Autumn -Thematic Photography

Carmi sets us an autumn theme each year and I can never attempt to match the colour of the trees in a North American fall.

The next day the leaves have gone but elsewhere there is fun a guy can have.

Fungi - not ice cream

A day later,  colours are obscured and sheep appear like ghosts out of the fog.

Although this is a post to link to Thematic-photographic-386-autumn later this week it will also link to Good-fences-136.

Take a Bath with a ghost or two - Sepia Saturday.

Well! What were my first thoughts when I saw the picture theme for this week?

I considered Mother Skipton and the spring that was discovered at Knaresborough, Yorkshire. The spring has exceptionally high mineral content such that any object placed into the waters' flow will turn to stone within days.

However it's the historic city of Bath with its Roman ruins and Regency Architecture that will be the subject of this post. Bath Spa is world famous for its Roman Baths.

The Roman Baths at Bath Spa

(Photo by David ILiff. License CC-BY-SA 3.0)

A city as old as Bath has some phantom visitors including the 'Man in the Black Hat' said to be the ghost of the first Governor of New South Wales.

Arthur Phillip - Founder & First Governor of NSW

(Projec Gutenberg eText - The Naval Pioneers of Australia)

Admiral Sir Arthur Phillip was on board the Sirius which led the First Fleet to transport convicts from England to Australia. After an eight month voyage the fleet land at Botany Bay in January 1788 to establish the penal colonies.

But why should he haunt Bath's Saville Row dressed in 18th century finery including a black tricorne hat? He died there in 1814.

When it comes to architectural masterpieces Bath has the famous Royal Crescent.

The Royal Crescent, Bath

(A panorama of six segments - July 2006 - Photo by David ILiff. License CC-BY-SA 3.0)

I can see plenty of cars, but there is no sign of the ghostly carriage said to appear in the Crescent to commemorate the elopement of the playwright and politician Richard Brinsley Sheridan and his lover from number 11.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

(Engraving from a portrait by Joshua Reynolds)

Sheridan fought two duels with Captain Thomas Mathews over Miss Elizabeth Linley who later became his wife. However there is no evidence of either Sheridan's 'The Rivals' or 'School for Scandal' being performed in the early years of  Bath's Theatre Royal.

The Theatre Royal Bath

(Photo by Michael Maggs - 2007: License CC-BY-SA 2.5)

Here the ghosts of an 18th-century married woman and her lover, murdered by her husband, are said to wander between the theatre and the Garrick's Head, the next-door public house

I may have wandered a bit from the theme but now you may wander over to check out other posts for Sepia-saturday-149 for a taste of healing waters.

Eerie Ewloe Castle

A-Z Challenge 2012 - E

Eerie Ewloe Castle

Ewloe Castle stands on a promontory in North-East Wales near the town of Harwarden, Flintshire. Its position near the English border gave it a strategic control of the road to Chester. Today its ruins are under the control of the Welsh heritage agency (Cadw – pronounced ‘kadu’.)

Ewloe Castle - 2008

The area had earned its place in history even before the castle was built as in 1157 Welshmen led by Owain Gwynedd, the then King of North Wales, nearly killed the English King Henry II at the battle of Ewloe.

Llywelyn the Last began the castle’s construction in 1257, adding to work undertaken by Owain Gwynedd and Llywelyn the Great.

At the outbreak of the Welsh Wars in 1277, Edward I left Chester and established a base at Flint. Although Ewloe may have been occupied by Edward, Flint and Rhuddlan castles were preferred; they could be restocked by sea and that’s why Ewloe went into decline.

Ewloe Castle - East Wing 2005

Stories of ghosts abound at Ewloe. A glowing spectre strolling the ramparts once so startled a dog that it never recovered from the shock and died two days later. Legends say that marching soldiers can be heard in the surrounding woodland. During thunderstorms the singing of a phantom crooner drifts down from the ramparts, loud enough to be audible above the storms.

Hilary Melton-Butchers Castle for D - Dover Castle

Image attribution:

• Ewloe Castle – 2008; by Brian Jorgensen; Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
• Ewloe Castle (east wing) – 2007; by Peter Craine; Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
• Images from the Geograph project collection.

Chillingham Castle and the Radiant Boy

 A-Z Challenge 2012 C

Chillingham Castle and the Radiant Boy

Chillingham Castle is so serene in this picture from Morris’s Country Seats (1880)

Chillingham Castle (1880)

With a name like Chillingham the castle just has to be haunted, doesn’t it?

