Folklore of Essex

by Sylvia Kent

  On 16 October 1930, the Revd Lionel Foyster – a cousin of Harry Bull – moved into the rectory with his wife Marianne. During the five years they lived at Borley, the psychic phenomena increased. Messages appeared on walls, addressed to Marianne, pleading for ‘Mass, Light and Prayers’. Marianne also saw the ghost of Henry Bull. One night as she was passing the bathroom, she was hit in the face by an object – she knew not what – and the wound bled for a long time. The following night, as the Foysters lay in bed, several objects, including a hammer head and cotton reels, were hurled at them. The couple left in 1935.

  Harry Price wrote several books about Borley Rectory, which eventually mysteriously burned down in February 1939. Lights were often seen in the ruins before they were demolished in 1943. When the site was cleared, part of a skull, believed to be a woman’s, was found at the site, together with church ornaments.

  Romford

  There are more sceptics in the world of newspapers than in any other walk of life. So the idea of a ghost in an office inhabited by journalists would attract derision. Not so among those working at the former Romford Times offices at No. 2 High Street in the 1950s and ’60s. Those who did not actually believe in its existence kept silent out of respect for those who claimed to have felt its presence or seen ‘evidence’ of its existence.

  The property, which was one of the oldest houses in the ancient market town, had been converted by owners Wilson and Whitworth to include a stationery shop on the ground floor, with the editorial offices above. Stanley Wilson, grandson of the founder, was among the first to sense the ghost’s presence on the top floor of the building. What he saw one night he would not reveal but he never again went up to that floor at night alone and refused to allow any stories to be written about it. Only after Stanley’s death did the first story appear. By that time, the evidence had grown. Sports editor Don Hill had been working late one night alone, typing a report in the outer of the two rooms, when he saw the handle of the door to the inner room turn and the door open. There was no one there.

  Another time, on a Saturday night, reporter Brian Potter was typing out results from the Dagenham Town Show he had just covered. It was a chilly evening and the old gas fire was on, when Brian suddenly felt a chill come over the room and what he later described as the sound of feet in canvas shoes shuffling across the floor from the darkened far corner of the room. The sound stopped between Brian and the fire and he felt the heat had suddenly been blocked off, as though there was someone standing there. The time was 10.40 p.m. Brian grabbed his belongings and fled.

  It was precisely at the same time the following night that the editor, Joe Ellis, was working at his desk on the floor below when he heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs. He was alone in the building but it was not unusual for staff to wander in. All the reporters had keys so that they could complete their stories of the evening in time for sub-editing the following morning. Who was it who had just come up the stairs and opened the outer door to Joe’s office? No one. The place was deserted.

  One by one, the journalists were subjected to similar ghostly happenings, usually late at night. The old property was destined for demolition and an adjoining building became the temporary home of the newspaper. It was eventually revealed that a woman had hanged herself in the old building 300 years earlier, which may explain the hauntings. One peculiar additional recollection of Brian’s was that the feet seemed to be moving 4in above the floor. It was discovered that No. 2 High Street, built without foundations only yards from the river Rom, had sunk 4in from the level of 300 years ago, settling slowly into the Romford mud.

  When a new office block was built on the site, sceptics and believers alike waited for the return of the Romford Times office ghost. They were to be disappointed. If it had ever existed, it disappeared along with the rubble and hundreds of years of Romford history.

  Peter Owen worked at the offices throughout the period of these stories but never experienced the ghost for himself:

  Not once, unless you want to count the time when I let myself in late one evening and saw someone go in the direction of the outside toilets. I thought I would also visit them before going upstairs to the reporters’ room. I walked along the corridor in the same direction only to find the door at the end padlocked. I had been mistaken. I must have imagined the person walking ahead of me. I did, didn’t I?

