Ghosts of the Tower of London

by Geoff Abbott

  Now about the second Sunday night we heard the footsteps and they came up to the door – and the door opened – but there was nobody there! My mother looked out and my father checked the downstairs doors which were locked, including the door leading to the battlements. The door between the downstairs and upstairs was also locked. Dad called yeoman warder Curtis and told him about it and he said ‘So you’ve had your visitor – it won’t be long before you hear the footsteps again!’.

  Dad got the foreman of the Ministry of Works to check the door and had a lock which had a sliding catch fitted underneath. Meanwhile Dad had told Sir George (Keeper of the Jewels) and Lady Younghusband and she visited mother and had a good talk. She said she had a friend in Cambridge who was interested in such ‘goings on’ as she called them.

  Later on the footsteps came up the stairs again. Dad had locked the door and put the catch on. The footsteps stopped – and the door opened! The lock and catch were still in the locked position, we were amazed! Dad looked round the Tower again, everything was secure, so he relocked the door.

  About the third week in November 1921, Lady Younghusband brought two gentlemen with her and introduced them to us. They also met Mr and Mrs Curtis, and then they checked the tower from top to bottom. They also looked up the history of the Martin Tower.

  My mother said that next time the door opened she would say ‘Come in Mary’ and tell me to shut the door.

  Nothing happened for a few days, until the last Sunday in November. One of the gentlemen was with us, and he took Dad and Mr Curtis with him when he locked the two main doors and the side doors to the tower, and the door between the upstairs and downstairs. We settled down for a late meal about 7.45pm (I was allowed to stay up on Sundays).

  Mother was at the stove, I was reading, Dad and the gentleman were talking – when the footsteps came up the stairs!

  The door was locked and the bottom catch on. The footsteps stopped – and the door opened! My mother said ‘Come in, Mary – close the door, George!’. But the gentleman said ‘No, stay still'. He looked at a thermometer and two more instruments and took readings. He then went with Dad and checked all doors, which were found still locked. They went to the top of the tower, all secure.

  We all settled down after that, and I went to bed while they had a drink and a chat. Sir George and Lady Younghusband came over, and a report was sent to the Resident Governor.

  When my cousin came to live with us he soon got used to the footsteps and door opening; they wanted to change the door but my mother said leave it, as she was quite happy with ‘Mary calling’. She said the footsteps were light so it must be a lady calling.

  Later we moved out, and the Ministry of Works’ officers took over. One of the staff called on mother and told her that he had heard more than once footsteps coming up the stairs and stopping outside, and when he called out ‘Come in’ nobody came, and no one was there. My mother told him to tell everyone else not to worry, it was only Mary calling.

  By a strange coincidence another holder of the Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest award for bravery, was also involved in an eerie occurrence on the other side of the Tower Green in what is now called the Queen’s House. This sixteenth-century dwelling has housed many historic prisoners, Anne Boleyn, Katherine Howard, Guy Fawkes, William Penn and others, and is the house of the Resident Governor.

  Colonel Burges VC held this post in 1923 and, as related by George Trott, had gone to bed early one night. He was reading, when he heard footsteps come down the corridor and stop outside his bedroom. He thought it was his batman and so told him to come in, but the footsteps carried on down the corridor. The next day he asked his batman about this and was told that he had not been upstairs. Later on the same thing happened again, so the colonel had an alarm switch fitted and when it occurred again, he pressed the button and the soldier on duty below came running up. As he reached the corridor he heard the footsteps moving along ahead of him. The whole house was searched and everything found secure. The yeoman warder on watch duty reported the matter to Chief Warder Smoker, and though it happened again, Colonel Burges never seemed to worry about it.

  However, in 1933 he was replaced by Colonel Faviell DSO, who was told about the mysterious footsteps. Some time afterwards his wife, who had forgotten all about the story, was in bed when the footsteps passed her door. She thought it was one of the soldiers visiting her maid, so spoke to her about it. The maid denied it and so Mrs Faviell had the workmen check all the doors and locks. Not only was the alarm switch overhauled, but it was arranged that when Mrs Faviell opened the bedroom door, all the lights along the corridor would come on.

