One
www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/
No ghost book would be complete without at least a reference to the Tower of London, given that it is reputedly the most haunted building in England, if not the entire world. Standing high and menacingly over the iconic Thames River in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, it was originally commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1078 and completed some nineteen years later. And it has, without doubt, one of the bloodiest histories known to any building in the world.
As such the Tower is the perfect place to start our quest for haunted castles in England. It was one cool, overcast and slightly drizzly day that my partner Kirsten and I visited this amazing set of medieval buildings. As we walked along the Thames, the Tower seemed to loom out from the gray skies and the river itself seemed angry and gray with a strong tidal flow creating waves that lapped loudly against the ancient stone banks and moored boats. The streets themselves were wet and slippery, and in this sort of atmosphere in this city one could believe in the myriad of ghost stories that have been generated over countless years of human habitation.
Wandering by Traitor’s Gate, we notice that the gate itself is old and worn with rusted hinges and fittings and sits ominously in the grayish-green waters of the river. Surrounding this, the stone walls are ancient and worn and at lower levels covered in moss and river slime. The tide at this point of time is low, so we can see the full extent of what gave the castle its grisly name and reputation over the past four hundred or so years—the number of prisoners accused of treason who passed through it on their way to imprisonment, torment and probable death in the Tower itself.
The Tower of London is actually a complex of multiple medieval buildings from different eras set within large stone walls built to keep intruders out. It has played a major role in the history of England, so much so that it is synonymous with the city and has been, over the years, a treasury, a public records office, an armory, home of the Royal Mint, as well as the home of the crown jewels.
A number of extensions were made during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and although there have been many modifications and additions to the tower, the original layout essentially remains the same as it was when built. Indeed, in the twelfth century it was fortified by Richard the Lionheart by the addition of an outer wall and a moat. In the following century, Edward I then built an outer wall which completely enclosed the inner wall, as well as filled in the old moat and built a new one, now still plainly visible, except with lush, well-manicured lawns rather than water. Edward used the newly fortified tower as an armory and prison, a place of executions and torture.
Although seemingly impregnable, the Tower has been besieged on numerous occasions as rulers rightly or wrongly believed that the Tower must be controlled in order to control the country. During the fifteenth century, it was used as a prison although it was used in this fashion more so in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Indeed, Elizabeth I was one of the many prominent historical figures who were held captive in the Tower.
Interestingly, although there exists an all-pervading belief that the Tower was a place of death and torture, only a total of seven people were executed within the actual Tower, an insignificant number when compared to other places. Having said this, the executions were commonly held on the Tower Hill and over a period of roughly four hundred years. Over a hundred executions took place, including Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was beheaded by an angry mob in 1381; Sir Thomas More, lord chancellor; George Boleyn, brother of Anne Boleyn; and Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk.
Before his execution, More requested that his foster daughter be given his headless corpse to bury, and as such he was buried in an unmarked grave in the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London. His head, as was the custom for traitors, was fixed upon a pike over London Bridge for a month and would have been thrown into the river if his daughter Margaret Roper had not bribed a nightwatchman and rescued it. His skull is now believed to lie in the Roper Vault of St. Dunstan’s Church in Canterbury, though it has also been claimed that it might be within a tomb in Chelsea Old Church. Surprisingly his ghost does not appear to haunt the place of his execution, although it has been reported at Baynards Park in Surrey, even though the majority of the Tudor building was destroyed by fire in 1979.
From initial views, the Tower sits ominously over the River Thames, its four distinctive turrets jutting proudly into the gray skies, designed to strike fear into the residents of medieval London. Often called the White Tower, for obvious reasons, its primary function was as a royal palace, but over time it became a prison for high status or royal prisoners with many executions being held on the green outside the Tower, including William of Hastings in 1483, Anne Boleyn in 1536, and Lady Jane Grey in 1554. The Tower was also used as a prison during the two world wars, and twelve men were executed for espionage, with the last person to be executed being a German spy by the name of Josef Jakobs in 1941. Not surprisingly, the Tower of London was badly damaged by German bombers during the Second World War, later to be repaired and opened to the public. Today it is protected as a World Heritage Site and attracts over two million visitors each year.
