Blisworth Tunnel, Northamptonshire
The Caxton Gibbet, Cambridgeshire
Dunwich Heath, Suffolk
Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk
Hamilton Stud Lane and Newmarket Racecourse,
Suffolk
Happisburgh, Norfolk
The Lantern Man at Thurlton, Norfolk
The Battle of Naseby Battlefield, Northamptonshire
The Norfolk Broads
The Old Ferry Boat Inn, Cambridgeshire
The Old Hall Inn, Norfolk
Oliver Cromwell’s House at Ely, Cambridgeshire
The St Anne’s Castle, Essex
The Triangular Lodge at Rushton, Northamptonshire
The White Hart Hotel, Lincoln
Wicken Fen, Cambridgeshire
The World’s End, Northamptonshire
Eastern England may not have such dramatic scenery as some parts of Britain do, but it possesses its own distinctive beauty, captured by the Suffolk painter John Constable. The region includes the famous university town of Cambridge, the historic cathedral cities of Lincoln, Norwich and Ely, North Sea coastal resorts such as Skegness and Great Yarmouth, and the picturesque waterways of the Norfolk Broads.
The eastern area known as East Anglia, which contains the reclaimed marshland of the Fens, is known for its flatness and ‘big skies’, and there is surely something particularly eerie about this largely featureless landscape where the horizon seems to stretch to infinity and sounds echo from miles away. This haunting atmosphere is captured perfectly by the Victorian ghost-story writer M. R. James (see page 24), a Suffolk man, who used his archaeological knowledge to evoke the region’s legends and myths – you may be surprised at how many supernatural secrets from the Dark Ages lurk beneath the bogs and quicksands of the Fenland.
Blisworth Tunnel
Blisworth Tunnel, on the Grand Union canal near Stoke Bruerne in Northamptonshire, is one of the longest in Britain – 3,076 yards (2.81 km) long and broad enough for two narrowboats to pass. When construction began on the Grand Junction canal, as it was then known, in 1793, the tunnel was a major feat of engineering. There were problems with alignment, but teams of navvies worked with picks and shovels for three years until they hit quicksand and the tunnel collapsed, killing 14 men.
The rest of the canal opened in 1800 and a road and tramway were built over Blisworth Hill to ‘tranship’ cargo from boats at either end of the collapsed tunnel. A new route was found and the tunnel finally opened on 25 March 1805, the last part of the Grand Junction canal to be completed.
The canal quickly became one of the main forms of transportation for goods from the Midlands to London, but nowadays is used mainly for pleasure cruises. However, its tragic past still lingers on. People travelling through Blisworth Tunnel have been confused by lights and a fork in the waterway, but in fact the tunnel runs straight through the hill. What people have seen is the flicker of candlelight at the spot where the first tunnel would have intersected with the main canal tunnel. The ghostly navvies are working there still…
The Boat Inn is linked to another tragedy in Blisworth Tunnel. Following a fire in the tunnel at the end of the nineteenth century, bodies were carried to the Boat and laid in the tap room.
Trips through the tunnel are available, starting from the Boat Inn, Bridge Road, Stoke Bruerne, Towcester, Northamptonshire NN12 7SB; Tel: (01604) 862428; Website: www.boatinn.co.uk
The Caxton Gibbet
The Caxton Gibbet stands on a small knoll a mile and a half from the village of Caxton, Cambridgeshire, on what was once common land near a crossroads. Here criminals were gibbeted – imprisoned in an iron cage hanging from a gibbet until they died from starvation or exposure. Their head would be clamped at the top and their body left to putrefy for several months as a warning to others.
The gibbet at Caxton today is a replica which was probably built using the timbers of a nearby cottage. The original gibbet was blown down during a gale.
Nearby there is a Chinese restaurant, formerly an inn called the Caxton Gibbet which catered for people who came to view the gibbeting. It was also the place where the bodies were laid out after they had been cut down.
The story runs that in the eighteenth century the landlord of the inn – or possibly his son – decided to rob three wealthy travellers who were staying there. After the men had spent the night drinking and had reeled off to bed, he went into their room and started to go through their belongings. One man woke up and, in a panic, the landlord killed him. Then, to prevent the others from discovering the murder, he had to kill them too. He threw the bodies down the pub’s well. Nevertheless, the travellers were missed and the landlord eventually convicted of the murder. He was hung from the gibbet within sight of his own pub.