  Warley

  Down in the depths of the basement at the central office of the Ford Motor Co. in Warley, a ghostly spirit walks the endless corridors, manifesting himself from time to time to employees. Ken Marsh, a spiritual medium, has encountered the ghost:

  When I came to work at Central Office four years ago, I heard stories about people who had experienced brushes with the Warley ghost. I certainly felt the presence of a wandering spirit in the building. Those feelings were confirmed when I was walking along the basement corridor which leads to the receiving bay. The ghost of a soldier walked straight through me. It was such a strong manifestation that it virtually knocked me off balance. I didn’t see a spiritual form, but I felt the visitation so strongly that I knew it was a man, and a soldier.

  Ken Marsh, spirit medium, at the Ford Motor Co. in Warley.

  The building is on the site of the famous old Warley Barracks, erected in 1805, and there have been reports of manifestations of soldiers, usually in old-fashioned uniform. Ninety-five-year-old Jim Reddell, Chelsea Pensioner and first Freeman of the Borough of Brentwood, recalled:

  When I was stationed at Warley I casually mentioned the figure known as the ‘Green Archer’ who was often seen at the armament depot at Warley and the story certainly caused unnerving disturbance among the new recruits! There is another legend that a young soldier who, upon learning that he was to be posted to India, deserted. When arrested, he was brought back to the barracks where he hanged himself.

  Gidea Park

  The old gibbet at Gallows Corner in Gidea Park was in a dilapidated state during the eighteenth century. The local squire claimed the wood and ordered it to be made into a four-poster bed. When the village carpenter erected the bed in the squire’s bedroom, the squire tested it and jokingly said, ‘I’ll sleep the sleep of the dead tonight.’ His prediction came true: the next morning, he was found dead in the bed.

  Ninety-five-year-old James Reddell, a Chelsea Pensioner who served at Warley Barracks.

  Panfield

  The Saxons called Panfield an area of ‘open country on the banks of the river Pant’. No Saxon has been seen in spirit form but there was certainly an old lady haunting the Bell pub for many years before the present licensee took over. An exorcism was performed by the local vicar prior to the change of ownership. The spirit obviously liked the atmosphere, as she refused to go.

  One day, when the landlord was cleaning out the fireplace in the lounge bar early in the morning with his Jack Russell, a sharp bang reverberated through the room although not a soul was there. The dog heard it too and reacted when a woman’s voice was heard. Staff members have heard a child calling out when there were no children around. ‘They’re friendly ghosts so we don’t mind them being around,’ said Graham, the new licensee.

  Basildon

  When dealing with psychic phenomena, it is interesting to read about apparitions that suddenly make an appearance in places that have had no previous encounters with the paranormal. This happened in Basildon during the early 1960s, at the time when new houses and roads were being created on ancient land that is mentioned in the Domesday Book.

  It was in the area around the sixteenth-century church of the Holy Cross that a red-robed figure – some described him as a monk – began to be seen around twilight. None of the older generation who had lived in that part of Basildon had ever seen or heard of a spectre of this sort before but it scared at least a dozen women (and some men) who worked at the Ford Tractor Plant and used Church Road as a short cut to their homes on the Fryerns Estate. Some became so terrified that they refused to use that route home.

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bsp; The monk was seen to walk through solid objects near the church. It is thought that he was one of two rectors who were expelled and possibly murdered at the time of the Reformation. The ghost tale attracted several national newspapers, particularly when the curate of Holy Cross church, the Revd Bernard Lloyd, agreed to stage an all-night vigil. The date selected was 18 February 1964 and, as well as local journalists, there were photographers, a television crew and a reporter from the Daily Mail. The red monk failed to put in an appearance, probably unsettled by the television crew’s lights, which illuminated the old church and graveyard. If nothing else, the story of the ghost succeeded in putting the 600-year-old church – one of the few remaining relics of pre-New Town Basildon – on the map. There was a reported sighting in 1972 but nothing further since.