The seemingly most persistent of all ghosts in the Tower is that of Anne Boleyn, who was married to King Henry VIII before being executed in May of 1536. Numerous sightings of her ghost have been reported most often close to the site where she was executed. Her headless body has been seen wandering the Tower’s lonely corridors and has also been seen leading a procession down the aisle of a chapel. Apparently in 1882 a Captain of the Guard saw a light burning in the locked Chapel Royal, and when he went to investigate, witnessed a figure who he believed was Anne leading a stately procession of knights and ladies in medieval-style clothing. Strangely, although she appeared to have a head in this case, her face was averted. The procession then disappeared from view, leaving the witness shaken and puzzled.
In another famous and equally perplexing case, a guard saw a figure in a brown velvet gown emerge from the mist and move slowly toward him. Surprised, he challenged the figure several times and, receiving no reply, advanced upon the figure with bayonet fixed. As he drew closer he noticed that the figure’s bonnet appeared completely empty and that it had no face. Panicking, the guard stabbed at it with the bayonet, only for it to go straight through the figure. Later that morning, his superiors found him unconscious and accused him of sleeping on duty. However, other guards came to the man’s aid stating that they too had seen the mysterious lady. They concluded that it must have been the ghost of Anne Boleyn, given the lack of a face or head.
Apart from Anne Boleyn, who seems to appear quite regularly, and Sir Walter Raleigh, who was beheaded in the Old Palace Yard at the Palace of Westminster on October 29, 1618, the Tower has an excess of ghostly occupants ranging from Thomas Becket and Catherine Howard—whose ghost has been seen running down the hallway screaming for help. Other strange sightings include funeral carriages and an unknown woman with a veil but no face.
At one time the Tower was the home to the Royal menagerie, which included lions, birds, monkeys, an elephant, bears, and, in one bizarre report from 1815, a ghostly bear. Lunging at it with a bayonet, the sentry found the weapon going straight through thin air.
Other ghosts of the Tower include those of Thomas Becket, Henry VI, and Guy Fawkes. Indeed, the ghost of Sir Walter Raleigh is said to wander around the Tower grounds just as he did when he was imprisoned there. In 1983, a Yeoman Guard on duty in the Bloody Tower reported seeing his ghost and a year or so later he was again seen in the same area by a different guard. And like George Jeffreys “the Hanging Judge,” Raleigh seems to appear in multiple places. Likewise, Thomas Becket, who was murdered in 1170 at Canterbury Cathedral, also appears at the Tower at the place of his death.
Lady Arbella Stuart is one of the Tower’s most famous ghosts. A noblewoman who was at one time considered a possible successor to Queen Elizabeth I of England, it is said that her ghost haunts the Queen’s House on Tower Green. A direct descendant of Henry VII, she was the only child of Charles Stuart, 1st Earl of Lennox and, according to records, married the nephew of Lady Jane Grey, William Seymour. However, the marriage was seen as a threat because it did not have the permission of King James I. As a result, Arbella was put under house arrest in Lambeth and her husband sent to the Tower. Arbella plotted to get William and escape to France, but William missed the rendezvous and Arbella sailed alone. Tragically, she was recognized and was sent back to England and imprisonment in the Tower.
In her final days as a prisoner in the Tower of London, Arbella refused to eat and soon fell ill before dying on September 25, 1615, although many believe that she was in fact murdered. She was buried in Westminster Abbey. Ironically, her husband William managed to flee England to France.
