LEGENDS OF THE DEEP …
As a child I often accompanied my dad on fishing trips to local freshwater lakes around Kent. My dad would set up the rod, tackle and bait, and I would happily gawp into the green waters beneath my feet for hours, waiting for that small, luminous float to bob as a hidden fish nibbled at it. The suspense made my spine tingle, and then, as the float disappeared beneath the lily pads, I’d stand up as quick as a shot and strike: lifting the rod (usually hitting an overhanging branch!) and reeling like mad, hoping that the hook would snag the lip of the maggot-hungry predator. More often than not, I would miss the bite, but on occasion the rod would bend and to me it felt like there was a monster on the end, even though by the time the silvery creature made its way to my dad’s hands it rarely weighed more than a pound or two. Even so, angling was all about mystery, especially when the dusk used to draw in – bringing with it the darting bats and buzzing gnats – and my dad used to tell me ghost and monster stories. The great thing about these tales, which I listened to intently over a flask of tea and peanut butter sandwiches, was the fact that, according to my dad, they had taken place in and around the British Isles.
One of the first stories I heard – passed down from my granddad to my dad – concerned some deep-sea divers out at sea somewhere off the Scottish coast. One of the divers, whilst exploring the gloom of an old wreck, disturbed an angry eel of some kind, but the most terrifying aspect about the encounter was that the eel’s head was said to have been the size of a chair! I was fascinated by this monster tale because, even as a youngster, I was obsessed with yarns pertaining to giant fish. I knew very well that an eel – especially a conger eel – could grow quite large, but certainly not to have a head the size of a chair. Was this story merely an exaggerated fisherman’s tale? Probably. Yet conger eels weighing over 200lb have been caught off the British Isles from boats; the record for the biggest conger caught offshore stands at 68lb, from Devil’s Point in Cornwall. Even so, the tale of the giant eel got me hooked – excuse the pun. Another monster eel story I heard comes from good friend and cryptozoologist Richard Freeman, who told me recently:
A phantom ship. (Illustration by Neil Arnold)
When I was about seven years old, in 1977, I was on holiday in Torbay (an east-facing bay at the westernmost point of Lyme Bay). My granddad got talking to an old retired trawlerman in Goodrington harbour. He said that he and his crew used to fish off Brixham at a part of the coast called Berry Head. It is one of the deepest parts of the sea around the UK coast and is hence used to scuttle old ships so they wouldn’t be a danger to shipping. The scuttle ships formed a man-made reef that was a magnet to fish. The trawlermen fished there for that very reason. One evening they were pulling up the nets and it felt like they had got a good, heavy catch. As the nets drew closer to the ship’s lights however, they found that they had not caught thousands of fish but one huge one. The old man said it was a gigantic eel. He told my granddad that it was the only time in his many years at sea that he had felt frightened. He said it had a huge mouth, wide enough to swallow a man and teeth as long as his hand. He also recalled the large, glassy eyes.
So, I asked Richard, what happened to the monstrous eel?
‘Once free of the support of the water,’ he replied, ‘the monster’s great weight snapped the nets and it escaped back into the deep. The trawlerman was relieved to see it go.’
Although freshwater fishing at Kentish lakes involved occasional encounters with toothy pike, the tranquillity of the surroundings instilled warmth rather than dread – it was the salt water abode that intrigued but terrified me all the same. I couldn’t deal with the possibility that beneath those cold British coastal waters there were such enormous creatures: beasts hiding in old wrecks, and leviathans concealed by silt, shingle and seaweed. It was these types of stories that instilled a fear of the sea in me and made my summer trips to the seaside with my family so unnerving.
On quite a few occasions I accompanied my dad to the Kent coast for a spot of sea fishing. These trips would usually take us to the beaches of Hythe, Dungeness or Deal. I was never one for braving the biting winds for too long, but I remember many a morning when I would wake for school at home and go into the bathroom and there, lying in the bath, would be a large dead cod or skate. These specimens – caught by my dad – would end up on the worktop in the kitchen where my dad would proceed to gut them and then later cook and eat them. I was constantly told that eating certain fish was very good for you, and I’ve always found cod, haddock et al, delicious.
Funnily enough, despite always having had a fascination with the creatures of the sea and spending much of my childhood sketching sharks and the like, my sister Vicki has an extreme phobia of water – especially those cold depths frequented by sharks. Anything shark-related absolutely petrifies her – I believe this is called geleophobia. So when the BBC ran the headline, ‘Great white sharks could be in British waters’ in the August of 2011, I made sure that I kept the newspaper cutting away from her! Of course, stories of such magnificent and man-eating beasts are unfounded, but the salty waters of Britain are known for porbeagle and shortfin mako sharks, as well as several other smaller species and a few less frequent visitors, such as the Blue shark. The porbeagle is, in fact, a member of the Great White family, and in 2012 a record 10ft long specimen was hooked off Cornwall by two men from Hampshire. The fish weighed more than 550lb, breaking the previous record by almost 50lb. Just like in the movie Jaws, the monster fish was said to have dragged the small boat of the fishermen for over a mile.
Sharks, alongside whales, are probably the closest thing we will get to seeing monsters in British waters. Elsewhere on the planet, however, there is one true monster that still eludes man and that is the giant squid of the genus Architeuthis dux. This deep-ocean dweller is a formidable cephalopod that can grow to enormous size: in 2007 a colossal squid measuring 33ft in length was caught in Antarctica; in the same year a squid measuring almost 27ft was found on a beach in Australia. But despite a few, relatively large specimens being caught or washed up, the truly gigantic squid still eludes science. Yet we know such creatures are not just myth – large beaks have been found in the stomach of sperm whales, and such whales have been observed with enormous sucker marks on their bodies. Although the giant squid does not lurk in British waters – thankfully – it is the perfect example of how something huge can still evade man. No one knows just how big these monsters of the deep can get, but some researchers believe that a measurement of over 40ft would not be far-fetched. Despite the reluctance within the scientific community to accept the existence of monsters, the giant squid certainly fuelled my imagination as a child. Many people may dismiss such watery wonders as legends alongside the Cyclops, harpies, fairies and the like, but in the great waters of the world the impossible almost seems possible, rather than just fantasy or the stuff of old creaky Sinbad movies.
I do suggest, however, that before you begin to dismiss the salt waters of Britain as tame, you read Chapter 5, Denizens of the Deep, which may sway your judgement, especially when you consider the amount of accounts that exist to suggest that ‘our’ coastal environments do indeed harbour strange visitors. But first, I would like to share with you another weird story I was told of as a child that once and for all deterred me from those seaside visits …
UNGODLY GOODWIN SANDS
The Goodwin Sands is a 10-mile stretch of sand situated 6 miles off Deal in the county of Kent. This sandbank has a reputation for being extremely challenging to ships, and over the centuries many vessels have perished in the waves that hide this stretch. The first ever recorded shipwreck from the Goodwin Sands comes from 1298, when a vessel returning from Flanders was consumed somewhere near Sandwich. Since then, many boats have broken their backs on the bank, forcing passengers – if they survived – onto the beach. Even then, survival was not assured because although crew would often light fires, if their pleas for help were missed, then shortly afterwards the foaming tide would roll back in, consuming them and sending them to a watery grave. Rumour has it that over the centuries more than 50,000 people have died along the Goodwin Sands.
When I first heard about the great number of shipwrecks on this stretch, I wondered if there had been any reports of ghosts haunting the coastline. Not surprisingly, I came across what is without doubt one of the most acknowledged cases regarding a spectral ship, and one of my favourite maritime mysteries. It is fair to say that the most famous ghost-ship legend concerns the Flying Dutchman, an ancient sailing vessel said to appear off the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. Similarly, the Goodwin Sands are said to be haunted by a phantom ship called the Lady Lovibond (also spelt Luvibund). This three-masted schooner was bound for Oporto in Portugal in the February of 1748, but this journey was ill-fated from the start. At the time, sailors often considered a woman on board to be a bad omen, and yet the captain of the vessel, a chap named Simon Reed, was very keen to take his new bride Annetta on board. A further issue on the journey was the fact that another man aboard the boat, first mate John Rivers, was jealous of the captain’s wife. Mr Rivers had once been a love rival, and it is believed that this caused a row and, in a fit of jealousy, the mate killed the captain. Some say that the crazed murderer then guided the ship onto the treacherous shore off Deal, where all crew died.
The treacherous Goodwin Sands sit several miles out at sea, off Deal. They can be seen from Deal Castle. (Neil Arnold)
Ever since this terrible tragedy, which is said to have occurred on 13 February, a ghostly ship, reminiscent of the Lady Lovibond, has appeared in the waters off the Goodwin Sands, and every fifty years thereafter on 13 February. It is claimed that, on 13 February 1798, the master of a ship called Edenbridge made an entry into his log mentioning that his vessel had almost collided with a three-masted schooner. Captain James Westlake also recorded that he could hear female voices and much jollity below deck. Meanwhile, the crew of another boat out at sea at the time reported seeing the phantom ship beach itself upon the sandbank. In 1848 lifeboat men at Deal were called out to the sands when reports came in that a schooner had run aground, but their search proved fruitless. It is said that similar occurrences took place in 1898, though I can find no details to confirm this, but in 1948 it was claimed that a Captain Bull Prestwick had observed the phantom ship. The boat seemed very real except for the eerie glow about it as it came into view, and it was watched by the crew for some five minutes. Prestwick reported that, ‘It came straight out of the fog like a mouldy shadow, its rotted old timbers creaking and groaning, its ripped and mangled sails flapping and cracking in the cold night wind like the laughter of Satan himself’.
