SHAUGHAN SEYMOUR
A Man in Black
There are ghosts abroad in London. Only natural when you think of the millions who have lived and died here … St Paul’s cathedral, for instance, the remnants of past times buried beneath its floor. Underneath, the foundations of the old St Paul’s, destroyed in 1666, and below those ruins, the palimpsest of a Roman temple. The dust of so much activity and human endeavour compacted in one place. No surprise that some souls may still remain …
18 March 1927
I, GERALD WALKER, Verger at St Paul’s, feel it incumbent upon me to record what happened this evening at St Paul’s. It was after evensong – about five minutes to seven – and I had just completed my duties in the Kitchener Chapel. The altar cloth needed to be renewed, and candlesticks trimmed of wax and polished. Some of the clergy would have been in the cathedral, but at the choir end. As I folded the old altar cloth I had a sense of someone close to me, and as I turned around to face the north wall I saw someone dressed in black robes walking towards me with determined strides. My instinct was to step aside as the person was so close, but there appeared to be no lessening of pace. The figure moved past me, and I had the impression of a bearded grinning face with teeth bared. As the person passed me I could hear a curious tuneless whistle and – there is no other way to explain this – the figure melted into the southeast corner of the chapel. I stood rooted to the spot with astonishment – no door, no window, no recess could have received this shape. It made such a strong impression on me that I decided to speak to the Dean straight away. I called upon him at his lodging in Amen Corner, and he showed me into his study. After I had spoken, he looked at me thoughtfully, his eyes wide with interest. ‘Tomorrow you must show me where this shape disappeared.’
19 March 1927
I met the Dean this morning in the chapel, and I indicated the corner. He walked up to the spot, felt around the stonework.
‘The mortar here is loose,’ he said, ‘and as it happens, we are due to do some restoration next week. But what you witnessed yesterday, others have seen over many years. My predecessors have left accounts in diaries and, in one instance, in the minutes of a Chapter meeting. Now that the Keeper of the Fabric has been given instructions to remove the stones, perhaps we will find an answer.’
28 March 1927
This morning I was called into the chapel by the Dean, and found him standing by a large pile of bricks and Portland stone. Where the stones had been was a wooden door which when opened revealed a spiral staircase winding upwards.
‘It goes to the top of the bell tower,’ he said ‘and no one knew of its existence. It must have been blocked off sometime in the last century.’
‘And the gentleman in black?’ I enquired.
‘Nothing.’
WHERE TO READ THIS
Two quiet locations are the churchyards of St Bartholomew the Great (off Smithfield), and Christchurch Newgate, Newgate Street.
Supping with the Devil
If you walk a short distance from St Paul’s Cathedral to the west, crossing Ave Maria Lane you arrive at Amen Corner. These seventeenth-century houses are the grace-and-favour homes of the Dean and other clergy. In their garden is a long brick wall, all that is left of Newgate Prison, the place of much suffering and degradation, but none so strange as that described by Richard Thomas …
11 November 1609
Lord God give me strength to survive this night. Called this morning to Newgate to witness the confession of a prisoner, I was taken by the Gaoler to a large room on the second floor of the prison. I have over the years, as clerk and scrivener, visited this sad repository many times, and am almost used to the stench and misery. Today I was tried to the utmost. At the door to the cell, a turnkey sat, a cudgel by him. When we came near, he rose and opened the cell. The light being bad, I asked for a candle as I would have need to write. I entered and could dimly see the form of a man in a corner, thin and ragged, as so many are, his complexion grey and wasted. He stared, it seemed, at nothing, and his lips moved as if in prayer. I spoke his name – John Partridge – and he turned his head to mine.
‘I have come to hear you bear witness to your crimes,’ said I, ‘and I will write what you tell, and you will sign.’
He moved his head. ‘I will tell all I have done and seen, and may Christ have mercy on me.’
I called for fresh water to be brought for the prisoner, and set parchment and ink on a joined-stool, and prepared myself.
The prisoner began: ‘I, John Partridge, wish to freely confess my offence of forgery. I knowingly forged a deed of property belonging to William Hart and sold it for twenty pounds. This I confess, and am truly sorry for the offence.
‘What I also wish to confess concerns another matter, of which no Judgement of Man can save me.