The Queen’s House on Tower Green, home of the Resident Governor and his family, is said to be the most haunted building in the entire Tower complex and has been the site of a number of strange and disturbing events. Indeed, Major General Geoffrey Field, who was Resident Governor of the Tower from 1994 to 2006, once stated:
Soon after we arrived in 1994, my wife Janice was making up the bed in the Lennox room when she felt a violent push in her back which propelled her right out of the room! No one had warned us that the house was haunted—but we then discovered that every resident has experienced something strange in that room! The story goes that the ghost is that of Arbella Stuart, a cousin of James I, who was imprisoned and then possibly murdered in that room. Several women who slept there since have reported waking in terror in the middle of the night feeling they were being strangled, so just in case we made it a house rule not to give unaccompanied women guests the Lennox room.
Lady Jane Grey, who ruled England for just nine days before being executed in 1554 for refusing to recant her religion, is also believed to haunt the long, gloomy halls and corridors of this ancient building. Her ghost was last seen by two guardsmen in 1957 on the anniversary of her death. The ghost of her husband, Lord Guildford Dudley, who was also executed, has been seen in another tower, apparently weeping for his lost love.
The Tower was also the scene of the strange disappearance and probable murder of the young princes Edward V and Richard Duke of York in 1483. Edward was 12 years of age at the time and Richard only 10. Legend has it that sometime after their deaths, guards witnessed the ghostly figures of two small boys on some stairs in the Tower. However, the fate of the two boys remained unknown until 1674 when some workmen found a hidden chest containing two small skeletons, presumably those of the missing boys. They were subsequently given a royal burial.
And yet as disturbing as this may be, one of the grisliest of all ghostly apparitions in the Tower would have to be that of the seventy-year-old Countess of Salisbury, last of the Plantagenets, who was executed in 1541. When she was taken for execution she refused to put her head on the block and tried to escape by running away, forcing the executioner to run after her and hack her to death. Her ghost has been seen recreating this gruesome scene, and some have reported seeing the shadow of an executioner’s axe chopping down at the scene of her execution.
There is also the White Lady of the massive White Tower, one of the oldest and most foreboding buildings in the complex. She is said to have stood once at a window waving to little children at the building on the opposite side, and her perfume impregnates the air at the entrance to St. John’s Chapel.
Also in the White Tower, guards have reported a horrible crushing sensation upon entering the place where King Henry VIII’s impressive suits of armor are exhibited. A guard who was patrolling the grounds one night reported the sensation of someone throwing a cloak over him. When he tried to free himself, the cloth was seized from behind and pulled tightly around his throat by his unseen attacker.
Humorously, it was also once reported that a guard who stopped to rest as he made his nightly rounds once had an unnerving encounter. After he had sat on a window ledge and removed his shoe, he began rubbing his foot when a voice behind him whispered, “There’s only you and I here.” The guard responded, “Just let me get this bloody shoe on and there’ll only be you!”
The Tower complex is a wonder, ghosts or no ghosts, as it contains a wealth of treasures from weaponry to armor to the Crown Jewels. Indeed, a visit to London would not be complete without a tour of the grounds and Tower itself where one can admire the iconic Beefeaters or walk along these ancient battlements knowing that, at some stage in history, a king, queen, or royal dignitary once walked on the very same stone. And who knows, according to some, they still do.
www.haringey.gov.uk/bruce-castle-museum
Bruce Castle, formerly known as the Lordship House, is a sixteenth-century manor house that is one of the oldest surviving brick houses in England. The house is named after the House of Bruce, who previously owned the land. Sir William Compton, who was the Groom of the Stool to Henry VIII, purchased the manor in 1514, but there’s no solid proof he ever lived in the home. The earliest known reference of the building was made in 1516, when Henry VIII met his sister Margaret, Queen of Scots, at “Maister Compton’s House behind Tottenham.”
Bruce Castle is currently a museum and stores the historical archives of Haringey, a borough of London. It also features a permanent exhibition of the past, present, and future of the borough that includes photography, a focus on Rowland Hill, postal history, and historical documents. It also holds, according to some, a ghostly lady, that of Constantia, daughter of Sir Richard Lucy, 1st Baronet of Broxbourne, and Elizabeth Cock and who is said to have committed suicide in 1680.