Admittedly, this description of the encounter seems all too atmospheric; the words from Prestwick’s mouth read like lines from a movie. It seems, however, that the legend is gradually fading, as in 1998 there were no reported encounters with the boat. Mind you, it is worth taking note of a snippet of information, which appeared in the Evening Post newspaper of 12 March 1969 in reference to a Goodwin Sands ghost boat. Under the heading ‘Ghost ship hunt after collision’, it was reported that a sea and air search had been conducted off Dover (a neighbouring town of Deal) after a tanker radioed to say they had avoided a collision with a small yet unknown vessel near the Goodwin Sands. The incident happened during a snowfall. Even more newsworthy is the incident that took place two years prior to this, in 1967, which involved the Hinckley family, consisting of Peter and Kim, and their two sons David and John. They had taken to the waters off Deal in their yacht Grey Seal on what began as a lovely day, but very soon a storm seemed to close in. Yet the most unnerving thing about the trip was the peculiar mist that seemed to sit on a specific area of the water. Large waves appeared to crash in this murky location but there was a still a surreal tranquillity around them. The Hinckleys waited, and waited, unsure what was going to happen but quite sure that something was going to happen, when they suddenly became aware of a terrific apparition that loomed out of the misty patch. A great ship, in combat with the sea, rode out of the aggressive waves in the distance and very quickly the Hinckleys passed around a set of binoculars, each of them confirming the startling sight before them as the crew members now began leaping out of the sailing craft in distress. At first the family felt that this was like some scene from a sea drama movie and, bravely, they approached the strange scene. But with that, the mist seemed to dissipate, the storm subsided and the ship and its despairing sailors were no more.
Looking out towards Goodwin Sands – Deal pier can be seen in the distance. (Neil Arnold)
The Hinckleys were so confused that, like any normal family, they contacted the coastguard who stated that there had been no other reports of a ship having problems. Shortly after their unnatural encounter, the family did a bit of research. They all remembered that, as their yacht edged towards the ghostly ship, they saw the name Snipe written on its side, but when they looked into the archives they were astounded to find that such a boat had indeed sunk in the area – but in 1807! However, to confuse the matter they also found that a ship called Snipe had been in action until 1846 – so what type of surreal scenario had this family of four encountered? Some would argue, or prefer to state, that maybe the Hinckleys had seen the Lady Lovibund edging out of the mist, but this does not appear to be the case.
On 13 February 1998 several ghost-hunters visited the sands in the hope of catching a glimpse of the Lovibund. Fortean Times magazine, who have covered stories pertaining to the paranormal for several decades, sent their own investigative team of Paul Sieveking and Jonathan Bryant but, despite scanning the horizon for several hours, they saw nothing. Fortean Times did remark, however, that a map of wrecks displayed on the wall of a local cafe listed the Lovibund disaster as 1746; meanwhile, a very early, if not the earliest, reference concerning the wreck in the Daily Chronicle of 14 February 1924 writes of the ship sinking in 1724. To confuse matters further, Fortean Times added, ‘At the time, correspondents for the magazine Notes & Queries were unable to find the origin of this yarn, either in history, local folklore or fiction.’ To muddy the waters even more, G.M. Dixon, in his book Folktales & Legends of Kent, claims that the boat was run aground on 12 February, according to a ‘reliable record’, and that it was a man named Captain Whalley who manned the vessel. Dixon then goes on to name the murderous mate as a John Prior.
Did the incident involving the Lady Lovibund happen at all? Or is it merely a misty urban legend tied to 13 February simply because it is the eve of St Valentine, which in turn would make such a story a tale of lost love like so many other spook tales? Of course, as Fortean Times concluded, ‘Even if the Lady Luvibund had no basis in fact, we cannot rule out ghost ships on the Goodwins.’
As a final note on this mysterious stretch of the Kent coast, I must share with you the case pertaining to the Lucienne, a wayward French ketch constructed in 1918, which a year later was found on the sands despite its home port being at St Malo in Brittany. The boat had all the ghost ship qualities about it: it was bereft of damage, and below deck there were several unfinished meals, suggesting the crew had simply disappeared into thin air or jumped overboard. The ship’s wheel had also been roped, so that the Lucienne would make a straight course, but no one ever found or heard from the six crew members. The same could also be said for the barge named Zebrina, which, built at Faversham in 1873 was found, in 1917, without damage or crew at Rozel Point, south of Cherbourg. Eerie stuff, indeed.
LOST LANDS AND BELLS FROM HELL
Another strange characteristic about the sands is that the spot where these ships are said to have run aground, and then appear in ghostly fashion, is the same stretch said to harbour a lost island and another ghost story. Some people believe that an island known as Lomea once sat at the Goodwin Sands but, due to neglect sometime during the eleventh century, it was flooded and consumed by the waves. Legend has it that the sound of bells can be heard beneath the water, suggesting a ghostly church, but of course there is no evidence to prove that the mystical island ever existed. This tale may simply be the stuff of urban legend as it echoes an almost identical rumour from Dunwich in Suffolk. This area was once a major seaport of East Anglia but little now remains of the past after more than seven centuries of coastal erosion. Even so, locals often report that on certain nights the bells of the submerged church can be heard ringing out from beneath the waves. The sombre din is said to be a warning of a coming storm. It is also said that some of the people who used to reside in the village still haunt the cliff tops as shadowy figures. On 21 April 1974, the Sunday Express reported that a Suffolk diver named Stuart Bacon was attempting to solve the mystery of the watery bells. According to the article, Mr Bacon had a theory that ‘the tidal flow causes the bell, supposed to be in one of the old churches, to ring,’ but investigations would be difficult due to ‘poor visibility’.
Another very similar legend of a sunken land emerges from Merionethshire, in Wales. The facts are that over 700 years ago the area of Cardigan Bay was dry land – but the folklore claims the land of Gwyddno was swallowed by water simply because the guardian of a fairy allowed it to overflow. And so, like the already mentioned legends, on certain nights when the wind refuses to howl, the bells of what became known as Cantref Gwaelod can still be heard to toll, only muffled by the lapping water. Pembrokeshire in the south-west of Wales also has a weird bell legend. The small village of St David’s, once deemed the ‘holiest ground in Britain’, has a famous cathedral that sits in a hollow. Author John Harries writes, ‘The first glimpse from the A487 of the famous cathedral is a memorable experience: just the tower is to be seen.’ Legend has it that the dark forces stole the cathedral’s largest bell and did so with ease, due to the fact that the high surrounding land enabled ‘men possessed by imps’ to gain easy access. The bell was then dropped out to the sea off Whitesands Bay and when a storm is near the buried bell rings. It is also worth noting that along the coast here are said to exist eerie lights, which are known as canwll corfe, or corpse candles.
Phantom bells are said to ring out from the sea near the Suffolk coastline. (Joyce Goodchild)
From Land’s End in Cornwall comes another similar legend, about the Isles of Scilly, as recorded by Jennifer Westwood in her book Gothick Cornwall. She states: ‘The flash of the Seven Stones Light Vessel can be seen from here by night, marking the last visible remains of a lost country.’ For it is said that during the sixteenth century, fishermen would often bring in their sturdy nets and find remains of sunken houses amongst their daily catch. Some 140 parishes are said to lie sunken between Land’s End and Scilly; a neighbourhood wiped out by a flood, with only one man surviving. The legend, like those others before, claims that on moonlit nights one can see, if you look hard enough, the rooftops of those lost buildings. This could be the drowned land of Lyonesse, said to have existed a mile or so north of Land’s End. Author Alasdair Alpin MacGregor wrote of the haunting bells and a report from the 1930s involving a chap named Stanley Baron, who, whilst staying with relatives at Sennen Cove, heard the sound of bells one night into the early hours. When Stanley mentioned the eerie sounds to a local fisherman he was told about the ‘lost bells’ and the land that was drowned in 1014 and 1094. MacGregor mentions another peculiar experience involving a lady named Edith Oliver who one Wednesday had driven to Land’s End and, whilst staring across the sea, saw a town several miles out. She asked the local coastguard about the towers, spires and battlements she could see, to which he replied, ‘There’s no town there, only the sea …’.
Miss Oliver was bemused by what she’d seen, but was fortunate enough to get a second glimpse of the phantom land, this time when she was with a friend, a Miss MacPherson. One evening they had been driving towards Land’s End when Miss Oliver spied the town in the distance and asked her friend if she too could see it, to which Miss MacPherson replied in the affirmative. Ghostly bells have also been heard from the waters at Carbis Bay, just up to coast from Land’s End on the north coast of Cornwall.