‘Three days ago, I, with twelve others was in a room on the lower floor. We had had no easement of irons or any kind of food for two weeks save one loaf of stale bread. We cried out for food, but none was brought. We had even started to eat our garments in the hope of sustenance. One night the door opened and another prisoner was brought in. He fell down on the ground, a man of substance, large, dressed in black. He lay in pain, calling for mercy – he had been under torture. Through his pain, as he laboured for breath, he told me that he had been a doctor, but that he was also a practitioner of the Dark Arts – necromancy – and had fallen in with those who supped with the Devil. He knew his fate was sealed, and he would suffer yet more under the Court. He therefore begged us, weak as we were, to dispatch him – “My life is worth nothing but the Vengeance of the Bishops – take it and do with my body as you will.”
‘We fell into a conclave the other prisoners and me and talked the matter over. We could reach no agreement, and spoke of leaving him to die. But then one of our number, Hugh Downing, crazed with lack of food, shouted, “From the Devil to the Devil,” and taking his length of chain, passed it around the Doctor’s neck and pulled the man against the wall, breaking his spine. He was dead, certain sure, and his body lay by the wall. But the next moment – how can I tell you?! We could see and smell food, meats and cheese and strong wine – starving as we were, we all fell to, and filled our bellies well.
‘This feasting made us sleep, but the next savour that awoke us all was not for Christian appetites. The smells of sulphur and death forced us awake. For where the doctor had lain was blood and bones. Our hands were covered in blood, and our beards stiff with blood also. From the ruins of the body there appeared as in a vision, the shape of a creature; eyes red, chains on its paws, and on its head a writhing mass of snakes. It raised itself on hind legs and walked towards us. We were frozen with fear, and had the sense of lowering spirit, as if our very souls were being taken. I called, “Jesu, have mercy!” and prayed for deliverance. The creature then sank down into the ground. Two of my fellow prisoners were found against the wall, their eyes open with terror, teeth bared, both stone dead. Another was in the corner, stark mad. I understood what had occurred. The doctor had persuaded us, by what magic I know not, to eat his flesh. And so consumed, his spirit returned to take us to Satan. May God have mercy on me, I fear he will return to torment those who doubt and fear and have not made their peace with God.’
Distressed as he was in having told me this terrible story, the prisoner John Partridge signed my record of the conversation and I witnessed it. A few days later he had been sentenced by court and hung, taking his fearful story to the grave.
The Dark Sisters
In our somewhat cynical and scientific age, it is easy to think that the city’s ghosts and other apparitions are only in the long ago past. Not so …
Up close – Haunted London
At night, at the back of Dean’s Yard, in Great College Street, the lamps are alight, some of the 2,000 or so gas lamps that are still working in London. The mantles are incandescent – usually there are three or four in a cluster – and are made using a treatment of cerium and thorium oxide, and are slightly radioactive in fact. They give a romantic gentlemanly glow to the stock brick and flint walls of the Inns of Court, Westminster and Covent Garden. The last lamplighter retired some twenty years ago, though many of the lamps still require their automatic timers to be wound up every few weeks. If you walk down Great College Street, towards Westminster School, there are some ladders chained to a lamppost – these are for the ‘lamp-winder’. The very first gas lights were quite primitive, large tubes that still flare occasionally outside the Reform Club and the Athenaeum on Pall Mall. Later came the ‘fish tail’ or ‘fantail’ lights – like those at the front of the National Gallery.
Wardrobe Court
City of London EC2
13 October 2002
Dear Erica,
Thanks for your letter to the Bank. They have managed to get me a really central set of rooms here in London. I walk to work!! It’s just to the south of St Paul’s, a courtyard of eighteenth-century houses around a yard with trees, divided up into apartments. Real Purty & Olde Worldy! It’s quiet here, especially at weekends. That is, until the ghost walkers come in! Yes, I kid you not, every Saturday night, a group of about twenty or so people come in to the central yard and some guide tells them about its history. Last week I had the window open, and the tour leader was saying that King James I would attend private parties here. He said that as result of the King’s experience here, he became interested in witchcraft. I half-listened to this hokum, and shut the window. That night, I got to bed at about 1.30, but must have woken up an hour or so later, and I could hear some kind of singing in the yard. I thought it might be drunks or soccer fans or something, but it sounded like women. I opened the window real slow, and through the branches, I could see women moving in a circle.
