavy curtains”. The paper added that it was during his stay at Tavistock House that Dickens’s marriage broke up and during one of the amateur theatrical performances that the author used to arrange there, he even introduced a fictional ghost as “being redolent of lost love”.]

  Hotel Bedroom Ghost

  Source and date: Vale of White Horse Gazette, 18 August 1933

  On the night of Sunday the 13th, Miss Ruby Bower, whose uncle and aunt held the licence of the Black Horse Inn in Cirencester, awoke at midnight with a strange feeling. She felt fearful and uneasy before she opened her eyes. This changed to a sensation of terror when she did so because the room was bathed in an unearthly light. A rustling sound in the corner of the room caused her to look up and her horror increased as she beheld an apparition in the shape of a stout old lady with an evil face and a grim expression, gliding slowly across the floor. Despite her fears and the fact that the whole thing could not have lasted more than a fraction of a second, every detail of the scene is indelibly impressed on Miss Bower’s memory. She recalls the old-fashioned clothes of the midnight visitor, the long fawn-coloured dress of stiff silk that rustled as the old lady moved, the white apron with its frills, and the white frilly mob cap. Miss Bower sat up in bed, screamed out, “No! No! Don’t! Don’t!” at which the ghost vanished. The bedroom was later searched and on one of the panes of the window the name “John” had been scratched several times in the form of old-fashioned handwriting. Disbelievers would say that the writing was there before Sunday – but the landlord is confident that it was not there previously. [In the succeeding weeks, a special investigation into the sighting was carried out and on 8 September, the Gazette reported that a medium had been called to the Inn and “the Cirencester Ghost has been laid”.]

  “Ghost Train” in Sweden

  Source and date: Morning Post, 3 October 1933

  A “ghost train” appearing between the Orresta and Tortuna Station on the Vaesteraas Railway in Central Sweden has frightened and mystified the country people of that district. Recently a party of five persons, while walking on the road near the railway, suddenly saw a lighted train at high-speed glide noiselessly along the railway line. It looked exactly like the ordinary train which was due half an hour later, except for the head and tail lanterns, which were unusually bright and powerful. It was clearly seen by the entire company, but no one heard the slightest sound from it. On several previous occasions the same sight has been seen by single persons in exactly the same spot, but no one has been able to account for it or to offer a satisfactory explanation. Some years ago the railway bank caved in at this section of the line and the old people of the district now prophesy some serious accident. A similar sight one or two years ago frightened people in a desolate part of Lapland where a phantom train was seen rushing through the forest in a district where there was no railway at all.

  The Ghost of Oscar Wilde

  Source and date: News Chronicle, 3 February 1934

  The ghost of Oscar Wilde – a pale-faced dandy of a ghost in a loose-flowing tie – is reported to be walking again in the rooms he occupied 60 years ago in Magdalen College, Oxford. The present occupant, Mr Tony Kelly, claims to have been visited at midnight this week by his predecessor. Mr Kelly is an Australian and plays ice hockey for the University – not a man given to aesthetic fancies. He said yesterday, “I had gone to bed about half-past eleven, but for some reason I could not get to sleep. Suddenly I had a most extraordinary feeling, a sort of goose flesh, as if someone was in the room. And so there was – standing by the window – a tall man with a long jacket, very old-fashioned with rows of buttons and very short lapels with a loose tie that was tied in a big knot. He began to walk up and down. I spoke to him and he didn’t answer. I put out my hand as he came near me and it went straight through where he seemed to be. Finally he walked away into a corner of the room and just faded out of sight. There isn’t a door in that corner, either.” It was in these rooms that Wilde wrote the poem, “Ravenna”, that won the Newdigate Prize when he was an undergraduate.