Another fascinating tale of a Cornish lost village comes from Seaton Sands, where it was once said that between Downderry and Looe a town prospered, but when some local sailors insulted a mermaid, she placed a terrible curse on the town and eventually the foaming sea swallowed it, inhabitants and all. There is a slightly alternative version of this legend, which states that at Padstow a dreadful sandbank, known as the Doom Bar, was formed as a result of the mermaid’s curse. It is said that a fisherman from the area once saw a woman sitting on a rock with her back to him, and she appeared to be combing her long hair. However, when the man attracted her attention, he was rather shocked to find she was in fact a mermaid and with that he pulled out a gun and shot her. As she slipped to her last breath the mermaid cursed the area and that night an appalling storm broke over Padstow and many ships and lives were lost.
Author Peter Underwood also wrote of the sound of bells from beneath the waves at the parish of Forrabury in Cornwall. According to Peter, ‘They are supposed to have originated with the conveyance by sea of new bells for the local church …’. However, the tranquillity of the area was soon disturbed when a captain, whilst on board his boat, used blasphemous language, and a terrific storm began to swirl, sinking the boat and killing all on board. Where the ship sank there have been reports of a ghostly boat and spectral crewmen floundering in the waves.
At Bulverhythe – a suburb of Hastings – in East Sussex, there is legend of church bells being heard beneath the waves, which is also echoed at Bosham, in the west of the county. The noise could well be explained by the raking noise the sea makes as it combs the beach, but it has certainly spawned a degree of lore, for it is said that when the bells are heard then bad weather is imminent. Phantom sea bells have also been recorded a few miles seaward from Blackpool and also at Cromer, in Norfolk, although the main theme of the ghost story here is that on certain days the steeple of a submerged church – St Peter’s – can be seen protruding from the water. This image appears about a quarter of a mile from the shore where there is, coincidentally, a rock named Church Rock. When the bells ring fishermen often flee to the safety of their homes because a storm is brewing, just like many years ago when unruly waves consumed the church. Another Norfolk-based legend of similar guise concerns St Mary’s church. On 4 January 1604 huge waves rushed through Eccles-on-Sea and swallowed literally everything, except the church tower, which somehow survived several more tempests over the next two centuries until, on 25 January 1895, the sea left only a stump. In December 1912 another flood swept through the area and some thirty-nine skeletons were exposed. The news of the skeletons spread like wildfire and visitors flocked from all over, including one man who had such a morbid curiosity that he – armed with a spade – dug into the earth and stole some of the bones.
The Cliffs of Moher can be found at the south-western edge of the Burren region on County Clare, Ireland. Between these 700ft cliffs and Ballard Cliffs further south, there used to be a few small towns, but these were sent to the depths of the sea by a terrific earthquake that struck many years ago. Everyone that resided within that farming community perished and it is said that on clear days when the sea is like a mirror, the spire of the monastery and the walls of some of the houses can still be observed. As Bob Curran writes, ‘… the monastery bell can yet be heard ringing out across the waves.’ Again, it seems to be the stuff of legend, but Mr Curran does recall in his book, Banshees, Beasts and Brides from the Sea, that one summer’s day, when he was about 14, he was on a boat in the shadow of the cliffs when he heard the sound, ‘like the steady tolling of a bell’; a sound that instilled dread into those locals on board, who all at once pointed to the sea and maintained they could see the walls of the houses swept out to sea all those years ago. Mr Curran could not see anything as those waves rolled high, but suddenly the rush of excitement he’d experienced was turned to sadness when one of the men that had been shouting and pointing was hit by a wave, taken overboard and never seen again.
On Sunday 7 July 1878 a mysterious island was said to have appeared out at sea and been observed by the residents of Ballycotton, County Cork. The land looked rich in vegetation but when several boat loads of people put offshore to investigate, the island gradually faded into nothing. Many believed they had seen some type of enchanted island. Its magical properties are no doubt confirmed by the fact that it has also been seen off Carrigaholt at Clare, the mouth of Ballinaleame Bay in Galway, as well as in the vicinity of Ballysadare Bay, and numerous other locations around Ireland.
The Orkney Islands have rumour of a once-phantom island turned real. The land is known as the Isle of Enhallow and it is said to have only been visible during certain hours. Every time a boat was sent out to explore it, the island would vanish. However, one clever chap decided to head towards the isle one day, armed with a bar made of iron, which, according to writer Elliott O’Donnell, has an effect on some supernatural phenomena. As the man got to within a few metres of the mystical isle he cast his bar at it, and it landed on the beach. The man then leapt onto the island and from then on it remained stationary. A more thrilling story is told of by the natives of Rousay, who claim that near Enhallow there used to exist an extraordinary isle inhabited by fairy folk and that, of a night as fishermen passed in their boats, enchanting music could be heard soaring from the isle. It seems that the island was something akin to Heaven and Hell because those who got close enough to the shore often spoke of beautiful women but also hideous monsters. There is one rumour, which alleges that a young woman was abducted by a strange fellow and taken to this unusual place. Her parents went in search of her and accidentally landed upon the magic isle but their daughter refused to come home, saying she was happy with the man she had met. She did, however, give her father – a fisherman – a knife, and stated that all the time he kept it on him his fishing would never fail. Sadly, when the couple left the island the man dropped the knife overboard and his fishing days became numbered.
In contrast, on 8 August 1993 the Scottish Sunday Mail reported on an ‘island’ that had suddenly appeared over night; it makes a change from all those vanishing lands! The strange isle was found a quarter of a mile from the shores of Glenbuck Loch, near Douglas in south Ayrshire. A doctor from the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh was mystified as to its appearance but believed it may well have been a ‘mass of peat’, which had broken off from somewhere. Local fishermen blamed the phantom island for weeks of bad fishing.
Meanwhile, off Hayling Island (situated off the south coast of England not far from Portsmouth), there is more rumour of drowned churches. The buildings were said to have sat on South Hayling, which were consumed by the sea at some point in the fourteenth century. The bells can still be heard ringing out … or so it is said.
I’m amazed at the repetition in some of these tales, suggesting they are nothing more than folklore passed down through generations. This seems to happen throughout Britain, and you’ll find that in this book, whether it is rumoured lost lands or phantom ships, there are many similarities in the stories from county to county.
WHEN THE BOAT COMES IN
Returning to the Kent coast, the Lady Lovibond is not the only ghostly vessel said to haunt the stretch of water around Deal. More than a century ago, the SS Violet – a paddle steamer – ran into trouble on the sands during a violent storm, which brought with it a heavy snowfall. The date was 6 January 1857. All crew, including a Captain Lyne and passengers, were said to have perished, but in 1947 a George Carter, who was a look-out on the East Goodwin lightship, claimed to have seen an old paddle steamer run aground. The lifeboat at Ramsgate was called into action but despite searching the area for more than an hour, there was no sign of the ghost boat. The Shrewsbury man-of-war and SS Montrose, a transatlantic ocean liner, are also said to occasionally be seen around the sandbank near Deal. SS Montrose was stationed at Dover to be used as a blockship but, on 20 December 1914, the ship broke free from its mooring during strong winds and was wrecked on the Goodwin Sands. One of the more recent sightings of the ghost boat, along with its phantom crew, took place in 1965. There have also been scant reports of a Spanish galleon around the coast. This boat sank during the Armada because of an attempted mutiny. The crew killed their own officers after Sir Francis Drake’s attack, but those on board who were left were unable to navigate the galleon and so the boat perished. On 1 November 1919 a two-masted Estonian schooner named Toogoo fell foul of turbulent waters whilst journeying from Calais to South Shields. Distress signals sent out were heard by the North Deal lifeboat crew, however, as they arrived, a tremendous wave smashed into the boat sending several crew members into the water. The ghost story doesn’t concern the boat, but those on board who lost their lives, for it is said that on certain nights of horrendous weather, one can, if one listens carefully enough, hear the screams of the suffering above the roaring waves and foul winds.
The author at Deal. The Goodwin Sands are several miles in the distance. (Jemma Lee Arnold)
MORE SPECTRAL SHIPS
Whether or not we believe the stories pertaining to these lost ghost ships is not the question, but there is certainly something eerily romantic about forlorn vessels floating out at sea, stuck in some type of salty limbo bereft of crew. Such ghostly ships are dotted throughout world folklore and there are many treacherous coastlines said to harbour this type of ghost story. I’ve often thought to myself that if such phantasmal ships are true, then why hasn’t anyone, on the anniversary of the wreck, visited the location and scanned the horizon with camera ready, and taken a photo? Well, maybe they have. In the May of 1998 Prince Edward presented a television series called Crown and Country and in one particular episode the focus was on HMS Eurydice, a twenty-six-gun frigate that had sunk in 1878 at Sandown Bay, Isle of Wight. The vessel had sailed from Portsmouth in 1877 to the West Indies and Bermuda, but upon its return had been caught in a ferocious blizzard, capsized and sank. More than 300 crew were killed; there were only two survivors. In a legend very much reminiscent of the Lady Lovibond, HMS Eurydice has apparently been seen around the coast since the tragedy.