Today the room in which the murder took place is said to be colder than the rest of the building. Footsteps have been heard walking from that room down to the foot of the stairs, which is the site of the old well.
The Caxton Gibbet is situated near the junction of the A14 and the A45, on the road from Cambridge to St Neots.
Yim Wah House Chinese Restaurant and Bar, Caxton Gibbet, Caxton, Cambridge CB3 8PE; Tel: (01954) 718330; Website: www.yimwahhouse.com
Open seven days a week. Offers a menu from all regions of the Far East.
Dunwich Heath
Dunwich Heath is a lowland heath on the very edge of the fast-eroding Suffolk coast. Classified as a Regionally Important Geological and Geomorphological Site (RIGS), it is one of Suffolk’s most important and scenic conservation areas.
In medieval times this lonely and windswept shoreline was a busy and prosperous area. Dunwich village was a large port, similar in size to London, and the capital of East Anglia. Its thriving trade in woollen goods brought wealth, and the town had many churches, two monasteries, a bishop’s palace and even a mint. All that remains today, however, is the ruins of a few cottages, a Franciscan priory and a leper hospital. Over the years, erosion of the unstable sand and flint cliffs, together with a series of violent storms, brought the village crashing down into the sea. By 1677 the sea had reached the market-place, and All Saints’ Church, the final church left standing, collapsed into the sea around 1920.
With the village, according to legend, went one of the three holy crowns buried around the coastline to protect England from foreign invasion shortly after the Norman Conquest. Another of the crowns was dug up at Rendlesham, then melted down for its silver content. The third has yet to be found.
The desolate atmosphere of Dunwich Heath has inspired many ghost stories, including those of M. R. James, who grew up near Bury St Edmunds and spent holidays at Aldeburgh, just down the coast from Dunwich. He used Dunwich as the setting for one of his most famous stories, ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’, published in 1904.
The ruins of the village themselves have a sinister reputation. Malformed figures have been seen flitting through the former leper hospital, strange lights have been seen in the old priory and it is said that the former inhabitants of the village return from the sea to walk on the clifftops. Below the waters, the sunken ruins are also believed to be haunted, and are shunned by divers. On quiet days it is said that the church bells can still be heard ringing out from beneath the sea…
Dunwich Heath, Dunwich, Suffolk IP17 3DJ; Tel: (01728) 648501; Website: www.nationaltrust.org.uk
Dunwich Museum, St James’s Street, Dunwich, Saxmundham, Suffolk IP17 3EA; Tel: (01728) 648796. Open from the beginning of March to the end of October. The museum chronicles the history of Dunwich from Roman times.
Felbrigg Hall
Felbrigg Hall is one of the best-preserved seventeenth-century houses in East Anglia. Built by Robert Lyminge on the sites of a medieval property dating back to 1400, it was the home of the Windham family for over 200 years and contains many fine examples of eighteenth-century furniture and paintings. The traditional walled garden features a working eighteenth-century dovecote and the national collection of colchicums (naked ladies), which flower in September. The park is renowned for its aged trees, especially around 200 beeches. A ‘Victory V’ formation of 200,000 trees planted to mark VE Day can be seen from the air. There are 500 acres of woodland in total, and many waymarked woodland and lakeside walks.
The Gothic library of the hall is said to be haunted by the ghost of the second William Windham, a member of Pitt the Younger’s Cabinet who inherited the estate in 1749 and began to compile the library. He was a passionate book-collector, but his love of books led to his death. In 1810, while in London, he tried to rescue a friend’s books from a burning house, but fell over and injured his hip. An operation was required, but surgery was still relatively primitive at that time and it resulted in his death. However, he still returns to his old library from time to time. It is said that when his collection of Samuel Johnson’s books are set out on the table, he will come back and browse through them.
Felbrigg, Norfolk NR11 8PR; Tel: (01263) 837444; Fax: (01263) 837032; Email: felbrigg@nationaltrust.org.uk; Website: www.nationaltrust.org.uk
The house and gardens are open daily, apart from Thursdays and Fridays, from 19 March to 30 October.
Felbrigg village is two miles south-west of Cromer on the B1436.