Chillingham Castle in England’s Northumberland is claimed to be the most haunted in Britain. This 12^th century stronghold was stormed by the Grey family in 1246. In 1298 Edward I stayed at the stronghold on his way to battle the Scots. Chillingham became a castle in 1344 after Edward III granted a licence for it to be crenellated. It remained in the Grey’s possession until in 1933 the last descendants, then the Tankervilles, moved out. In 1983 the ruin was taken over by Sir Humphrey Wakefield whose wife is a member of the Grey family. Visitors can explore the castle and its grounds, restored by the Wakefields, and may even stay overnight to experience for themselves its twisting stone stairways, echoing corridors and creepy dark dungeons.

Chillingham Castle - 2005

The most famous of Chillingham’s ghosts is that of the Radiant Boy. The boy, dressed in blue, found documents intended to help the Spanish defeat the English during the time of the Spanish Armada. The boy’s body was found during 1920’s restoration work along, with fragments of blue cloth, where he had been walled up alive. His finger boned had been worn down where he had tried to scratch his way out.

Sometimes on the stroke of midnight you can hear his heart rending cries of agony and fear. The centre of the cries always emanate from the castle’s Pink room. The noises are usually traced to a spot near a passage cut through a ten-foot wall. As the wails die away, a bright halo of light sometimes appears around an old four poster bed; anybody sleeping in the bed would see the figure of a young boy dressed in blue, approaching them.

For more about castles you may like to follow Hilary’s B - Balmoral Castle, Scotland

Attributions:

• Chillingham Castle in Northumberland from Morris’s County Seats (1880) – public domain.
• Chillingham Castle; By Glen Bowman; Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.

Amberley's Lustful Bishop

A-Z Challenge 2012 - A

Amberley’s Lustful Bishop

Amberley Castle is located in West Sussex, England. It was built as a 12^th century manor house by Bishop Luffa. It was fortified in 1377 when Bishop Reede received a license to crenellate it from Richard II. It then had a stonework enclosure with high curtain walls, towers, a hall and a massive gatehouse. The Bishops of Chichester used Amberley as a fortress.

The castle passed to the Crown and became a royalist stronghold in the English Civil War. Charles II took shelter there after his defeat at the Battle of Worcester in 1651 prior to heading for exile.

Amberley Castle

The castle remained in private hands after its purchase by the Duke of Norfolk. After 1989 it became a luxurious country hotel.

However you will find no mention in the hotel’s literature of the castle’s one time servant girl. Made pregnant by a lustful Bishop, poor Emily, deserted in her hour of need, died in childbirth. Her ghost is said to haunt the kitchens and to return to the top of the battlements from where she had leapt to her death.

Amberley Castle Walls

Attributions:

• Amberley Castle, East Sussex; author Jonathan Day; Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike license 2.0 
• Amberley Castle walls; author Colin Day; Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike license 2.0

Yeats's Haunted Tower

Thoor Ballylee

 (By Dr Charles Nelson - CC A-SA 2.0)

The 16^th century Ballylee Castle stands near the town of Gort in County Galway. The castle originally belonged to the De Burgo (Burke) family before becoming part of the estates of the Earls of Clanrickarde.

William Butler Yeats purchased the castle and its adjoining cottage in 1917, He renamed the property Thoor Ballylee (“Thoor” is Irish for tower.) Yeats and his family lived there during the summer for 12 years.

Ballylee was abandoned and fell into ruin in the 1930s. However it was fully restored for the centenary of Yeats's birth in 1965 when it was reopened as a Yeats memorial and heritage centre.

Ballylee inspired Yeats to write “The Winding Stair” and “The Tower” poem collections. On the first floor of the four-storey tower a steep spiral staircase hewn from stone winds to the upper floors about which he wrote,

"I declare this tower is my symbol; I declare

This winding, gyring, spring treadmill of a stair is my ancestral stair.”

As part of his restoration Yeats had this short verse carved on a slate and embedded into the tower wall.

Yeats's Verse

 (By James Yardley - CC BY-SA 2.0)

 I, the poet William Yeats

With old mill boards and sea-green slates,

And smithy work from the Gort forge,

Restored this tower for my wife George,

And may these characters remain

When all is ruin once again.

Yeats believed in ghosts and thought that the tower was haunted by an Anglo-Norman soldier.