In 1930 a captain of a submarine claimed that he ordered his crew to take drastic evasive action to avoid a three-masted vessel, but as some crew members watched, the boat vanished before their eyes. In 1978 a female magistrate named Julie Matthews observed the ghost ship whilst having a barbeque with friends on Compton beach. She commented at the time that, ‘It came so close that if it had been real it would have run aground.’ This mysterious event echoed another incident from 1959, when a Robin Ford – an ex-mayor and high-school teacher – also having a barbeque on the beach with friends, saw the boat just 100yds out. ‘It moved slowly across the shore,’ he commented, ‘then just seemed to up-end and slipped silently out of view.’ All witnesses present confirmed that as the night fell silent they could hear the distinct sound of the creaking timbers and clearly see the three masts of the vessel.
The mystery of the Eurydice deepened even further when Prince Edward and film crew stated they had seen the phantom boat whilst making their documentary. In fact, they even filmed the ethereal frigate. Some viewers of the documentary, which I was fortunate enough at the time to have recorded, claimed it had been an elaborate hoax. Prince Edward responded that, ‘It just appeared … It was not arranged for us,’ whilst director Robin Bextor added:
We filmed it for a while, then decided to wait so we would catch it sailing off into the horizon. We assumed it was a training vessel. Like the rest of us, Edward was pleased at our stroke of luck at seeing it, because it saved time and money getting footage of something similar.
Luck indeed! But, was the three-masted vessel that appeared on the horizon on those glistening, silvery waves a phantom or a fraud? Suspicions were raised when Robin Bextor commented, ‘We were packing up our cameras and took our eyes off it for a few minutes, but when we went to film it again, it had gone.’
I find it rather odd that a possible ghostly ship would only receive half-hearted attention from a film crew, who just happened to be making a documentary about the subject. Even stranger still, no one kept their eyes on it and saw it vanish, and yet were lacklustre enough to not only look away, but pack their filming equipment up! Hoax would seem to be the result, especially as there were no training vessels in the area at the time, and this was confirmed by Hilary Painter of the Sail Training Association, who commented that although they had two training ships of that design, neither were out at sea on that particular day. Had all this been an elaborate set-up by the film crew? As a strange coincidence, Prince Edward’s great-grandfather, the Duke of York, had apparently had a similar experience off the Australian coast, which he recorded in his log book on 11 July 1881. He stated: ‘At 4 a.m. the Flying Dutchman crossed our bows.’ Thirteen witnesses were on hand to view the spectacle.
At Windsor on 22 March 1878, a Sir John MacNeill and the Bishop of Ripon were enjoying an afternoon meal when Mr MacNeill exclaimed, ‘Good heavens! Why don’t they close the portholes and reef the sails’, as he claimed to have had a vision of a ship across the Channel some 70 miles away, which was being bombarded by a wind storm. It would seem that Sir MacNeill had in fact seen, in his mind, HMS Eurydice.
THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT
Considering the amount of reports of ships that have gone missing over the centuries, coupled with the multitude of wrecks, it is no wonder the seas of the world occasionally re-enact such tragedies to those susceptible to seeing them. Amazingly, and rather eerily, even the coastal lights used to warn ships of danger have become part of the paranormal puzzle. Lighthouses – constructed to deter ships from harsh shores – have existed along the 7,000-mile coastline of the British Isles for several centuries, but when first constructed there were sinister rumours said to surround them. It has long been suggested that Sir John Killgrew, who built the first lighthouse in 1619 at the Lizard in Cornwall, didn’t construct it to deter ships from the rocky outcrops, but instead to lure them closer to the beaches where they would succumb to ghastly pirates – with Mr Killgrew rumoured to be one of them!
Lighthouses have always appeared as eerie beacons shining out from the blackness of a storm-ravaged coast. There is a fascinating tale concerning a lighthouse from the eighteenth century. The Longships Lighthouse at Land’s End was in terrible trouble one evening because the light-keeper had been kidnapped by local wreckers, and so it was up to his daughter to man the lighthouse. According to legend, the small child had to choose between Christian reverence and her duty to keep the light shining to warn ships of hazard. It is said that the girl could not reach up high enough to light the lamps but, showing great intuition, she placed a thick family Bible on the floor and stood on it, and thus continued her duty.
In 1772 the crew of the Chantiloupe had no such luck of a warning light when they hit rocks off Bantham in the south of Devon. Wreckers would often prey on those who had succumbed to devilish coastlines, and anyone who survived the waves would surely be robbed and possibly murdered. In the mammoth volume Folklore Myths & Legends of Britain, it is stated that: ‘On stormy nights, people watched eagerly for the lights of a stricken vessel, and ghoulishly swooped on wreckage and survivors, whose chances of survival were considerably lessened by an ancient law.’ It was once said to be illegal to claim salvage if anyone cast from a wrecked ship was still alive – in other words, if they were murdered, then their possessions could be taken. Mind you, some researchers dispute the possibility that wreckers purposefully lured ships onto rocks, but there are old tales of dastardly criminals attaching lights to the hind quarters of animals, such as horses and cows, in order to lure a ship in to the rocks. This legend is confirmed by author J.A. Brooks in his book Cornish Ghosts & Legends, when he writes of the mysterious number of ships wrecked on the coast. A stranger, possibly put ashore by a pirate vessel, would, of a night, fasten a lantern to the back of a horse that he would drive along the cliff, which in turn, according to Brooks, ‘from its motion would be taken for a vessel’s stern light’.
It seems that this devilish chap made quite a living for himself plying his terrible trade, but it is said that when on his deathbed, the local parsons reported seeing evil spirits in the house of the criminal. Sounds of splashing waves as if rising around his bed were also heard, suggesting the sea was getting its revenge on the man who had lured people to their deaths to rob them. Then, one night, the local farmhands heard a voice boom out over the sea, saying: ‘The hour is come but the man is not come.’ With that, they looked across the waves and saw a mighty black ship approaching the shore at pace. Huge, black clouds could be seen swirling above the boat, and the men fled in terror, warning others of some unknown yet impending doom. As locals scurried to safety, they all saw the ship of doom run fast to the abode of the sinful pirate, and with that the man died and the ship, seeming to reverse, floated back to the crashing waves and disappeared without trace.
Those brave enough to tend to the dead man’s body suddenly noticed that the weather had become calm, but when his body was taken to the local churchyard, another tempest rose with lightning forks spearing the coffin, forcing the men to drop the casket and flee into the church. When the storm had abated the men resumed their task, only to find that all that remained of the coffin were its handles, for the lightning bolt that struck it had set it on fire, reducing it to dust. It seems that this incident may have forced many a criminal to think twice about luring ships onto the rocks.
At Seaford in East Sussex, legend claims that local people – once known as ‘cormorants’ or ‘shags’ – would lure ships onto the rocks by placing false lights on the cliffs. Another legend states that if one was a witch and wanted to wreck a ship, then all they had to do was stand on their head and chant, ‘Sweery, sweery, linkum-loo! Do to them as I now do …’. This was certainly far easier, some would say, than waiting an age for a ship to be lured by a false light.
Witches were once thought to have the devil within them due to their ability to sink ships. So, imagine the horror of the man who, while walking one day with his daughter along the coast of Tobermory, Mull at the Inner Hebrides, got the shock of his life when she asked him what his reaction would be if she sunk every ship on the horizon. Of course, the man laughed, and with that, his daughter bent down and looked at the ships backwards between her legs, and at once, all except one, they began to rock and roll on the waves and then disappeared beneath the surface. The girl’s father was shocked at his daughter’s behaviour and asked where on earth she’d learnt of such a ‘gift’, to which she replied that her mother had taught her. Upon which, he took her home and the next day burnt her and her mother as witches. In another incident at Tobermory it is rumoured that some eighteen witches, disguised as seagulls, conjured a great storm in order to destroy a ship of the Spanish Armada. One of the weirdest witch stories in relation to a ship, however, dates back several centuries and concerns a seaman from Bristol, who claimed that on one occasion he saw the ghosts of four terrible witches in the cockpit of his ship. The hags were playing with dice! It was said that the witches sprinkled a magic dust throughout the ship to prevent it sailing, hence the fact it spent so long in Gibraltar. Eventually, a priest was summoned and blessed the vessel, and the hags appeared no more.
In Welsh folklore a master ‘wrecker’ was Thomas Vaughan, who would ruthlessly lure ships to their doom at Southerdown Beach, in the shadow of Dunraven’s Castle, which held the seat of the Vaughans. Vaughan was often said to fasten lamps to an ivy-consumed tower or fix them to the back of sheep that grazed high on the cliff tops. As crewmen from the wrecked ships gasped for air on the beach, Vaughan’s gang would creep from the shadows and strip the sailors of their valuables, and then cruelly roll them back towards the reaching tide.
It is also worth taking into consideration that Britain has several reputedly haunted lighthouses. This doesn’t seem surprising either, when you consider some of the legends surrounding such beacons. The Eilean Mor lighthouse on the remote Flannan Isles, west of the Outer Hebrides, was bestowed an eerie legend in 1900 when passing ships reported that there was no light emanating from the structure. When the lighthouse was investigated it was found that the three keepers, Donald McArthur, James Ducat and head keeper Thomas Marshall, had simply vanished into thin air, never to be seen again. They had left orderly living quarters and a lamp that had been filled ready to be lit. The log retrieved from the lighthouse read:
12th December: Gale north by northwest. Sea lashed to fury. Never seen such a storm. Waves very high. Tearing at lighthouse. Everything shipshape. James Ducat irritable.