  Prittlewell

  Some years ago, Simon Thwaites from Billericay often took a lunch break from his photographic course at Southend College to eat his lunch in Priory Park, close to the site of Prittlewell Priory, founded in 1110. The priory was a selfcontained community of black-robed Cluniac Benedictine monks. Simon and some of his friends were in the park when one of the students, Carolyn, took a photograph of a girl resting on the park bench. When the students looked at the negative, they saw an odd figure standing over the girl. The contact print was sent to Kodak but none of the technicians could discern what the dark shape could be. There were no shrubs near the bench. Sightings of monks were often reported in Priory Park – maybe that day one of them decided to pay a visit?

  Ashingdon

  St Andrew’s church is believed to have been founded by King Canute to commemorate his victory in battle on the hill where the church now stands. Though lawns surround the church today, legend says that after the battle no grass would grow on the bloodstained hill.

  Brentwood

  The spirit of the young Protestant martyr William Hunter, born in Brentwood in 1536, is said to haunt the old Swan Inn in Brentwood High Street. The return to Roman Catholicism under Queen Mary provoked tremendous protest in Essex. Those who refused to recant their Protestant views were burnt at the stake. At least twenty-three Protestants were burned at Colchester, including six in one fire. Seventeen Essex men and women from Bocking and Stratford were burnt at Smithfield, and other burnings of people from Rayleigh, Braintree, Maldon and Horndon took place.

  The nineteen-year-old Hunter, who had been apprenticed to a silk weaver in London, was a fervent Protestant and was dismissed by his employer when he refused to receive communion at the Easter Mass. He was sent home to Brentwood and one day was found in the chapel reading the Bible, which was heresy under Mary’s law and punishable by burning.

  Although given the chance to recant, Hunter refused and was sentenced to death in his home town. He lodged at the Swan Inn two days prior to his execution and said a poignant goodbye to his parents and friends on the morning of his death. On Tuesday 26 March 1555, he was burned at the stake ‘at the town’s end, where the butts stood’, in the presence of the townspeople, including Sir Antony Browne, the lord of the manor. Tradition assigned the site of Hunter’s martyrdom to a great elm tree which stood by Brentwood School for centuries, before its dead trunk was replaced by an oak to mark the accession to the throne of King George VI in 1936. In 1861, the Hunter Memorial was erected in Shenfield Road, paid for by public subscription.

  Numerous sightings of William Hunter have been reported over the years at the Swan, which was rebuilt in 1935, although it is believed that the sixteenth-century Swan was across the road. In 1963, the daughter of the then licensee reported that she saw a man wearing an old-fashioned hat follow her mother across the landing one night. Renee McCarthy, another girl, was given a bedroom at the pub but the supernatural activity so alarmed her that she left and refused ever to visit the pub again. Wall-mounted plates have been hurled from shelves onto the floor, bumping sounds have been heard coming from the cellar and furniture has been moved about mysteriously during the night. Lights have inexplicably been switched on and off and doors have locked themselves. Papers have vanished only to be found in another part of the building. A dog kept by one landlord refused to enter certain parts of the building.

  Another ancient inn along Brentwood’s London Road is the Golden Fleece. Although it has seen much refurbishment, it still retains within its roof many original beams. This building stands on the site of the twelfth-century Priory of St Peter’s and is haunted by yet another monk, which has been seen by many people over the last century. This monk is usually reflected in the mirror and stands behind the person with his arms crossed. Poltergeist activity has been reported in the Golden Fleece by young waitresses and bar staff who have mentioned their cooking utensils being moved inexplicably around the kitchen.

  William Hunter dying in the flames, 1555.

  William Hunter – the old tree stump.

  The ghosts of nine navvies haunt the embankment near the Seven Arches Bridge in Brentwood. One foggy night in 1840, soon after the opening of the Eastern Counties Railway line at Brentwood, the men were unloading ballast trucks when they heard a train approaching. They all seemed to think that the oncoming train was on the same line as the train they were unloading, so jumped off. Unfortunately, they were all cut to pieces. Their remains were gathered up and put into the engine shed at Brentwood railway station. After an inquest had been held, the fragments were wrapped in nine squares of calico and put in coffins, then buried on the north side of the parish church.