They were wearing quite flimsy clothes, like half a sheet draped round them, and were chanting a song of some kind. I could make out ‘take me, take me’. I have to say I was rooted to the spot, it was so strange. I thought it may be some kind of student prank, or perhaps they were doing a movie; but there were no lights other than what came from my window. I turned my light off, and went back to the window, but now could see nothing and no one.
The next day, I spoke to two other lodgers about it, but they had heard nothing. But now I have learned that the yard was known hundreds of years ago as a place where witches would convene. And that they gathered clad in only shifts, near naked. Further that they move about by means of the effect of a potion they took, one consisting of aconite, soot, the blood of a flitter-mouse (bat), and the blood and flesh of a young child!
What I may have witnessed was a haunting of the Dark Sisters, preparing for sacrifice. Do come and visit soon, I could use the company!
All the best,
Mark
Hog Face
Documentary evidence is sometimes hard to obtain when one investigates tales of hauntings in the City. But in this next case there exists a dossier and press cutting saved from bomb damage in 1940, a file taken from the cellars of the Daily Telegraph building in Fleet Street. The file had the singular title, ‘HOG FACE’ …
Playhouse Yard
London EC
30 September 1856
Sir,
I hope you will forgive my imposition on your time, but circumstances compel me to write to you. As the Freeholder of this property, I feel you should know of what occurred last Friday night. My wife and I were about to take to our bed, when we could both hear heavy footsteps upstairs. In alarm I called out ‘Who’s there?’ but there was no reply. Thinking the noise was just settlement of the boards, we started to ascend. As we did so, the footsteps increased in pace and volume. We were frozen to the spot with terror, and saw, at the top of the stairs, a large shape of a woman, dressed in black. We could only see her body at first, her face was obscured, but as she descended, her features came into view. Now I have seen persons we would consider ill favoured in appearance, but this was ugliness beyond imagining. It was as though a hog or swine had spawned with a human. Around the figure was light, an emanation of light, suffused with blue. My wife Jane cried out, and fell into a swoon. As she fell into my arms, the figure disappeared, leaving my wife unconscious and myself shaken to the core. It was several days before we could bring ourselves to our bed without fear. What have we seen? And have any others witnessed this?
Please reply at your earliest convenience.
I remain, Sir,
Joseph Barret
Chancery House
Gray’s Inn Road
WC
3 October 1856
My dear Mr Barret,
I received your letter on Tuesday last, and was somewhat surprised by its content. I have never received reports of the occurrence you describe. I am what you might call something of a skeptic in matters of religion & etc, but as the freeholder, I felt it necessary to enquire about a matter that has disturbed a tenant of mine. I therefore had words with Mr Trinder, the gentleman responsible for the yard outside, and someone entrusted with the keys from time to time. He said that there had been odd noises coming from the house, but when he entered, no one was present. I will enquire further and inform you if anything unusual comes to my attention. I apologise for the disturbance, and hope Mrs Barret is fully recovered.
Yours,
Edward Dowd
Playhouse Yard
London EC
2 November 1856
Sir,
I have to tell you that my wife and I no longer wish to live at these premises. Last night we had another visitation; the noises from the upper rooms were so loud that our dog, Nelson, was frantically yelping and was trying to escape from the front door, hurling himself against the wood. The figure appeared at the top of the stairs once more, and when I called out ‘Who are you?’ it seemed that odd coughing, grating sounds emanated from it. My wife screamed in terror, and it vanished, just as before.
Sir, this is not a house for Christian souls to live in. We have informed Mr Trinder, and will move out tomorrow. We did not agree to share the house with other tenants. Please send the money owed to us to Child’s Bank, Fleet Street.
Yours,
Joseph Barret
From the London Chronicle:
18 November 1856
We must report that the House in Playhouse Yard, Blackfriars, is vacant once more; tenancies there do seem to be somewhat short-lived. Several residents have complained over many years to the landlord, of strange noises and odd visitations – whether of burglars, bats, or over-zealous chimney sweeps is not clear. However, upon looking through some old accounts at the Guildhall, it seems there is a permanent incumbent. A Parish Letter (St Anne’s) of 1698 states that: ‘The House in Playhouse Yard, built after the Fire, received a Visitor of strange appearance – a woman, large in stature, wrapt in a cloak, was seen upon the upper storey. It may have been that of Tamasin Skinker, late of Saxony, resident here some seventy years ago, refused by her English lovers. Horrid in appearance, hog-faced and unable to speak, but being rich, expected a suitor. Being refused, returned to Germany in anger. Incapable of sensible talk, she is able to grunt and squeak only.’