  A few nights later, as she lay in bed, the footsteps approached. Getting up, she pressed the alarm switch, alerting the soldier on duty below. He locked the front door and ran up the stairs. Meanwhile, Mrs Faviell had opened the bedroom door flooding the corridor with light – and revealing nothing else, although the footsteps continued along the corridor! Bravely she ran after ‘whoever it was’ but the footsteps suddenly stopped. More soldiers were summoned and a search was made, but as usual nothing was found.

  But all that happened many years ago and could have been creaking floorboards! What about actual sightings, recently? Well, in January 1982, at 4.30am, the yeoman warder on watch was in the Byward Tower. This guardroom has been manned day and night by the warders and their predecessors for over seven hundred years, and the Watchman was the only one on duty at that time. He sat opposite the huge stone fireplace, which now houses a gas-fire. Two electric lights were on, one at each end of the small guardroom.

  The front cover of a guide book published in 1884

  Suddenly he became aware of a buzzing sound, like that of a fly. Looking up he saw, not the gas-fire, but a roaring fire of logs or coal. In front of it stood two men, side by side. They both had beards, and he noted their spindly legs, as if they were wearing breeches and stockings. The bright glare of the fire prevented him noticing any details of their dress. They appeared to be talking to each other, and then suddenly one moved his head, to lean forward and stare at the dumbstruck warder! Next minute both men vanished. The gas-fire reappeared, leaving the Watchman to collect his senses and hope for the dawn’s early arrival. There is one fascinating point on which to ponder – if the ‘man’ leant forward and saw the Watchman: who thought who was a ghost?

  Before the public are admitted to the grounds, the White Tower staff sweep the floors and prepare for the coming day’s rush of tourists. At 8.05 one morning in 1978, a warden thus engaged noticed a woman through one of the tall glass showcases. Puzzled by a stranger’s presence at that time of day, he went towards her, only to see her move through an archway into the next room. Yet when he arrived there it was empty, and the only way out was up a spiral stair to the chapel. He climbed the narrow stairway and reached the heavy oak door to the chapel to find it securely locked, and although a search was carried out, the results were negative.

  Another incident in the White Tower occurred in September 1980, when the night security guard was patrolling. It was 11.15pm and the guard was approaching the spiral stairway which connects the vaults with the uppermost floors. As he started to go down, he was aware of a woman to his left, going up. He had taken two steps further down before he realised what he had seen, so he turned and ascended. He found nothing, all doors ahead of him being locked securely, and he had all the keys!

  He described later how he had been unable to see the upper half of her body for she had leant forward climbing the steep circular stairs and so was rounding the newel post. However, he distinctly saw that she was wearing a black and grey panelled skirt. Again, a thorough search of the eleventh-century building revealed nothing.

  Finally, I include an experience that was recounted to me by a gentleman who would prefer to be known by the initials JHW. Although somewhat unnerved at the time, his profession required him to have an eye for detail, coupled with a photographic recall of memory. I quote the report in his own wor
ds to preserve spontaneity.

  Though I have passed by the rear of the Tower hundreds of times, this was the only time I felt or saw anything. It was 7.30am on 11 March 1980, a slightly misty morning. As I was approaching Traitors’ Gate I noticed a blue light which was flickering and therefore drew my attention.

  On looking down I was amazed to see a group of people in what appeared to be Tudor dress. There were about eight or more of them. Leading the procession was a very big man dressed in a leather apron, closely followed by two men carrying pikes or something like that, then two more men very well dressed. They wore red velvet with gold thread or brocade, and one had a small ruff, also a lace collar under the ruff. One seemed to be red headed and had a small beard, the other dark, no hat, and a small beard, his costume came up to his neck, no ruff, long puffed sleeves and several rings on his fingers. One man had a long gold chain.