The earliest recorded reference to her ghost appeared in 1858 in the Tottenham & Edmonton Advertiser and read as follows: “A lady of our acquaintance was introduced at a party to an Indian Officer who, hearing that she came from Tottenham, eagerly asked if she had seen the Ghostly Lady of Bruce Castle. Some years before he had been told the following story by a brother officer when encamped on a march in India. One of the Lords Coleraine had married a beautiful lady and while she was yet in her youth had been seized with a violent hatred against her—whether from jealousy or not is not known. He first confined her to the upper part of the house and subsequently still more closely to the little rooms of the clock turret. These rooms looked out on the balconies: the lady one night succeeded in forcing her way out and flung herself with child in arms from the parapet. The wild despairing shriek aroused the household only to find her and her infant in death’s clutches below. Every year as the fearful night comes round (it is in November) the wild form can be seen as she stood on the fatal parapet, and her despairing cry is heard floating away on the autumnal blast.”
Although there have been few sightings in recent times, she is not the only ghostly visitation to appear at this ancient country house as, according to Andrew Green in his book Our Haunted Kingdom, a couple reported to him that, while walking on the grounds of the castle they encountered “a large number of people in eighteenth-century costume, apparently enjoying a festive occasion.” Oddly enough, it was also noted that, “despite the couple of dozen people present and the obvious frivolity, there was no sound and the figures seemed to glide rather than walk.”
It was also reported that a few days later a couple spent the night in the place and reported seeing “a dozen apparitions, all in olden-days dress … when approached … the crowd just melted into the walls.”
www.hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-palace
Hampton Court Palace, although technically not a castle, is a royal palace in the borough of Richmond. In 1494, Courtier Giles Daubeney took out a lease on the property, as he needed a house close to London. Little is known about Daubeney’s Hampton Court, except that he played host to Henry VII on a number of occasions as it was a peaceful retreat away from the hustle and bustle of the burgeoning city. Daubeney died in 1508 and the site was taken over by Thomas Wolsey, soon to become a Cardinal as well as Lord Chancellor of England. Apart from that he was also a close friend of Henry VIII and held a number of other influential posts.
Wolsey, a man of great ambition, soon set about refurbishing the house, turning it into a magnificent palace, adding new extravagant private chambers for his own use, as well as three suites for the new royal family, one each for King Henry VIII, Queen Katherine of Aragon, and their daughter Princess Mary.
Although Wolsey was criticized by many of his peers for his extravagant lifestyle, this is not what brought about his fall from grace. Indeed, by the late 1520s, Henry was desperate to obtain a divorce from his first wife, lusting after the much younger Anne Boleyn. However, after years of political manoeuvring and discussions, the Pope didn’t grant the divorce, which rapidly led to a falling out between Henry and Wolsey, with the latter losing both Hampton Court and his other residence, York Place, to the King in 1529.
Henry VIII, having seized the palace for himself, began an extravagant and expensive refurbishment program including tennis courts, bowling alleys, lavish gardens, kitchens, a new chapel, an enormous communal dining hall, and a hunting park.
Following Henry’s death in 1547, Hampton Court was again used as a country retreat away from the business and politics of central London. However, the place remained largely as it had been until the following century when William of Orange (William III) began another massive rebuilding and expansion project, which destroyed much of the old Tudor palace.
Originally intended to rival Versailles, work ceased in 1694, leaving the palace with two distinct contrasting architectural styles—Tudor and Baroque, which is pretty much how it stands to the present day. King George II was the last monarch to reside in the palace.
Catherine Howard is probably the most famous of the palace’s many ghosts. She has been reported in the palace’s Haunted Gallery on a number of occasions and some have even claimed to have photographed her shadowy figure. She was accused of adultery by Henry VIII and, as the story goes, after she heard that Henry was told of her supposed infidelity, she ran down the corridors to the Chapel in order to plead for her life. However, the guards quickly intercepted her, and dragged her screaming back to her rooms. Later she was taken to the Tower of London and executed.