Hamilton Stud Lane and Newmarket Racecourse
Hamilton Stud Lane in Newmarket is haunted by the ghost of the famous jockey Fred Archer, who rode his first flat race as a 12-year-old in 1869. He won his first classic, the 2,000 Guineas, at the age of 17, and became champion jockey the same year. He went on to become champion jockey for 13 consecutive years, from 1874 to 1886, and to win 21 classics. But success had a price. At 5 ft 10 in., he was very tall for a jockey, and only very strict dieting and a disgustingly strong purgative, known as Archer’s mixture, kept him down to his racing weight of 8 st. Then misfortune struck: in 1884 his wife Nelly died in childbirth. Archer was desolate. Two years later he was 1lb overweight and lost the Cambridgeshire by a head. The effects of dieting and grief brought on a fever. Delirious, he shot himself on 8 November 1886. He was just 29 years old.
Soon after his death a local woman reported seeing Fred Archer riding down Hamilton Stud Lane towards her and her daughter and then disappearing into thin air. Since then, others have seen his ghost riding along at the same spot. It is also said that the ghost of Fred Archer haunts Newmarket Racecourse, the scene of some of his greatest triumphs. At a certain spot on the course, horses have swerved, stopped or fallen and their jockeys have reported seeing a strange white shape hanging in the air.
Newmarket Racecourse, Westfield House, The Links, Newmarket, Suffolk CB8 0TG; Tel: (01638) 663482
DEREK’S TIP
Remain open-minded. Sometimes people can be too logical and if the full manifestation of a spirit person were to come up and shake them by the hand, they still would not believe in the existence of a world beyond.
Happisburgh
The village of Happisburgh (pronounced ‘Hazebro’) lies on the Norfolk coast. It has a beach, sand dunes and two distinctive landmarks: a tall church tower and a red and white striped lighthouse, built in 1791. It also has a unique ghost: the Pump Hill Ghost, otherwise known as the Happisburgh Torso.
One night in 1765, three smugglers at Cart Gap, Happisburgh, fell out over the division of their spoils. A fight broke out and shots were heard. The following day large pools of blood were found on the beach, but there was no body to be found.
A few months later two local farmers saw a strange figure in the vicinity of Whimpwell Street. Dressed in sailor’s clothes and clutching a rough brown sack to its chest, it seemed to be walking but had no legs, and its head was dangling down its back attached only by a few thin strips of flesh. When it reached the village well it started to climb in, then suddenly disappeared.
The apparition was seen several times and the village council finally decided to investigate the well. A man was lowered into it and found a sack containing a pair of legs.
After this the well was drained and a larger sack was found. Inside was a rotting torso in sailor’s clothes. Hanging from its neck, by some decomposing strips of flesh, was a skull.
Each time the well has been disturbed the Happisburgh Torso has walked. It has been seen several times moving from the shore towards the coast road with its head bouncing down its back.
Happisburgh has another ghost – he is an eighteenth-century coastguard who walks along the front, laughing.
DEREK’S TIP
A thermometer is a must for any serious ghost hunter as it will then be possible to detect subtle fluctuations in the temperature of a room.
The Lantern Man at Thurlton
Marsh gas, or the will o’ the wisp, is common in the flat lands of East Anglia and has been personified as the Lantern Man. He is said to lure people to their deaths by drawing them to his light and then drowning them in thick mud and water.
At Thurlton, a village to the south of the river Yare, a gravestone to the north of All Saints’ church tells of the death of wherryman Joseph Bexfield at the hands of the Lantern Man in the nineteenth century. He would take his wherry up and down the Yare between Norwich and Great Yarmouth and would often tie up for the night at Thurlton Staithe, halfway between the two, and stay at the White Horse Inn. On 11 August 1809 he was at the inn when he remembered he had left a parcel for his wife on the wherry. It was pitch dark and another of the wherrymen warned him that the Lantern Man would be out and about, but he said he knew the marsh too well to be led astray by any Jack O’Lantern. Days later his corpse was washed up between Reedham and Breydon. People say that on misty nights his ghost wanders the marshes still.
The Battle of Naseby Battlefield
The Battle of Naseby, fought in the open fields between the villages of Naseby, Sibbertoft and Clipston in Northamptonshire, was the decisive battle of the English Civil War. It started at about 9 o’clock in the morning on 14 June 1645 and lasted about 3 hours. The Royalist army numbered about 12,000 men, the Parliamentarians 15,000. The Royalists were routed and only about 4,000 escaped the field, most of whom were either cavalry or senior officers.