On Duty Still
On the northern edge of the City is the oldest hospital in the British Isles – St Bartholomews, first founded in 1123 by Rahere, an Augustinian prior. Regarded as a beneficent figure, he started a trade fair at Smithfield to raise revenues for his hospital. It appears he is still on duty …
St Bartholomews Hospital
London EC
12 June 1962
Dear Mr Andrews,
As the Historian of St Bart’s, I thought you might be interested in one or two stories that came to light fairly recently. I was approached by one of the probationers, who said that she had witnessed something rather strange. As she was wheeling her trolley along the first-floor corridor, she sensed a movement to her right, and thought she had seen a rat, or some kind of animal, following her alongside. It was brown, and round, but pale in the centre. She stopped, and the ‘thing’ stopped also. Then it continued slowly, and turned across the corridor. It was, she said, someone’s head! She could see the eyes, nose and ears, and it vanished into a wall. She was a little shaken by this, as you can imagine, but to cap it all at the same time in the ward below a patient saw feet on the ceiling! He called out to the ward sister, and said he had seen sandalled feet walk along the ceiling and disappear. I spoke about this with a couple of the older members of staff, and John Grantham, who has been porter here for over thirty years, said, ‘That’s Rahere’. It would seem that our founder, Rahere, is still around – eight hundred years later, and checking up on us!
Yours Faithfully
Angela Wilson
Matron
No Rest for the Wicked
Another for whom there is no rest …
Snow Hill
City of London Police
London EC 1
3 December 1957
Incident at Newgate Street EC1
PC 625 John Carr
At 0615 on 19 October, a Mr Harold Sweet, working at King Edward St Post Office, having finished his shift, was walking through the bomb site by Newgate Street, reported seeing a woman walk towards him, dressed in a grey blanket, clutching at her chest in some distress. She seemed to him to be in pain, or disturbed in some way, but when he asked her if she was all right, appeared not to hear, and then seemed to vanish into the tower of the ruined church. He called at the station, and asked us about it. I passed by the bomb site on my beat, and decided to investigate. I could see nothing unusual, and no door or sheltering place in the church tower, so thought little more about the matter. However, on 29 October I was on night shift, and patrolling Newgate Street at 04.30, when I noticed movement in the bomb site area. The site is in fact the remains of Christchurch Newgate, a Wren church badly damaged in 1940.
As I stepped over the wire that protects the site, I saw a person dressed in a grey cloak move through the rubble. I called for the person to stop, but they appeared not to notice. I called again, ‘Stop! Police!’ but whoever it was walked towards the church tower and disappeared. I got round to the other side of the tower and vestry, but there was no sign. Back at Snow Hill station I spoke to the Desk Sergeant, Sgt Ryder, and over a cup of tea, he told me about the ruined church.
It turns out that where the church stood, was a monastery in the thirteenth century. The Franciscans or Greyfriars had it until Henry VIII’s time and two queens of England are buried there – Margaret, wife of Edward I, and Isabella, wife to Edward II. Isabella, an attractive French princess, was married to Edward when he was Prince of Wales. But he had a boyfriend favourite, Piers Gaveston, and another lover, Despenser. This didn’t go well with her. She plotted her husband’s downfall and had him murdered ‘by passing a red hot poker through his privy parts’. Her son, Edward III, kept her under house arrest until her death. She had asked to be buried in the monastery in a Greyfriar’s habit, believing that this would get her through the gates of Heaven, no matter how sinful her life had been.
However, when she was eventually interred, they placed the embalmed heart of Edward II in a box on her breast, and it is said that as a result Isabella is unable to enter Heaven, and walks in torment round the church. History knows her as the She-Wolf of France. I wrote my log for the beat later, but didn’t mention any queens or wolves, just ‘woman in grey cloak’. Maybe others will file similar reports in future.