Interestingly, guests and staff at the palace have reported hearing Catherine’s scream from the gallery and on one evening in 1999, during different tours of the palace, two female visitors fainted in exactly the same spot in the same gallery where the screams of Catherine have been heard.
According to Ernest Law in A Short History of Hampton Court (1897), on one occasion a female form dressed in white was noticed floating down the Haunted Gallery “towards the door of the Royal Pew, and just as she reaches it, has been observed to hurry back with disordered garments and a ghastly look of despair, uttering at the same time the most unearthly shrieks, till she passes through the door at the end of the gallery”.
Ian Franklin, a first aider at the palace has stated, “When I hear over the radio that a visitor has fainted, I always head straight to the Haunted Gallery, even before I’m told the location of the incident. More often than not, that’s where it happens.”
The Grey Lady of Hampton Court is another of the palace’s many ghosts. Sybil Penn, a nurse and servant to Prince Edward, later became a lady-in-waiting to Edward’s older sister and successor Queen Elizabeth I, and she looked after the Queen when she fell ill from smallpox in 1562. Her devotion to the Queen ultimately led to her death from the same disease, and she was buried at the church of St Mary’s in the village of Hampton near the palace.
The first reports of her ghost began in 1829 when St Mary’s Church was demolished for rebuilding and her tomb was disturbed. Soon after, people began to report strange noises throughout the court including the constant whirring of a spinning wheel attributed to Sybil. Sightings of her have been reported in various Tudor cloisters and courtyards.
Indeed, in 2015, twelve-year-old Holly Hampsheir, was amazed and somewhat shaken to find a strange anomaly on a photograph she took of her cousin Brook McGee at the palace. McGee later stated that, “I was totally freaked out. I didn’t see anything. People say the room goes cold when ghosts appear but we had no idea. We haven’t slept properly since.”
Holly’s mother Angie added, “I was speechless. There was no one else in that room and she’s floating through the rope. Those ropes were alarmed.”
And yet, for all its eeriness, this picture is not the most compelling piece of photographic evidence to emerge from the palace as, in October 2003, a ghostly figure was captured on CCTV while security staff reviewed CCTV footage.
After investigating and securing some open doors, security staff returned to inspect the CCTV footage. On the first occasion, the doors flew open without any sign of anyone opening them. However, on the second occasion, the very next day, the staff were shocked to see a figure, in what appeared to be period dress, appear and then close the doors. This pattern was repeated on the third day, however, like the first occurrence, minus the ghostly figure.
Oddly enough, it was not just the security staff who reported seeing something strange. A visitor wrote in the palace’s visitor book that she thought she had also seen the apparition of a large man near the same doors.
A member of the security team, Luke Wiltshire, recalled an occasion when he was called out at 3:00 a.m. to accompany an engineer to check a fire alarm in Fountain Court. They both heard the sound of footsteps running away up a flight of stairs although it was impossible for anyone to have been there.
Manuela Pessina, one of the Royal Palace’s senior guides also noted, “we get a lot of sightings and unexplained phenomena and it’s a very, very spooky place, especially at night. To be honest though, everywhere in Hampton Court gives you chills when you are working late. It’s not uncommon for staff to report a feeling of being watched or having doors inexplicably slam behind them when there’s no one around.”
Apart from this, people have reported a ghostly monk who stalks Henry VIII’s apartments. Staff and guests have sighted a large hooded figure with a deformed face lurking in doorways. In the lavish gardens is the Long Water, an artificial lake that runs eastward from the back of the palace. Apparently in 1887 a three-year-old boy ran off and drowned in the lake, a tragedy that would also befall a young girl in 1927 after she had gone to feed the ducks. Forty years later, a four-year-old boy narrowly avoided the same fate, luckily being rescued by a passerby. When asked by his mother why he had leapt into the icy waters, he reportedly replied, “To play with the other children.”