British Ghost
The question of the existence of ghosts
continues to be a controversial one, yet it is not very long ago that the
British Tourist Authority claimed that there were some 10,000 hauntings in
the UK. Ghosts have been accepted since stone age man started drawing
spirits and gods on his cave walls, and the Romans were writing about them
long before they conquered Britain. It is, however, this country that has
more genuine or at least more reports of hauntings than any other.
One of the impossibilities is to provide any estimate of the number of
genuine apparitions in Britain, for the population is always changing and
added confusion is caused by the continuing desire by the popular media to
link phantoms with 'poltergeists'. Over 125 reports of ghostly phenomena
are made every year, and this figure is increasing as more people accept
that ghosts are not necessarily fiction and fewer witnesses are scorned.
A very famous and much publicized case of a multiple haunting on the
borders of Essex and Suffolk was at Borley, but many serious investigators
believe that there were too many doubtful incidents involved for the case
to be accepted as completely genuine. However, there are many others that
appear to be authentic. Berry Pomeroy Castle, in Devonshire, for example,
has been haunted for some 50 years and although the phantom is seldom
seen, many visitors experience an appalling sense of utter loneliness,
dread and, the more sensitive, stark evil in an arch near the gate house.
Occasionally the pitiful crying of a child is heard, and it is believed
that the sound is that of an illegitimate baby murdered by her mother, a
relative of the family responsible for the building of the castle.
What is seldom repulsed is that ghost 'inhabits' any building.
Such modern establishments as the AA headquarters In Nottingham,
constructed in 1958 on a refuse dump, may not appear to be the typical
site for a genuine haunting. Yet ever since an area supervisor collapsed
and died at his desk in 1959, reports have been made of a figure being
seen in the office. So substantial was it on one occasion that a shaft
worker thought the visitor was a motorist needing help until, on asking if
he could help, the spectre just vanished.
Another equally solid apparition was that witnessed by a BEA pilot in
Bramley, Surrey. Several people over many years had seen the ghost of an
old woman walking a twisting country road through Chinthurst Woods, but in
June 1971 the pilot was driving home with his daughter, and seeing the
woman leading a horse, wondered where they were going. His daughter
replied that it was only 'an old horse' and the man realised that she was
unable to see the human figure. A few yards farther on, both phantoms
vanished. This case is unusual insomuch as it is normally the younger
people who see ghosts.
A few yards from the Beatbeech Hill crossroads near Wadhurst, in Sussex, a
narrow lane leads to a secondary road, and on a nearby path to a private
house the ghost of an old man carrying a bulging sack has been seen during
summer evenings. He appears from a front garden, walks along the driveway,
and vanishes on reaching the site of an old gateway. Two explanations have
been offered for this haunting.
Some locals believe the wraith is of a poacher who was shot by an irate
farmer In the 1800's, whilst others feel he is an old tramp who was
discovered m the garden, having fallen from an apple tree. His injuries
were so severe that he was dead on arriving at the hospital.
In the Great Park at Ampthill, in Bedfordshire, another horse in seen with
a white shape, 'like a man', sitting on it's back. The more imaginative
claim the figure is of a knight in full armour. The pair ride from the
castle in the grounds across the park to a small brook, where they vanish.
A more modern and therefore clearer haunting affects the main road close
to the Pack Horse Inn, between Markyate and Dunstable. The cause of the
appearance of this spectre, 'a man about six feet tall dressed in white',
was a severe car crash in 1958. A company cricket team were returning
after a match at Milton Bryan and their van on swerving to overtake
another vehicle, hit an oncoming car, resulting in the death of two
members of the team.
A recently 'reawakened' ghost who has always appeared wearing a wine
coloured dress at 'about three o'clock in the afternoon' is Anna, a
village girl, who glided across Hanover Hill, near Wheelerend Common, in
Buckinghamshire. The story is that she died suddenly 10 days before her
marriage sometime during the 19th century. Tales of her wanderings died
out until the 1940's when her spectre was seen by villagers about 30 times
in 12 months. Her appearances again grew less frequent and now seem to
occur only during December afternoons.
There are many ruined buildings which because of their state are
automatically thought to be haunted, but one that seems to have a genuine
ghost is Blackfriars Priory, in Gloucester. Whilst working on the huge
task of restoring the priory, workmen from the Department of the
Environment have seen the figure of a monk gliding across the cloister
area. A previously unknown 'dungeon' was opened in 1969 and found to
contain the skeleton of a young child, but whether there is some
connection with this and the appearance of the phantom is unknown.
Not only are there spectral animals and humans, but also vehicles which
include coaches, cars, a lorry and even a bus in London. There has even
been a report of a phantom American aircraft silently 'belly-landing' on a
disused airfield in the midlands. Ghostly smells and sounds are as common
as the phantom ladies in grey and in white. Monks in black and in brown,
but what I thought originally to be a unique case, that of a pair of men's
trousers walking through a room in a private house in Surrey, has proved
to be not so unusual. A pair of corduroy trousers were seen in a shop in
Devon, farmer's trousers tied at the knee clomped their way across a
ploughed field one evening in Glastonbury in full view of a couple of
scientists, and a pair of blue jeans have been seen twice in the last 12
months running up the stairs of a farmhouse in Sussex.