  Behind them were two women in their early twenties, both very richly clothed. One seemed to be dressed in grey material, silk and brocaded, with a low neckline. Both women had a small tiara, what appeared to be rows of pearls shaped like a crescent on the crown of their heads. The other woman’s dress was of a brownish colour. Both had necklets of pearls, double loops, also a golden chain and pendant of some sort, long sleeves but without frills. The hair of one was sort of auburn, the other brown. Both dresses were studded with pearls, diamonds, etc, and gold thread or something like it.

  The woman in brown was holding a box against her chest with both hands. It was quite a small box, more of a casket than a box. The woman in grey was clasping a prayer book with a cross on it.

  Following them were two more men carrying pikes. They were dressed the same as the other pikemen, with black hats and capes or cloaks.

  The figures seemed to be gliding along as in a boat on the water, and the blue light was above them and seemed to move with the figures, growing fainter all the time they were in view.

  The impression only lasted about a minute or two, then there was some movement along the wharf and they all vanished like a puff of smoke.

  I cannot say if what I saw was real or not, but I can assure you I don’t want to see it again, for it left me feeling greatly puzzled and feeling a great deal of sadness, also very cold. I have had many sleepless nights since then, it is a welcome to have happened in daylight and not at night which could have had a disastrous effect. However, at no time did I feel any menacing or evil feeling towards me, only as I have already said, a feeling of overwhelming sadness and coldness.

  As well as being an observer, I felt that someone or something was also observing me, to what purpose one cannot tell. In my case there was no fear, but a knowledge that I was privileged to see it. I can only say once more I hope never to see anything like it anymore.

  So don’t think that supernatural happenings occur only at night, to guards and warders. Once you are in the grounds of the Tower, at any time of the day, you are just as likely to sense a touch on the shoulder, half see a shape rounding the corner, perhaps hear the echoes of a stifled scream …

  After all, why should you be exempt?

  The Ghostly Hand at Traitors’ Gate

  In December 1994 Shannon John, an attractive young American student, was one of a school group who came to this country to study Tudor history. In London they indulged in the inevitable round of sight-seeing, visiting such national institutions as the National Portrait Gallery, St Paul’s Cathedral, the Bank of England and then like so many others, they came to the Tower of London. But when the list had earlier been compiled of places the group just had to see, little did Shannon and her family imagine in their wildest dreams that this was going to be an experience they had never expected – for only yards from the office blocks and speeding traffic of modern London, there, among the crowds of tourists on Tower Wharf, someone from a bygone age was very, very close to Shannon!

  I first became involved in the story when my colleague Yeoman Warder Brian Harrison, knowing of my research and subsequent books on the Tower’s ghosts, forwarded a letter to me from Shannon’s father, Mr Arthur D John of Redlands, California in which he enclosed a photograph of Traitors’ Gate taken by his daughter and enquired whether we could account for the gloved hand which mysteriously appeared in the picture.

  To say that I was intrigued is putting it mildly, for while I had on record many cases in which spectres had apparently appeared to people, ghostly sounds heard and even inexplicable odours, incense etc., smelled, this was the first occasion of which I was aware, of such a manifestation being reportedly captured on film! Caution of course was necessary that it was not a hoax, a technical malfunction, a double exposure or the like, and on discussing it by phone with Mr John I was reassured that it was indeed a bona fide request for enlightenment and not a stunt for publicity (if it were, it would have appeared in American newspapers and not queried at all with the Tower authorities, who would have simply dismissed it as such). A print of the picture providing few clues as to whether it was genuine or not, Mr John offered to send the original roll of film, as the negative concerned and those immediately adjoining it were of course essential for evaluation.

  The ghostly hand at Traitors’ Gate

  On its receipt, I accepted the risk of being greeted with ribald scepticism and invited not only military photo-interpretation experts for an assessment, but later also the manufacturers of the film, they having the specialist equipment necessary to investigate the authenticity or otherwise of the negative. This they did thoroughly, over a lengthy period, and although they were necessarily wary of attributing the hand as being of supernatural origin, their conclusions can be summed up as follows;

  1. ‘The hand was not the result of a double exposure’. Comment: this was also confirmed by study of the other negatives on the roll.