Later: Storm still raging, wind steady. Stormbound. Cannot go out. Ship passing sounding foghorn. Could see lights of cabins. Ducat quiet. Donald McArthur crying.
13th December: Storm continued through night. Wind shifted west by north. Ducat quiet. McArthur praying.
Later: Noon, grey daylight. Me, Ducat and McArthur prayed.
14th December: No entry in log.
15th December: Storm ended, sea calm. God is over all.
Southerdown beach in Wales. Legend has it that many ships were lured to their doom here. (Simon Wyatt)
And that was it. Where had the trio gone? Could three experienced lighthouse keepers be so afraid of a storm; storms that they had seen before? And what did ‘God is over all’ mean? Stranger still, on the night of 15 December two crew members of a passing ship claimed they had seen three men in a rowing boat who ignored their calls.
At Point of Ayr lighthouse, situated on the Flintshire coast, there have been eerie plans to construct a life-size replica figure of a ghost, after several reports of an apparition over the years. The lighthouse has been out of action for more than a century but reports persist of a ghostly old man wearing an old-fashioned keeper’s coat. A woman reported to BBC Wales that, ‘A few years ago my husband and I were on Talacre beach and saw a lighthouse keeper at the top of the lighthouse in front of the glass dome.’ Even more peculiar was that the spectre had allegedly appeared in broad daylight, when there was not a hint of mist in the air. The figure remained for quite a while, despite the fact the lighthouse is locked up and chained to prevent trespassers. After a handful of recent sightings, the owners of the lighthouse, Talacre Beach Caravan Sales Limited, decided to apply for plans to Flintshire County Council for permission to erect a permanent ghost, albeit a 2m tall, stainless steel one. On 4 November 2011 the Wales Online website reported that the lighthouse is ‘Yours for £100,000 …’, after it was put on the market as a residence.
Another reputedly haunted lighthouse can be found at Anglesey and is known as South Stack. The lighthouse was opened in 1809 but on the night of 25 October 1853 a terrific storm hit the coastline and more than 200 ships were wrecked. Legend has it that the lighthouse keeper at the time, a man named Jack Jones, was on his way down the steep flight, which lead to the bridge that crosses to the lighthouse, when a strong gust of wind dislodged a piece of rock from a nearby cliff and it fell onto his head. Mr Jones dragged himself to the door of the lighthouse where he was eventually found the next day, bleeding heavily from his injury. Jack Jones died two weeks later and his ghost is still said to be heard thumping on the door of the building.
The reputation of the building attracted the Most Haunted team of investigators, who reported several peculiar incidents, including presenter Yvette Fielding being struck by a small horseshoe that had been thrown at her. It was also claimed that a figure was observed looking out of the window of the building, but when they approached, the person was said to have leapt over the cliff into the dark waters. South Stack lighthouse is reported to be so haunted that it has even earned itself a place in the AA ghost guide! The question is, though, is South Stack lighthouse more haunted than the lighthouse at Lizard Point, at Marsden? Souter lighthouse has also been investigated by Most Haunted. The lighthouse gets its name from Souter Point where it was originally going to be built, and the name was kept to avoid confusion with the lighthouse located in Cornwall called Lizard lighthouse. Souter Point lighthouse was opened in 1871 in order to warn ships of the treacherous reefs that surround the coast. It is claimed that the ghost of the building is one Isobella Darling, niece of one Grace Darling, who in 1838 rescued the crew of a sinking ship. Several people who work at Souter lighthouse have reported having items such as spoons thrown at them or about the place, and being grabbed by an unseen presence. It has also been rumoured that the spectre of an old-fashioned lighthouse keeper roams the building and was seen by a waitress before vanishing in front of her eyes.
On the coast of Whitby in North Yorkshire there are two lighthouses, and both are reported to be haunted. The lighthouse situated on the west pier is said to be haunted by a man who died when he fell over a section of cliff; meanwhile, the other building is rumoured to be the haunt of a young woman called Sylvia Swales. It seems that Sylvia was part of a tragic love triangle: two twin brothers were vying for her attention and so decided, in their macho nature, to have a boat race out at sea to see who could claim her hand. Sadly, both men died when they were battered by a huge wave and it is rumoured that Sylvia, so grief-stricken by the incident, never married. It is no wonder that her spirit is said to stand overlooking the sea, aching for the attention and love she never received.
In April 2003, journalist Paul Simon, writing for the Observer, spoke of his delight at staying in a haunted lighthouse 25 miles south of Dublin. Wicklow Head lighthouse stands almost 100ft in height and was erected in 1781. After being struck by lightning it, according to Paul, hadn’t operated ‘… for more than 150 years’, but has now been restored as a living quarters with six floors, each harbouring a room. As is the case of most lighthouses, staying at such a building would for some be an eerie experience, and Paul was quick to comment on the atmosphere of the place. He described the heavy drizzle and swirling winds that caused windows to rattle, but what concerned him most was some of the comments made in the visitor’s book regarding an alleged headless ghost. One entry in the book stated that a party of six had all seen a wraith climbing the stairs, whilst another reported hearing the woman at the window. Legend states that the resident spectre is more than 150 years old and, according to Paul, ‘lost her head to a suitor armed with a scythe who took exception to her betrothal to another man’.
But did Paul or his wife, or their young son, get to see the headless woman? Well, Paul did admit that one night he awoke and thought he’d seen a figure, but his wife comforted him, telling him it was a nightmare, and the rest of their stay passed without incident.
Kinnaird Head Lighthouse in Scotland also has a ghost story quite close to it. The lighthouse can be found at a headland projecting into the North Sea, and it occupies the stretch with Kinnaird Castle. The lighthouse was the first to ever be lit by the Commissioners of Northern Lights and within the vicinity of it sits a building known as the Winetower. In the cave below this it is said that a man, a member of a family named Fraser, imprisoned his daughter’s boyfriend and there he drowned. Riddled with despair on losing her loved one, the daughter leapt from the top of the tower to the jagged rocks below. The woman is said to haunt the tower, and red paint has been daubed on the rocks to illustrate where she fell.
The area around Mumbles lighthouse in Swansea, Glamorgan, in south-west Wales is similarly haunted, by a man who drowned. In a 1967 edition of the Herald of Wales it was reported that the ghost sightings had increased, whereas in more recent years the ghost sightings seem to have transferred to the Beach House Club, which overlooked Swansea Bay.
These types of coast-related stories are intriguing, but I’ll save such shoreline spectres for another chapter and return to those phantom ships.
MORE GHOULISH GALLEONS AND THE LIKE
In 2008 several witnesses came forward to report their sightings of a ghost ship off the coast of Abergele, situated on the north coast of Wales. Legend states that the vessel is the Gwennon Gorn, which belonged to one Prince Madoc who, according to folklore, sailed to America three centuries before Christopher Columbus. One such witness, Chris Steel, reported on the BBC Wales site that he’d seen such an apparition whilst walking along the shore with a friend one night. Other witnesses claimed to have seen an old-looking ship in the distance, shimmering on the horizon, but sceptics argued that such visions were a mere trick of the light or an illusion.
There have also been sightings of a ghostly galleon off Cefn Sidan – a long sandy beach in Wales. A man named Aaron reported that he had been walking with his dog along the beach at sunset when something caught his eye out at sea. An old-looking ship like ‘something from Treasure Island’ with tatty sails drifted on the horizon. The ship had a peculiar green hue about it and Aaron knew that something wasn’t right as soon as his dog began to cower. Two other male witnesses came forward to say they had seen the ghostly ship whilst out jogging along the beach, while another witness claimed that one night whilst camping on the beach, he and his friends had heard a strange creaking noise. When they looked out of their tent, they saw a vessel that resembled a ‘pirate ship’. This stretch of beach is several miles long and there is a history along the coast of shipwrecks. The ship La Jeune Emma lost thirteen of its nineteen-strong crew in 1828, while the last ship to be lost in the area was SS Paul in 1925, a four-masted windjammer.
A phantom shipwreck has similarly been observed on the shore close to Sker Rocks in south Wales. It is said that when the ship – a three-masted baroque – is seen, something bad will happen within a week. Those who know of the ghostly ship fear it greatly, for they say that they know it is near because it gives off an awful sulphuric smell. Others argue that the ship has come from the very depths of fiery hell and that its crew are sinners placed there by the Devil himself. A spectral light has also been seen floating along the shore and around the rocks, particularly when a storm is brewing. Is this weird light an unidentified flying object (UFO) in the truest sense, or, as some locals would say, a sign that something terrible is going to happen? It has often been connected to the appearance of the ghostly ship and in some cases, the light is said to be accompanied by a frightful soundtrack of moans. According to local fishermen, the waters around the spot where the light haunts are considered special, and three nets would always be cast out. Should the middle net, when retrieved, be full of lobster and crab then it is a sign of bad weather to come, but should it be filled with fish, then a good season of decent weather can be expected.