  Ghost Bus of Kensington

  Source and date: Morning Post, 16 June 1934

  During an inquest at Paddington yesterday, the junction of St Mark’s Road and Cambridge Gardens, North Kensington was stated to be the place where local people had rep
orted that a ghost bus was seen. The inquest was on Ian James Beaton, aged twenty-five, metallurgical engineer, of Hamilton Road, Dollis Hill, who died following a collision between the car he was driving and another driven by Mr George Pink, the chauffeur of the Hon Samuel Vestey of Manchester Square. The jury returned a verdict of accidental death and exonerated Mr Pink. Frederick Robinson of Chesterton Road, Kensington, a witness, said the junction was noted for accidents and it was claimed to be where a ghost bus had been seen. A woman resident in Cambridge Gardens said, “The legend of the phantom bus has been going strong for years. The version I heard was that on certain nights, long after the regular bus service has stopped, people have been awakened by the roar of a bus coming down the street. When they have gone to their windows they have seen a brilliantly lighted double-decker bus approaching with neither driver nor passengers. According to this story, the bus goes careering to the corner of Cambridge Gardens and St Mark’s Road and then vanishes. A number of accidents have happened at this corner and it has been suggested that the phantom bus has been the cause.” Another version is that the bus, which a woman has been told by a conductor to board, “vanished into thin air” when she approached it. [This legend is believed to have been the inspiration for E F Benson’s famous ghost short story “The Bus Conductor” ’ which was later adapted into an episode in the classic British horror film, Dead of Night (1945).]

  Girl Typist Saw Ghost Fall

  Source and date: Sunday Pictorial, 29 July 1934

  A London typist on her way home fainted on passing an office building. She was carried into a chemist’s shop in Aldwych. On recovering, she declared that she had had the impression as she walked that a girl had fallen from the window of a high building and crashed at her feet. The shock was so great that she collapsed. Exactly eighteen months ago, the tragedy she described actually happened – a girl fell from an upper storey and was killed at the very spot where the typist, who had never heard of the accident, fainted. A famous psychologist told the Sunday Pictorial that there are people with such sensitive minds that they can conjure up subconsciously pictures of past events. These people, placed in environments where tragedies have happened, can describe in minutest detail the particulars of the tragedy – and such experiences are by no means uncommon. The psychologist said, “Recently I had a patient who told me she could not pass a certain street corner near her house as she always seemed to see a motor-bus pinned against the wall there. I made enquiries and found that seventeen years previously – during the war and long before she came to the neighbourhood – a bus ran on to the pavement at this spot and seven people were killed.”

  The Talking Ghost of Saragossa

  Source and date: The Times, 26 November 1934

  The “voice” of a ghost speaking down a stovepipe in a flat in a detached house has caused a sensation throughout Spain and Europe. The house, inhabited by a family named Palazaon in the Calle Gascon de Gotor, Saragossa, has been visited by scores of people, including the police and medical men, who have all heard the “voice”. It appears to be that of an intelligent entity, has spoken for hours on end, answered questions and even asked them. All yesterday afternoon the ghost talked almost incessantly and last night on the orders of a local magistrate the police were preparing to evict the family and remain in the building in the hope of laying the “Duenda de Zaragoza” as the ghost has been called. [A further report in The Times of 3 December said the ghost had continued to talk until two days ago, “when it said its final piece and vanished – perhaps for ever. The mystery has never been solved.”]

  Vampire Ghost that Bullets Cannot Harm

  Source and date: Morning Post, 2 February 1935

  Several families living in a village near Gnjilane, in southern Serbia, are living in terror of their lives through the manifestations of a supernatural being believed locally to be a vampire ghost. Invisible and impervious to rifle bullets, the being enters peasants’ houses at the dead of night, opens locked chests, levitates logs of wood from the fire, drenches peasants, their wives and children, with jugs of water and drives the cattle in the byres to frenzy. The phantom does not seem to be afraid of the light, for two of the braver peasants ambushed in one of the haunted houses witnessed the efficient imitation of a spiritualist séance and fired on him, upon which he departed giving three final thundering knocks on the door.

  Ghostly Submerged Bells Heard

  Source and date: Brecon and Radnor Express, 19 December 1935

  The bells of a cathedral submerged beneath Langorse Pool, Brecon-shire have been heard again this year, it has been reported. The dull ringing sound is said to be heard at times of great stillness. These accounts remind us of the story of the thieves who stole a bell from the tower of St David’s Cathedral and endeavoured to carry it away by sea. The bell, however, was lost when the sacrilegious crew suffered a shipwreck off the Pembroke coast. Seamen along our coast still declare that whenever they hear it chiming on the ocean bed, they know they can expect a spell of wild weather.