On the anniversary of the battle, two ghostly reenactments take place: a convoy of grim-faced soldiers has been seen pushing carts down an old drovers’ road and the entire battle has been seen taking place in the sky above the site, complete with the sounds of men screaming and cannon firing. For the first century or so after the battle villagers would come out and sit on the nearby hills to watch it.
Grid Reference: SP684799 (468490, 279990); OS Landranger map:141; OS Explorer map: 223. The battlefield is easily accessible via minor roads, though there are few rights of way.
The Norfolk Broads
The shallow waters of the Norfolk Broads are the result of medieval digging for peat. Nowadays they are a popular venue for boating and fishing. Reed-fringed Oulton Broad in Suffolk, the southern gateway to the Broads, is one of the finest yachting lakes in Britain.
Hickling Broad
Hickling is the largest of the Broads. It is a very popular spot for sailing and for fishing from boats, especially for rudd, tench and bream. The three Hickling villages – Hickling village, Hickling Green and Hickling Heath – lie to the north of the broad.
One winter during the Napoleonic Wars a poor drummer boy from Hickling home on furlough fell in love with the daughter of a rich man in Potter Heigham. Her father disapproved of the match, so the lovers met secretly in a small hut at Swim Coots in the marsh on the Heigham side of Hickling Broad. Each night the drummer boy would skate out across the frozen broad, beating on his kettledrum to let his lover know he was coming. Then one night the drum fell silent – the boy had fallen through the ice and drowned. Since then, however, he has often been seen on February evenings, skating along and beating his drum.
Ranworth Broad
Ranworth Broad is haunted by the ghost of Brother Pacificus, who was a monk at the nearby St Benet’s Abbey, a Benedictine monastery built in 816. In the 1530s he was restoring the rood-screen in Ranworth church and would row across from the abbey every day with his dog. One summer’s evening when he arrived back at the abbey he found that it had been pillaged by Henry VIII’s troopers and that many of the monks were dead. For many years afterwards he lived as a hermit in the abbey ruins. He is buried in Ranworth churchyard, but occasionally at dawn a monk in a black habit can still be seen rowing across the broad in a small boat with a dog sitting in the bow.
The ruins of the abbey are also haunted by a monk. At the time of the Norman Conquest, he betrayed his brethren and handed the abbey over to William the Conqueror’s soldiers in exchange for the promise that he would be made abbot. He was indeed made abbot – and then nailed to the bell tower door and skinned alive by the Normans. Every 25 May he can be seen hanging there and it is said that his screaming can still be heard at other times. Very little remains of the abbey today, but it can be visited either by river or by walking across the fields from Ludham. It lies close to the confluence of the Ant and the Bure and the remains of a windmill can be seen in the ruins of the gatehouse.
According to legend, the marshes near Ranworth Broad also see the reappearance of the Devil himself. In the eighteenth century the Old Hall, Ranworth, was the home of Colonel Thomas Sidley. He was a huntsman notorious for his hard drinking and debauchery. On New Year’s Eve 1770, at the biggest meet of the season, he challenged a neighbour to a race. Unfortunately he fell behind and it was soon obvious that he was going to lose. Undeterred, he calmly shot his opponent’s horse. The rider fell and broke his neck.
Later that night the colonel was celebrating his win over dinner at the Old Hall when he was interrupted by the arrival of a stranger, who threw him across his saddle and rode off into the stormy night. He was never seen again and it was claimed that it was the Devil himself who had carried him away. Every New Year’s Eve it is said that he can be seen riding across the marshes with the colonel still slung across his saddle. The Old Hall has since been demolished.
The Old Ferry Boat Inn
The Old Ferry Boat Inn at Holywell, on the River Ouse, is one of the oldest in England, having originally been built in Anglo-Saxon times. The ‘holy’ well in the village is said to have provided Boadicea with fresh drinking water and is supposed to cure blindness.