Anglesey has a bizarre phantom ship story attached to it, as well as the haunted lighthouse mentioned earlier. In 1734 a farmer named William John Lewis was ploughing a field with the help of a farmhand near Holyhead when into view came a monstrous ghostly ship – but from the sky! The farmer, so astounded by the manifestation, ran to fetch his wife and they came back just in time to see the craft head towards the mountains. It was recorded that the sails could be seen clearly and a flock of birds swarmed around the vessel. Stranger still, when the ship returned from whence it came, it moved backwards. And if this wasn’t weird enough, Mr Lewis then claimed that he’d seen the sky ship before and expected a visit every decade or so! Another Anglesey ship-related ghost story is one I first read about in the Tiswas Book of Ghastly Ghosts when I was a child. In the book, it spoke of a man named John Jones who, one night in 1859 whilst resting his weary head in his cottage near Moelfre Bay, was disturbed by the lashings of a severe storm. At the time, John’s son was away at sea and these types of nights always reminded him of his dear son. However, on this particular night, John felt compelled to leave the warmth of his quarters and take to the blustery cliff top. Once there, overlooking the violent waves, he heard the most despicable sound – the screams of men and then, as the wind seemed to blow the grim clouds free of the moon, he stood agog in horror as there, below him he could see a fully rigged steamship shattered by the sharp black rocks. As John strained his eyes, he noticed the face of his son, thrashing around in the waves, but this could not be, because his son was meant to be travelling the oceans on the other side of the world. The cries from the figure confirmed the horror but a second later the young man was eaten by the waves. As the remains of the crushed ship slipped into the depths, John could see the name the Royal Charter written on the side. John was so traumatised by the events that he staggered back home, stumbled through the door and collapsed. Finally, John managed to gather his senses, and told himself that it must have been a nightmare because he knew full well – and he kept on telling himself this – that his son was not in these local waters and eventually, tired from the experience, he fell asleep. When John awoke in the morning, he was told the shocking news that the Royal Charter and all of its crew had perished on the rocks at Moelfre. It seems, according to a letter received from the owners of the boat, that John’s son had been transferred to the Royal Charter. Nevertheless, from where John had stood on the previous night, it should not have been possible to see the wreck or his son, because this tragedy had taken place on another part of the jagged coastline!
On the Sussex coast, the ghost of the Good Ship Nicholas is said to have been seen, although there has not been a reported sighting since the Second World War. During the twelfth century, the vessel was returning from a trip to Constantinople and was occupied by pilgrims who had been to visit the holy places of Jerusalem, when upon reaching the English Channel a strong wind began to blow and the boat was wrecked off Brighton. Witnesses to the phantom ship seem few and far between, as are witnesses of the ghostly tramp steamer (the name given to a steam ship that does not operate on a fixed schedule) also said to haunt the waters off Brighton. On 17 May 1916 a group of people strolling along the promenade were astonished to see a tramp steamer so close to shore, but the watchers were even more startled when it vanished into thin air before them.
It is worth noting that a phantom ship was seen to wreck in 1960 off East Sussex. A woman named Rita Newman had been working at a factory in Portslade and she was just finishing her tea break when she looked out of a large window in time to see a great ship, resembling a coal boat, leave the harbour and head off towards Brighton. Rita then returned to work but for some unknown reason felt an urge to look out the window again, and was astonished that in just a handful of seconds this boat seemed to have travelled a great distance. The oddest thing, however, was, despite its speed, the vessel suddenly stopped dead and then very slowly tipped forward so that the stern was pointing skywards as smoke began to billow from it. The ship was clearly in some distress but before Rita could even react, the boat disappeared beneath the waves. Rita was unable to stay at the window as she had to get back to work, and no one else in the factory had seen the ship sink. However, that night Rita told her father about what she’d seen, and it transpired that he had seen the same thing. Rita’s father worked at the nearby power station and where he was positioned there had been a clear, uninterrupted view of the sea stretching from Worthing to Brighton. He told Rita he had seen a ship come extremely close to shore and thought that surely it was about to run aground, and so he had moved to get an even better look – but there was no sign of the vessel.
The Sussex coast where ships, both real and ethereal, have run aground. (Terry Cameron)
Some suggestions put forward to explain the incident were that it was a mirage but, as Rita concluded, ‘If it was a mirage, how could the size of the masts have taken up the whole view of the window where my father was working?’
Had this been the ghost ship reported off Brighton before the Second World War? Or does the Sussex coastline hide further secrets?
A spectral ship or two has also been sighted off the Scottish coast. One particular time the manifestation – a fishing boat – was said to have guided two other fishing boats through a heavy storm and enabled them to reach harbour at Aberdeen. According to a man named Walter McGregor, who had been told the tale many decades ago, it was believed that the ghostly boat had perished amongst the stormy waves long ago and the crew never seen again, and yet somehow the boat still manages to aid other vessels in distress.
Sandwood Bay, 5 miles south of Cape Wrath in north-west Sutherland, has an intriguing ghost story that reminds one of the Welsh wreck experienced by Mr Jones, who saw his son consumed by the waves at Moelfre. In this case, many people have reported seeing a ghostly sailor on the beach – particularly in the Oldshoremore area. One sighting involved two men who one winter were collecting driftwood from the beach when a sailor appeared and warned them off his property. Realising there was something unnatural about the man, the witnesses dropped their wood and ran in terror. A few years later, a farmer at Kinlochbervie had a similar experience and claimed that one evening, as dusk was drawing in, he was with several farmhands looking for a stray sheep when suddenly a man appeared on the rocks up ahead. Naturally, the men thought that it was a local chap and so approached him, but upon observing his sailor’s uniform, the man disappeared into thin air. Now, the reason this ghost story is relevant to this chapter, is simply because a few weeks after the spooky encounter, a brutal squall hit the shore and an Irish boat was wrecked, and several dead bodies washed ashore. One of the men who had been looking for the sheep was at the scene and, to his horror, he recognised one of the men among the dead – it was the sailor he had seen weeks before. In 1969 ten hikers who knew nothing of the ghostly legends of the area, were walking along a remote path overlooking the bay when one of them – who had gone ahead – shouted that there was someone on the sands. However, by the time the other ramblers had caught up and looked, there was no one to be seen. When the hikers came on to flat ground they observed the wreck of a wooden boat sticking out of the sand, and to their amazement, there on the sand, emerging from the water, was a set of bare footprints that lead to the boat and then, oddly, returned to the sea.
A similar tale is told on the Shetland Islands, and concerns a trio of men who were killed when their boat was wrecked on the west coast of Scotland. Instead of being interred in the local churchyard, the bodies were laid to rest where they died – but rest was apparently the last thing on their minds. Soon after the burial, the crew were said to be seen wandering along the beach. So terrified were the locals that they decided to exhume the corpses, only to find that the graves and the bodies were full of water. With that, the villagers moved the bodies to dry land and the ghosts were never seen again.
One of the strangest reports in regards to spectral ships in Scotland originates from the island of Iona, situated in the Inner Hebrides. The area has several ghost stories, including ghostly monks said to loiter around the abbey, but one fascinating story that comes to mind involved a man who one day was walking along the shore when, to his amazement, he saw a fleet of phantom Viking longboats, which proceeded to take to the beach. Suddenly, from the boats several armed men rushed ashore and accosted a gathering of monks. After killing the monks, the Vikings made for the nearby abbey and then shortly afterwards returned with their booty. Once they had boarded their ship they set sail until out of sight, and with that, the stunned witness seemed to slip back to his own time. Further investigations after the shocking encounter revealed that the man had possibly caught a glimpse of events of the tenth century. Interestingly, at Canvey Island in Essex, there is a legend that speaks of a ghostly Viking who, on moonlit nights, searches along the mudflats for his ship. The figure is said to take the form of a whitish mist.
Ghostly sailors have been seen on the Shetland Islands. (Glen Vaudrey)
In his excellent book Ghost World, from 1893, author T.F. Thiselton Dyer speaks of a spectral vessel said to materialise in the Solway, a stretch of water belonging to the Irish Sea that forms part of the border of Scotland and England. The ghost (boat) is always seen hovering near a ship that is doomed to be wrecked. According to Thiselton Dyer:
The story goes that, for a time, two Danish pirates were permitted to perform wicked deeds on the deep, but were at last condemned to perish by wreck for the evil they had caused. On a certain night they were seen approaching the shore – the one crowded with people, and the other carrying on its deck a spectral shape.
Folklore claims that four young men had been sent from one ship to the other, but upon reaching it the vessel vanished. Of course, like in so many other spectral ship stories, on the anniversary of the wreck ‘these two vessels are supposed to approach the shore, and to be distinctly visible’, as in the case of the ghost ship known as the Rotterdam, which has become known in Highland folklore.