  2. ‘Despite enlarging, then darkening the picture to varying degrees, the hand was still visible, surrounded by a strange glowing halo, especially round the thumb, this resembling the electro-fluorescent photographs interpreted by some as the ‘aura’ which surrounds us all, its colour signifying our mood e.g. blue for sadness, orange for happiness.’ Also, as will be seen by the illustration, while the railings are out of focus, the end of the sleeve itself, the wrinkles in the material and the outline of the fingers are clearly delineated, yet both are the same distance from the lens.

  Comment: point taken.

  3. ‘The image of the hand was present in the scene when the photo was taken and had not been subsequently superimposed by computer or any other method.’

  Comment: obviously an undisputed technical conclusion. Mr John also stressed that Shannon did not have the technical knowledge required to fake a picture in that way.

  5. ‘A hand could have intruded and been captured by the flash to give that luminescent effect, a known but rare phenomenon.’

  Comment: Shannon said that there were only herself and a friend in the immediate area and she did not use the flash on her ‘point and press’ camera. Nor is the lacy Tudor or Stuart style cuff worn by the ‘hand’ the usual fashion adopted by touring students! Even had someone obtained a sleeve as a joke, the wearer would have instinctively curled their fingers round the railings in the picture. Close examination shows that this is not the case. If the hand is of an era long since gone, the fingers could not have curled round the railings anyway, because they weren’t there, having only installed about a century ago to prevent people falling into the water below.

  Several questions remain unanswered and are probably unanswerable anyway. The posture of the hand itself is unusually awkward, as attempts to curl the fingers in that manner, yet keep the thumb line straight, will demonstrate. Was the owner of the hand a man or a woman? Was he or she wearing a glove? – there appears to be wrinkles on the first finger and no thumb nail is visible. Was it a coincidence that the manifestation occurred where it did, at Traitors’ Gate, the entrance through which the doomed victims were brought, to face lengthy incarceration or even death beneath the a
xe? It was certainly at the precise spot where, as I recounted in my book Beefeaters of the Tower of London, at 7.30a.m. on 11 March 1980 a passer-by witnessed and described in great detail a procession of Tudor-clad men and women, the men bearing pikes, the women resplendent in dresses studded with pearls and diamonds, one carrying a prayer book with a cross on it, the party passing slowly, as if in a barge, under Traitors’ Gate and proceeding into the Tower. Had he seen a phantom re-enactment of the moments when Queen Katherine Howard, accompanied by four ladies and conveyed in a small boat rowed by four men, passed under Traitors’ Gate on 10 February 1542, Katherine dying beneath the axe later on Tower Green? My informant reported that his attention was first attracted by a flickering haze of blue light beneath the archway; could it have been a glow similar to that which surrounded the ‘hand’? So whose hand was it? We will never know. I have only one regret – that Miss Shannon John wasn’t standing back sufficiently far enough to film whoever was on the Other’ end of the sleeve!

  Skeleton found near The Lanthorn Tower

  The Phantom of the Waterloo Block

  It was 3 a.m. on a cold morning in September 1980 and the sentry patrolling along the front of the Waterloo Block suddenly had the feeling that he was being watched. His colleagues were fifty yards or more away, walking their beats, everywhere was in darkness save for a glimmer of light through the arrow slits of the White Tower opposite, the brightest lights of all being those shining out through the large windows in the upper halves of the double doors of the Waterloo Block itself, lights which clearly illuminated the entrance hall beyond. Being a member of a Guards Regiment, he was not given to reacting to unusual circumstances in any other way than that of a highly trained sentry; those on duty in the Tower, whether soldiers or yeoman warders, the latter all being ex-Warrant Officers or Sergeant Majors, could hardly be classed as being susceptible to nerves, and their role was to observe and investigate anything out of the ordinary, especially at night.