  Psychic Experiment on the Brocken

  Source and date: The Morning Star, 18 June 1932

  A group of prominent British and German investigators into psychic phenomena ascended last night to the top of “The Brocken”, Germany’s magic mountain, and, in accordance with ancient rites, attempted to change a billygoat into a young man. As demanded in the High German Black Book, the experimenters had the assistance of Miss Gloria Gordon of England, “a maiden pure of heart” and they anointed the billygoat with blood and honey and the scrapings of church bells. They used a proper pine fire and described a circle of the prescribed size and they uttered every one of the Latin incantations stipulated for such goings-on. The goat was led into the magic circle by a silver cord and a white sheet was thrown over it. Then, in a weird monotone, Harry Price, director of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, boomed, “One” and with the proper pauses counted to ten. The maiden pure in heart whisked off the white sheet – and there stood the billygoat, somewhat the worse for blood and honey and the scraping of church bells, shivering in the cold. The one hundred or so spectators applauded heartily and the investigators said they were satisfied. They had not expected the hocus-pocus to work anyway – it was all a matter of proving, by painstaking experiment, that there was nothing in all this witchcraft business.

  The Spectral Mansion

  Source and date: East Anglian Daily Times, 11 March 1934

  In October 1926, Ruth Wynne and a young girl of fourteen, both newcomers to the area, came across a large house of ancient design while walking from Rougham Green to Bradfield St George near Bury St Edmunds. The house was set behind tall, wrought-iron gates and was reached by a driveway through tall trees. The pair gazed at the building through the trees and saw a corner of the roof above a stucco front and some windows that appeared to be of Georgian design before continuing on their way. A few months later, in February or March, taking the same route, Miss Wynne and her friend were astonished to find no trace of this spectral mansion. [This story has strong similarities with the experiences of two academics, Miss Anne Moberley and Miss Elinor Jourdain, when they were walking at Versailles and saw a gathering of some of the most celebrated figures of the court of Louis XVI, including Marie Antoinette. Their account, An Adventure, published that same year, has been regularly reprinted, filmed and dramatized without a solution being found for the mystery, although it has been suggested that in both cases, the women slipped momentarily through a time-fault.]

  Haunted House Broadcast

  Source and date: The Listener, 10 March 1936

  A successful broadcast was carried out on Saturday night at an old haunted house near Meopham in Kent. The house belonged to a friend of the psychic investigator Harry Price, who arranged the transmission with Mr S J de Lotbiniere, BBC Director of Outside Broadcasts. The broadcast provided listeners with an idea of the techniques used to investigate an alleged haunting. One phenomenon did occur when the sensitive transmitting the
rmograph which had been operating in the house’s “haunted cellar” showed a sudden rise in temperature at 9.45 p.m. during the broadcast. Almost immediately afterwards it fell sharply below what had been measured during the day. Neither Mr Price nor Mr de Lotbiniere could account for this “kick” in any terms of normality. A member of the BBC transmission team who slept in the house after the broadcast said the next morning that he had definitely heard footsteps in the early hours that could not be accounted for.

  The “Brown Lady” Photograph

  Source and date: Country Life, December 1936

  The photograph depicting a shadow figure on the stairs of Raynham Hall in Norfolk was taken by Captain Provand who, with his assistant, Mr Indre Shira, were taking pictures of the staircase. While at work, Mr Shira suddenly called out that he could see an apparition and told Provand to take another shot. The photographer obliged, though he did not see the ghost in the viewfinder. Mr Shira bet him five pounds that it would appear on the photographic plate and has won his bet. The negative has been examined by experts who have been unable to find any hint of faking. A portrait of the “Brown Lady” who is believed to be the figure on the staircase hangs in the house. She is Dorothy Walpole, the daughter of Robert Walpole and sister of the famous Sir Robert Walpole. She died in 1726 and a local legend maintains she was found with a broken neck at the foot of the grand staircase at Raynham.