One such tale, which certainly brings to mind the Kentish story of the Lady Lovibund, is that concerning the ghost ship of the Orkneys. The Orkney Islands is a cluster of islands found 10 miles north of the coast of Caithness. The story here is that a couple of centuries ago the Laird of Graemsay, a chap named William Honyman, may have been a bit of a smuggler too, despite his wealth. Every time summer came round he would load up a boat with food and travel around the north-west tip of Scotland to the Hebrides. In 1758, however, one such voyage proved to be ill-fated. It is said that Honyman had a terrible row with his wife, Mary, as he wanted his son to come aboard but Mrs Honyman, thinking her son was too young to go on to a boat, opposed strongly. The laird was not going to back down and eventually got his way, but before voyage the laird and a friend of his decided to take to the hillside and bury a stash of treasure. When Honyman returned to the foot of the hill he visited his home and told his wife to remain vigilant and to keep an eye on his territory. That night, Honyman, his son and a servant took to the water and headed off for the Atlantic. Three months later there was no news of the boat and servants at Clestrain were becoming increasingly worried. Come August, all seemed well again when the boat was observed approaching Clestrain Sound. Mary Honyman ran to the shoreline accompanied by several servants, and there in the distance they could see the approaching boat and then the three figures on board. As the vessel came closer, however, the shore party began to scream. Some later reported that, as they watched, the ship simply faded into nothing, whilst others claimed that the vessel was merely a pale shadow of its former self; a supernatural craft floating long after it had sunk.
Mary Honyman was said to have been so traumatised by the loss of her husband and son that she died soon afterwards. The tale of the spectral ship most certainly spawned another ghost story because many people claimed that they had seen Mary in her long white dress, still walking her husband’s stomping ground, guarding his territory and treasure. Of course, the rumour of buried treasure lured many servants to the hillside where they searched, night after night, for the laird’s stash, but to no avail. Unless, of course, you believe in the tale of the man who felt destined to find the treasure until, whilst digging at the earth, he became unsettled by the approaching figure of a woman dressed in all black. He continued digging regardless, but then, when the man looked again, the woman was wearing white, her face forlorn. Did he eventually find the treasure despite the ghostly sighting? Who knows?
Another ghost ship is said to appear off Lunan Bay, Arbroath. Around a century ago an elderly lady recalled how when she was a little girl she would stay near the bay with relations. During one such stay, she was talking to a local boatman and was told by him that one evening as he stood on the beach with several other men, a spectral ship had come into view. The vessel was about 1 mile offshore and despite the sea being relatively calm, the ship looked to be in some distress as it rolled and plunged as if in the throes of a severe storm. The witnesses decided to get into a small boat and row out to her aid, but as they left the bay the ship vanished. When the men arrived at the spot where the ship had been they could find no trace whatsoever – not a body nor piece of wreckage. From then on, the local boatman believed that every time the ghost vessel appeared it meant something bad was going to happen. This was confirmed when one evening the boatman and his brother were standing on the beach and they heard a mysterious voice, which called out the names of three men who they knew. Within days the three men had died: two of them drowned and the third killed in an accident. Then, on another night, the same boatman was aboard his craft alone and when, looking back toward shore, he saw a man in seaman attire standing on the beach. The figure appeared extremely pale and gaunt, and on the side of his face there was a hideous wound. The figure then shouted out, ‘Tell my sister Mary Smith, who lives in Arbroath, that she must on no account marry Andrew, he is no good,’ and with that, the seaman vanished.
When the stunned boatman finally managed to contact the Mary Smith in question, he discovered that she was in fact about to marry a man named Andrew, and although Andrew appeared to be a good man, Mary was rather concerned about the warning, because the ghostly seaman had in fact been her brother Keith. Mary never did marry Andrew, so unsettled was she by the caveat.
Another, similar incident is told of in Orkney folklore, particularly on the Island of Rousay, where it is said that a small spectral boat has been seen. The legend goes that a young fisherman was obsessed with a beautiful Orkney girl, but she told her admirer that she would only marry him if he proved his love by sailing through a treacherous strait alone in his diminutive boat. The naive fisherman agreed to the challenge but the girl’s father, who was gifted with second sight, had told his daughter that this was not a challenge to be taken up, for he had seen a terrible image of the young man’s boat being capsized and he being drowned. The woman refused to take the premonition seriously, threatening the fisherman with the fact that, if he did not carry out the journey, then she would marry another man. With that, the fisherman set sail, but the waves proved too dangerous, his boat was overturned and he drowned. Forevermore that small boat has been seen on the strait where the tides meet. And what of the young woman? Well, fate played a deadly part with her, too. Shortly after the death of the fisherman, she did indeed marry another man – a tradesman from Wick – but so bad did he treat her that she eventually killed herself – by jumping into the sea.
In another case a British ship named Neptune, manned by one Captain Grant, appeared off St Ives, Cornwall, even though it had already been wrecked at Gwithian. Around St Ives there are also tales of eerie lights, known as Jack Harry’s Lights, named after the first local to be tempted by such phenomena. The ghostly lights seem to tie in with a phantom schooner that once appeared off the coast. The ship was sighted and approached by several men who rowed out to her. However, when one of the men tried to climb aboard he was shocked to find that his feet met nothing solid, and then the ship vanished into thin air. Many believe this apparition to be that of the Neptune. On another occasion a St Ives pilot gig was called out to assist a large vessel that had appeared in the bay, but as they drew alongside it the ship vanished, and then reappeared in a mysterious fashion some 3 miles away. At Porthcurno in Cornwall there are legends of a ghost ship dating back to the eighteenth century: a black square-rigger that bizarrely would be seen not to run aground, but actually travel over the dry sands with ease. Sadly, those who have witnessed such a phenomenon are hard to find. Mind you, to see such a sight is said to be bad luck, so perhaps that is not surprising. This tale may have simply been the sort to roll from the mouths of smugglers, who were said to dye their boats with luminous paint in order to spook people and scare them away from their illegal trades. Those who actually claim to have seen the vessel state that it is often mist-enshrouded and four figures appear on board: two men, a woman and a dog. And, even more remarkably, when the boat comes into shore it levitates oh so slightly, so that it skims the ground, and then the ship takes off above the town. The ship vanishes near a rock where many years ago a stash of coins were said to have been unearthed.
Paul Devereux and Craig Weatherhill wrote of a ‘phantom lugger’, too; said to be seen occasionally sailing in the shallow waters of the Goonhilly Downs at Croft Pascoe Pool. Tales of death ships around the Cornwall and Devon coasts are numerous, and though they appear to alter through time, they always maintain their stormy atmosphere. The Ashburton Guardian of 12 September 1919 reported that: ‘A motor-boat which during the war had to patrol a certain stretch of water in the Bristol Channel reported, only a few months ago, that the apparition of the type used to convey fruit from the West Indies to Avonmouth had been encountered not far from Lundy.’
As the motor-boat travelled on a straight course, the spectral vessel seemed to rear up out of the waves and the smaller vessel careered straight through it. All that the witnesses on board could describe was how a white mist had enshrouded the motor-boat and how, when this cleared, there was no sign of the ship.
The county of Dorset has a few ghost ship legends. Of the weirdest pertains to a death ship steered by the Devil himself. The folklore claims that a Mayor Jones of Lyme Regis was despised by locals due to his persecution of anyone who didn’t conform to his rules. And so it was no surprise to some when, as he lay on his death bed at what is now known as Chatham House, there was suddenly a terrible clatter and one end of his home caved in, causing great plumes of dust. When the dirt had settled, Satan appeared and accosted Jones, whose body was then taken on board a ship that was due to go to the Mediterranean. Legend states that a sailor, who was sailing back to Lyme Regis, had reached Scilly when he saw the amazing spectacle of the Devil at the helm of a ship. Oddly, the sailor asked the Devil where he was heading to (as you do!), to which the horned one replied, ‘I’m transporting the body of Old Jones to Mount Etna.’
Soon afterwards, however, the ship exploded in to a great ball of fire, leaving the air thick with a sulphurous stench. It seems that this may have been the mayor’s induction to Hell. This fiendish tale reminds us of the already mentioned ship of doom of Cornwall, which, accompanied by a sinister black cloud, wrenched a wrong-doer from his bed. It is also worth mentioning Dorset’s other well-known phantom vessel, recorded in Prodigies in Somerset and Dorset from the seventeenth century. The report states that, on 23 April 1661 at around 3 p.m., a man riding his horse near Lyme Regis spotted an ominous dark cloud drifting above the region of the Isle of Portland. The ‘cloud’ then, bizarrely, turned into a great sailing ship complete with crew members. The man stood in amazement at the sight before him until thunder cracked and a storm ensued, and lightning bolts began to spear down through the pounding rain. The ship sailed off through the gloom until it was gone from view.
A ghostly ship called the Mayfly is said to occasionally visit Oulton Broad, which can be found in the shire county of Suffolk. Oulton Broad is formed of several man-made bodies of water and is linked to the east by a loch to Lake Lothing, which runs through Lowestoft and out into the North Sea. The boat is said to visit the area on 24 June every year – although it probably doesn’t! To cut a long story short, the Mayfly was captained by a man named Stevenson at some point in the eighteenth century. He was on one occasion asked to transport a large amount of money to Yarmouth, and would be accompanied by the daughter of the boat’s owner. However, being in the vicinity of the treasure was all too much for Stevenson, who decided to steer the wherry (a type of boat once used to carry passengers or cargo along canals and rivers) to a Dutch port. That night, as legend states, the captain heard screams and ran to see the boat owner’s daughter bleeding from a neck wound, but as he approached she stabbed him in the heart with a knife, killing him. Shortly afterwards she died too. Three years later, the ghostly boat was said to have put in an appearance, and folklore has it that those who have observed the wherry hear of a death shortly afterwards.