The Old Ferry Boat is haunted by the ghost of Juliet Tewsley, who was born in the eleventh century. She fell in love with a local woodcutter, Tom Zoul, who did return her love but preferred to play ninepins with the other village lads than spend time with her. Juliet became more and more miserable as a result and one day, while Tom was drinking with his friends, she hanged herself from a willow tree beside the river. As a suicide she was not allowed to be buried in consecrated ground, so instead she was buried at a crossroads near the river with a stake through her heart and a slab of grey stone over her grave.
When the Old Ferry Boat was rebuilt, the new building was constructed on top of the grave and the stone slab became part of the flooring of the new pub. Since that time Juliet has often been seen rising from her grave and floating towards the river on 17 March, the anniversary of her death, which is known locally as Juliet’s Eve. Mysterious music has been heard coming from the bar on that date, but it can only be heard by women.
The Old Ferry Boat Inn, Back Lane, Holywell, St Ives, Cambridgeshire PE27 4TG; Tel: (01480) 463227; Website: www.oldferryboat.com
There are seven rooms, all with en-suite facilities, and a restaurant serving both traditional and more exotic food.
The Old Hall Inn
The seventeenth-century Old Hall Inn stands a short way away from the shore at Sea Palling, Norfolk. It was formerly a farmhouse; today it is a traditional public house with two bars, an à la carte restaurant, a lounge, family dining area, beer garden and several guest bedrooms.
On several occasions the figure of a woman in grey clothing has been seen sitting on a window ledge in the television lounge and a drop in temperature has been recorded.
From time to time an inexplicable bluish shadow has also appeared and there has been the smell of strong tobacco. A manager’s wife once saw a ‘column of grey smoke’ move across the dining room towards the kitchen. This was observed on two later occasions by other witnesses.
Another of the live-in managers was often aware of a ‘presence’ in her flat. It seemed friendly and to delight in playing tricks – she would return to her ‘empty’ flat to find ornaments had been turned round and her teddy bear turned over on the bed.
In May 1975 and October 1976 a team of researchers from the Borderline Science Investigation Group investigated the inn and concluded that genuine paranormal phenomena had ‘probably’ occurred.
The Old Hall Inn, The Coast Road, Sea Palling, Norfolk NR12 0TZ; Tel: (01692) 598323; Website: www.seapalling.com/oldhallinnmain.htm
DEREK’S TIP
If using an EMF meter in your investigation, attempt to locate any electrical wiring or equipment on the premises you have chosen, as these will adversely affect the readings of such meters.
Oliver Cromwell’s House at Ely
Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658), Lord Protector of Great Britain, was born on 25 April 1599 at Huntingdon, the son of a country gentleman. After his marriage in London in 1620 he and his family lived first in Huntingdon and then in St Ives before moving to Ely in 1636.
The house was originally built in the thirteenth century. Between 1843 and 1869 it was an inn, the Cromwell Arms, and it is now a historic house dedicated to Cromwell.
Cromwell led the New Model Army to victory against the Royalists in the Civil War, then the Irish in 1649 and the Scots and Charles II in 1651. After dissolving the ‘Rump Parliament’ in 1653, he became Lord Protector. He was offered the crown in 1657, but refused it.
Although Cromwell died in London and his ghost is said to haunt Red Lion Square (see page 76), it may still return to his old home in Ely. There have been many paranormal events at the house. In 1998 a guide at the Tourist Information Centre was there when he felt a draught around his feet and realized his shoelaces were undone. In itself that wasn’t particularly unusual, but every time he retied them, it happened again.
In 1979 a couple spent the night in what is now known as the haunted bedroom. During the night, the woman woke up and seemed to be in the same room but at a different time. She realized the doorway was in a different place. Then she felt her arm gripped by a large powerful man, who seemed distracted and was muttering to himself. The vision faded, but when she found herself back in her own time, the marks on her arm were still visible.
In 2003 the Cambridge Paranormal Group carried out two investigations at the house and picked up impressions of several spirits.
Oliver Cromwell’s House, 29 St Mary’s Street, Ely, Cambridgeshire CB7 4HF: Tel: (01353) 662062. Open daily all year, except Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.
There are videos, exhibitions and period rooms, with costumes and helmets to try on, and a gift shop. The House is also home to Ely’s Tourist Information Centre.
The St Anne’s Castle
Saint Anne’s Castle in Great Leighs, Essex, is one of the oldest pubs in England, with parts dating to the twelfth century.