  The Seven Arches Bridge, close to where the nine workers died.

  Great Leighs

  During the Second World War, Great Leighs, near Chelmsford, was the place that brought the London press reporters to this part of Essex. An unknown woman, suspected of being a witch, had been executed in the seventeenth century and had been buried with a stake through her heart at the nearby crossroads, now known as Scrapfaggot Green. On top of the grave had been placed a huge stone, supposedly preventing the witch from leaving her grave.

  In 1944, during the course of road-widening to enable heavy military vehicles to proceed to and from the nearby US Army base, a bulldozer was moved in to remove the boulder from the site. The spirit of the witch is said to have been released. Almost immediately, strange things began happening. The clock on the parish church began chiming backwards and the church bells began pealing by themselves. Cows stopped giving milk and geese disappeared without trace. Hens stopped laying and one farmer found his chickens had mysteriously transferred themselves to his duck pen some distance away. Sceptics suggested that this was the work of a practical joker but at the time many seriously believed that supernatural forces were at work.

  The stone was returned to its old resting place at Scrapfaggot Green and life returned to normal in the village. The stone now rests in front of the old St Anne’s Castle pub at Great Leighs. This ancient pub has its own set of ghostly characters. They so intrigued its owners that a group of ghost-hunters were invited to spend an all-night vigil in the building. Some interesting ‘visitors’, who have also been seen on several occasions by the owners and staff, were recorded. An apparition believed to be Anne Hughes, who in 1621 was accused of being a witch and was hanged, is often seen in the old pub, and a black cat, presumably belonging to Anne, has been seen. Then there was Elizabeth, who walks around the owners’ bedroom in her wedding dress, frequently going to the window to stare out. But perhaps the most interesting is the monk who sits in the bar smoking a pipe – a very strong smell of tobacco is frequently wafted through the pub.

  Stock

  The ghost of Charlie ‘Spider’ Marshall haunts the Bear Inn at Stock, but this spirit is a somewhat friendly one. Spider was an ostler at the Bear Inn at the end of the nineteenth century. He had no home of his own and no family. He lived in the stables of the inn. He earned his nickname by his peculiar way of walking sideways, like a spider crab. For the amusement of the regulars at the Bear, who would give him a few pence, he would scramble up the chimney of the taproom fireplace and em
erge from the chimney in the bar parlour. Occasionally, however, he would stay up the chimney for some time to unnerve the customers and pop down when least expected. The only way to bring him down would be to light a fire in one of the fireplaces to smoke him out. There was a small loft at the junction of the two chimneys where Spider would sit listening to his friends entreating him to come down.

  One Christmas Eve, however, Spider refused to come down, even when fires were lit to smoke him out, and he was never seen alive again. It was assumed that he had died of suffocation at the junction of both chimneys but no attempt was made to remove his body and it is presumed that his remains are still there. However, a little man is often to be seen late at night in the bar wearing his white breeches and boots, and every year the locals drink his health at Christmas time.

  St Osyth

  The remains of this twelfth-century priory have been the scene of nocturnal activity by a ghostly monk, who has been seen carrying a lighted candle around the ruins late at night before meandering down to the millstream, where, after a few seconds, he disappears. Wearing a white robe, he was a regular visitor before the Second World War and has certainly been seen as late as 1970.

  Tilty

  A headless monk is the ghost connected with the old Cistercian abbey at Tilty. He is to be occasionally seen walking down Cherry Lane. In 1215, King John ravaged Essex and his soldiers broke into the abbey, which was rich and prosperous in its early years. The monks were said to have put up a strong resistance to protect their property. As a result, one monk was beheaded. During the 1940s, some ancient graves by the side of the abbey were excavated. In one of the graves, the skeleton was said to be minus its skull.