At Oulton Broad a spectral ‘wherry’ has been observed. It travels on the manmade bodies of water and heads toward the North Sea. (Joyce Goodchild)
A North Sea ghost ship has been seen travelling up the River Wear and around the coast. According to author Alan Robson, ‘In 1923 a Hong Kong newspaper reported a sailor’s tale of how he had witnessed a ghostly ship sailing into the River Wear.’ The ship, said to have had tall masts and fronted by a figurehead of a busty woman bearing the name Plato, had in fact been built in the mouth of the Wear, but little did the seaman realise that the boat had already perished, along with its crew, in the South China Seas. Legend has it that a majority of the crew were eaten by sharks as the ship sank; whilst those who escaped fled to shore in lifeboats, but to their misfortune ended up on an island of cannibals. There was only one survivor of the horror: a chap named John Collins who was eventually rescued by a Royal Navy vessel. The seaman who observed the ghostly ship decided to assemble a team to visit the island that Mr Collins spoke of, but this is where the tale ends with a terrible twist of fate. The seaman’s boat was never seen again; some say he fell foul to the bloodthirsty cannibals, whilst others suggest that he never found the island, but was instead murdered by his own crew of rogues and criminals.
The Irish city of Galway has a ghost ship story attached to it, too. It was written about by one of my favourite writers on the supernatural, Elliott O’Donnell, who claimed to have seen the phantom barge on three occasions, always at night. His third encounter took place in the spring of 1932 as they ‘were just passing the Headland of Mallin More in County Donegal …’. The second time was under a full moon at Clew Bay, which is a natural ocean bay in County Mayo. O’Donnell described the apparition as a bridal barge, which dazzled with red and gold.
Researcher Michael G. Crawford wrote of a phantom fetch-ship, a spectre said to haunt the waters of County Kerry. Crawford comments that, ‘Warrenpoint can claim its phantom ship also, which is the ghost of the Lord Blaney steam packet’: an apparition said to float up the pier and then disintegrate into nothing. The ghost loiters in the area because, on a stormy night in 1833, the boat was due to travel to Liverpool but never made it. It had been packed with people, including a young man and his bride, but also animals, ranging from pigs to geese. As the ship reached the Irish Sea a dreadful storm hit, and under blackening skies the ship was tossed and rolled on monstrous waves. The vessel was eventually thrown to a sandbank, snapping the masts and jolting the passengers into a state of confusion as they were cast to the decks by the howling gales. Those on board who were still alive hoped and prayed that they could latch onto a piece of floating wreck, which would maybe, just maybe, take them safely to shore. So many lives were lost as exhaustion claimed the last passengers who were swept out into the grey depths, and yet amidst the despair there is one remarkable story. It is said that on board the Lord Blaney was a champion racehorse named Monteagle. The horse had beaten so many others in its trade, but now its race was for life, and Monteagle successfully braved the waves and bounded ashore.
It is worth quickly mentioning that in February 1984 the Daily Express reported that a £3,000 Irish mare called Russell’s Touch had been training on the shore of Dungarvan, County Waterford, when it unseated its rider – trainer David Kiely – and bolted towards the sea. Kiely rushed to find a phone (which took him two hours on this remote stretch) and eventually a rescue boat was employed. The horse was spotted by a trawler and fortunately the mare was roped and brought ashore, and recovered a few days later. Weirder still, in 1989 crew of a Welsh yacht rescued a dog that was found swimming some 2 miles out at sea off St David’s Head!
Some people will say that the ghostly ship Lord Blaney appears as a strange white cloud that seems to drift along the surface of the water; whereas others will tell you that, on certain nights, you can hear the sound of the waves crashing away at the body; and there are also those who will claim that they have seen the steamer clearly as a vessel that rides out of the cloud and then disappears into darkness. Many have rowed out to find the wreckage of the ship they have seen sink, but to no avail, and like so many others the encounters, as well as the ships, forever nestle in some watery grave. Mr Crawford, who claims to have seen the phantom ship, was told by many a fisherman that every time a ghost vessel appears around Warrenpoint it is a bad omen; a sign that another wreck is due to occur. When a 1,100-ton passenger ferry ran into a 500-ton coal boat on 3 November 1916, 6 sea miles from Warrenpoint, there was a rumour that there had been a sighting of the Lord Blaney a few days previous.
Despite this ghost ship drifting into the realms of folklore, the Lord Blaney is not the most well-known phantom boat of Ireland. A more well-known ghost vessel is a ship called the Sea Horse which was wrecked in Tramore Bay in 1816. Of the 393 people on board, only a mere thirty survived. This British transport vessel is still seen – allegedly – on the anniversary of the tragedy and nearly always before a drowning or a wreck. My advice would be to not go swimming or travelling across the south-east coast of Ireland on or around 31 January!
The Waterford coast near Helvick Head in the Republic of Ireland also has a ghost ship legend. A student named Arthur Frewen, who later became a playwright and schoolmaster, was taking a stroll along the coast of Waterford one day when suddenly the sky began to grow dark and mist seemed to filter in from nowhere. Rather perturbed, Mr Frewen decided it best to find somewhere to stay the night and came upon a small village, which seemed extremely desolate. When in the vicinity of the pier Arthur noticed a light coming from the water, and upon looking down from the pier saw a fishing boat and the figure of an elderly seaman. Arthur asked the seaman if there was anywhere on the boat he could stay for the night and, as it happened, there was a bunk going spare. Arthur, rather pleased, was shown around the boat and given some hot soup by the man. After supper Arthur decided it best to get some rest, and took his red scarf off and hung it on the door, but as he snuggled up he became suddenly unsettled; in fact, such a strong feeling of dread came over him that he leapt to his feet and made sure that the door was locked. Seconds later the door knob began to rattle, as if someone was trying to get in, and from the other side of the door he heard a voice shout, ‘Open up!’. Arthur declined to do so, feeling so sure that something bad was going to happen. So scared was the young student that he then climbed onto his bunk and smashed the nearby window, hauled himself up on deck and then ran for his life toward the pier, never once looking back.
Arthur didn’t even attempt to sleep again that night but when the morning drew in he decided to go back to the village, and found the people there very friendly. One person in the village asked Arthur if he was unwell due to his gaunt appearance and he just had to tell them about his weird experience aboard the boat. Upon closer investigation, however, Athur and the villagers found there was now no boat tied to the pier. All that sat there was the skeletal remains of a boat; a vessel in such a state that no one could even attempt to get on board. Yet Arthur knew this had been the same boat which he had climbed aboard the previous night.
‘This boat has been mouldering here for nearly fifty years,’ a local man told Arthur. ‘And there is a bad story about it …’
To Arthur’s astonishment, the man told the tale of how, many years ago, a young student had been killed on the boat by a fisherman, who was eventually arrested and then hanged at Dungarvan. The most startling detail was yet to occur, however: for when as Arthur peered into the gloom of the boat, there on the hook near where the old bunk would have been located was his red scarf!
And, just to round off this segment, I leave you with mention of some very old reports of phantom ships in Irish folklore of spectral ships of an even stranger nature. For instance, a ghost ship was recorded in the year 1161, but in this instance it was observed not in the sea, but in the sky over Galway! Similarly, an aerial ship was also recorded in 1798 and seen by hundreds of people at Croaghpatrick, Mayo. Writer W.G. Wood-Martin believed that the vessel was in fact a reflection of a fleet under the command of Admiral Warren, which had been sailing off the west coast of Ireland.
… AND AN ELUSIVE SUBMARINE
In the 1970s there were a couple of odd cases regarding alleged phantom submarines. On 24 April 1974, the Daily Express reported very briefly on the sighting of a mystery submarine, which had been reported off the coast of County Cork, Ireland. Police had been alerted to the craft but an investigation revealed nothing. This wasn’t a unique incident, because the previous month at 4 a.m. on 30 March, the master of a boat named Rathmines contacted coastguards on the Irish coast of Limerick to report a mystery submarine. Crew on the boat shone a searchlight on the black object before it disappeared. Around the same time, there were also reports of a phantom helicopter in parts of England. Were these sightings simply created by hysteria, or were there really phantom subs and choppers around?
Stranger still, a mysterious object turned up on the beach at Holyhead, Anglesey on the night of 4/5 February 1974. The story was reported by the North Wales Chronicle, who claimed that the craft – resembling some type of plane, or winged submarine – had been found beneath the cliffs at South Stack and measured 9ft in length with a wingspan of some 5ft. The body of the craft was black aluminium and pretty heavy, and no one seemed to know where it had come from. Suggestions put forward were that it was some type of advanced submarine object that had drifted ashore, while others commented that the craft had been a form of aerial ship that had crashed into the water before washing ashore. The RAF and Aberporth Range Establishment stated that the object did not belong to them, and so a description of the object was passed on to the navy underwater research department based at Portsmouth. Why no one actually took photographs of the object seems to be the biggest mystery of all and, despite the stir the object caused, it seems as if it was simply left to rust on the beach. A bomb-disposal squad took a look at the object and declared it to be safe but, rather oddly, local coastguards were told not to comment on the craft. Eventually, the mysterious ‘plane’ was filmed for a television documentary but by the time cameras had begun to roll, souvenir hunters had already started to dismantle it.