The pub is associated with the legend of a local witch, Anne Hughes, who was executed in 1621 on Scrap Faggot Green (‘scrap faggot’ is an old Essex term for ‘witch’) and buried at the crossroads there with a stake through her heart and a heavy boulder on top of the grave to stop her spirit from finding its way back to the village. However, during the Second World War, American artillery trucks needed to pass through Great Leighs and moved the boulder. After that the witch apparently haunted the village and pub. One of her pranks was said to be swapping over the hens and ducks belonging to two local men during the night. A ghostly black cat which has been seen by several people over the years may belong to her.
A previous landlord of the pub had trouble with a storeroom which he could not keep tidy because items would be strewn around when no one was there. His dogs would not enter it, but the cat would. At that time drayman delivering supplies to the pub and a young girl visiting it both reported seeing a ‘thing’ that so upset them that they refused ever to cross the threshold again.
The current landlady has joined a ghosthunting group in an effort to learn more about the ghosts who are haunting her pub and has found out that there are a lot of them there, including a little girl with long blonde curly hair who likes cooking, a little boy who plays with her, several unfriendly monks, a woman called Elizabeth who walks around in her wedding dress, looking out of the window, and a man who sits in the bar smoking a pipe.
A ghost with a tragic story is that of George Harry Benfield, who lived in the village in the nineteenth century. He had five children, but found out that his firstborn, a son named Thomas, was his brother’s child. Horrified, he killed both his wife and son by tying a piece of rope around their necks, fixing it to a piece of wood and turning the wood until their necks broke. He was later tried and hanged in Chelmsford.
As well as all these ghosts, a variety of paranormal activity has been reported in the pub, with electrical equipment turning itself on and off of its own accord and items going missing and then turning up again exactly where they had been left. One room in particular has an overpowering feeling of death and sadness. It is no exaggeration to say that the St Anne’s Castle is one of the most haunted pubs in England.
The St Anne’s Castle, Main Road, Great Leighs, Essex CM3 1NE; Tel/Fax: (01245) 361253; Website: www.stannescastle.co.uk. Open all day every day.
Live music at weekends and an open mike night the first Tuesday of the month. Freshly cooked bar food and a takeaway service every lunchtime and evening.
The Triangular Lodge
The Triangular Lodge at Rushton, Northants, is a highly unusual building. Everything about it is linked to the number three. It has three 33-foot walls, each with three trefoil windows and three gables, and there are three storeys rising to a three-sided central chimney.
The lodge was designed and built by Sir Thomas Tresham between 1593 and 1597. He was a staunch Catholic and as a result was imprisoned for 15 years by the Elizabethan Protestant government. During his prolonged captivity he covered his cell walls with letters, dates, numbers and religious symbols, and on his release in 1593 he began to design the Triangular Lodge as a covert testament to his faith. All of its features – emblems, dates, gargoyles, shields and biblical passages – are said to relate to the Holy Trinity and the Catholic Mass. Thomas’s son Francis was one of the Catholics later involved in the Gunpowder Plot.
Legend has it that a secret tunnel leads from the lodge and when it was discovered the owner of the lodge offered a large sum of money to anyone who would go down and investigate it. A gypsy fiddler took up the offer, but had only gone a few yards, playing his fiddle as he went, when the tunnel collapsed. Some say he died there, but others say that after a while he arrived in Australia. Either way, the sound of his ghostly fiddle has been heard coming from the ground!
The Triangular Lodge, Nr Rushton, Northants NN14 1RG; Tel: (01536) 710761 or (01536) 205411; Website: www.english-heritage.org.uk
The lodge lies a mile west of Rushton on an unclassified road and three miles from Desborough on the A6. Parking is limited. Open Thursdays–Mondays 1 April–31 October 10 a.m.–5 p.m. No unauthorized visits at other times.
The White Hart Hotel
The White Hart Hotel is situated in the centre of medieval Lincoln, between the eleventh-century cathedral and the Norman castle. There has been an inn on this site since 1460 and the oldest part of the current building, the east wing, was built in 1710. The hotel has had many illustrious guests over the years, including the then Prince of Wales, who had lunch there in 1925, and the Yeomen of the Guard, who stayed at the hotel when the annual Maundy Thursday ceremony took place in Lincoln cathedral. More recently, the cast and crew of The Da Vinci Code stayed at the hotel while filming scenes in Lincoln cathedral.
There are several ghosts at the White Hart. The former stables, now the Orangery restaurant, are haunted by a highwayman who came to grief when a coachman thrust a torch into his face. Now he can be seen hiding his face in a cloak. The Orangery is noted for being unusually cold.
Another ghost is a young girl known as ‘the Mobcap Girl’. She was a hotel maid who took the fancy of the hotel’s ratcatcher. When she spurned his advances, he murdered her. She has since been seen cowering on the first-floor landing.
One of the hotel rooms was also the scene of an untimely death when a guest committed suicide there one Bank Holiday in the 1960s. A sad atmosphere pervades the room to this day and ghostly crying has been heard there.
Several of the hotel staff have seen an elderly lady in period costume walk down one of the corridors and disappear. In another corridor several people, including the duty manager of the hotel, have had the uneasy feeling that they were being followed, but turned to find no one there.
The White Hart Hotel, Bailgate, Lincoln LN1 3AR; Tel: (01522) 526222; Fax: (01522) 531798; E-mail: reservations@whitehart-lincoln.co.uk; Website: www.whitehart-lincoln.co.uk
The hotel runs ghost tours for conference guests.
Wicken Fen
Wicken Fen is one of the last remaining undrained parts of the fens. It is Britain’s oldest nature reserve and celebrated its centenary in 1999. It is a haven for wildlife – over 200 species of bird, 1,000 species of moth and butterfly, 1,000 species of beetle, nearly 2,000 species of fly, 29 species of mammal and 25 species of dragonfly have been recorded there. Charles Darwin collected beetles there in the 1820s and today 40,000 people visit the fen each year.
The fen is also visited by the ghosts of days gone by. To the north, where today Spinney Abbey Farm stands, there was once an Augustinian priory, and occasionally the sound of chanting monks can still be heard drifting across the fens. One of the monks can sometimes be seen on the path leading to the fen in the early hours of the morning. He is believed to be one of three canons who stabbed the prior, William de Lode, to death in the priory church in 1403. He wears a brown habit with the hood firmly pulled down over his face.
The flickering lights of the Lantern Man (see page 32) can also be seen between the farm and the bank leading to the fen.
Roman legionaries have been reported to loom up suddenly out of the fen and phantom armies have been heard.
The most sinister ghost to haunt the fen, however, is a huge black dog with enormous eyes. According to legend, anyone who sees it will soon be dead!
Wicken Fen National Nature Reserve, Lode Lane, Wicken, Ely, Cambridgeshire CB7 5XP; Tel/Fax: (01353) 720274; Website: www.wicken.org.uk
Wicken Fen lies south of the A1123, three miles west of Soham and nine miles south of Ely.
The visitor centre and café are open Tuesdays–Sundays and Bank Holiday Mondays. The fen is open daily, apart from Christmas Day, from dawn to dusk. Some paths are closed in very wet weather.
Formal education programmes and special events take place on a regular basis.
The World’s End
The World’s End pub stands in the small village of Ecton, halfway between Northampton and Wellingborough on a former toll road. The village was listed in the Domesday Book, when it was known as Echentone.
The inn was originally built in the seventeenth century and called the Globe. Royalist prisoners may have been kept in a paddock nearby after the Battle of Naseby in 1645 (see page 33), which may be how it got its new name. Until recently the inn sign showed a man on a horse rearing over an abyss. The present building dates to about 1765.
Numerous stories link the artist Hogarth (1697– 1764) with the World’s End. It is rumoured that he once painted the inn sign but that it was stolen. It is definitely known that he visited the village and painted the portrait of a local landowner, John Palmer.
The village is also connected with the former US President Benjamin Franklin. His ancestors lived there for over 300 years and many of them were the village blacksmiths. Thomas and Eleanor Franklin, Benjamin’s uncle and aunt, are buried in the churchyard.
The World’s End is said to be haunted by a barmaid called Angel who worked there in the seventeenth century. She had a suitor, John, who killed her in a fit of jealous rage. Apparently he also haunts the premises, but the two spirits can’t find each other!
The road outside the World’s End, the A4500 between Northampton and Wellingborough, is also haunted. A nun appears there at midnight on Halloween.
The World’s End, Ecton, Northants, NN6 0QN; Tel: (01604) 414521