A curator was reluctant to climb the winding stair at the end of a day; she was convinced a spectral form wandered the worn stairway. Her dog frequently appeared terrified of something in the downstairs rooms.

In 1989 a photographer took some pictures in Yeats’s sitting room. When his film was developed there was a ghostly silhouette of what appeared to be a young man standing in front of the camera; no one else had been in the room at the time the photo was taken. It has been suggested that the ghostly boy may have been Yeats’s own son.

Thoor Ballylee

 (By James Yardley - CC BY-SA 2.0)

Haunted Herstmonceux

The facade of Herstmonceux Castle

(By Brian Raine - Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 generic license)

Herstmonceux Castle, in East Sussex, has had a chequered existence and like many of England’s it has it ghosts.

Sir Roger Fiennes, Treasurer of the Household of Henry VI, started building the castle in 1441. It was one of the first major brick buildings and today is the oldest brick building of any note still standing in England.

By 1700 the last Lord Dacre, Earl of Sussex was forced to sell the castle and by the end of the century most of it had been demolished. By the early 1900s it had become a ruin before being reconstructed. In 1946 the estate was sold to the Admiralty and it became the home of the Royal Greenwich Observatory. In 1993 Herstmonceux Castle was acquired by The Queen’s University of Canada; it is now an International Study Centre.

The most famous Herstmonceux ghost is the nine-foot tall Phantom Drummer who frequents the ramparts at night. Some accounts say he was killed at the Battle of Agincourt and ever since his death tattoo can be heard accompanied by showers of blue light from his drum sticks.

Other versions say the drummer is the ghost of an old Lord Dacre who lived secretly in the castle and beat his drum to ward off lovers of his young wife. He applied phosphorous to his face, clothes and drum and appeared round the castle in a drummer’s uniform. His wife became so annoyed she locked him in and left him to die. Unfortunately for her, the sound of his drum could still be heard, frightening her lovers away.

The spectral White Lady seen swimming across the moat at night and standing nearby wringing her hands in torment is believed to be the wraith of a girl from the village. One of Sir Roger's sons had forced his attentions upon the girl; she escaped his clutches by leaping into the moat. Her attacker caught her and dragged her back into the castle. He then assaulted and murdered her.

Visitors to Herstmonceux Castle are now invited take part in a guided tour and become familiar with the stories of the resident ghosts.

Aerial View of Herstmonceux Castle

 (By Welshie - Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 unported license)

Ghostly Jaunts in June

Phantom trains, Cavalier lovers, King Arthur and his knights, a spectral black dog and even a schoolboy ghost are on jaunts in June.

In 1944 an ammunition train with 51 wagons and hundreds of 500lb bombs caught fire and exploded at Soham in Cambridgeshire; every window in Soham was shattered and the station destroyed. Bert Ginbert, the driver survived but the twenty-two year-old fireman, James Knightall and Frank Briggs the signalman were killed instantly. The day before the explosion Knightall is believed to have told the driver that he did not think he had long to live.

On 2^nd June a phantom train is said to run on the tracks at Soham railway station.

***

  

The Civil War has given rise to ghostly cavaliers in more than one location.

Goodrich Castle

(Michael Eccles - CC A-S A 2.0 generic license)

Today Goodrich Castle is a majestic ruin near the River Wye in Herefordshire. A Norman Keep surrounded by a red sandstone square castle with drum towers on the corners it has a natural dry moat. Built in 1806, major upgrades occurred when Edward I was king. By the 16^th century it was unoccupied.

In 1646 during the Civil War it was besieged by the Roundheads led by Colonel John Birch. His niece, Alice, took refuge in the castle with her Royalist lover, Charles Clifford. When attempting to escape the couple died together in the river.

On or near to June 14^th, particularly if it’s stormy, it’s said their cries came be heard and their wraiths be seen, urging a phantom horse into the swollen waters of the Wye. On other occasions, passersby late at night have seen their poignant specters staring sadly from the ruined ramparts.

 ***

In 1980 the caretaker at Hitchin Priory in Hertfordshire was doing his rounds when he sensed that he was no longer alone. He turned round and saw the figure of a woman floating above the stairs at the end of the corridor. He said that the woman was dressed in grey and a short sleeved blouse with a pearl around her neck. The caretaker was so frightened that he refused to go back to the corridor on his own.

One theory has it that the grey lady is the ghost of the sweetheart of a Cavalier named Goring who met his end in the park. At the time of the Civil War Goring was hiding in nearby Highdown House where his betrothed was staying in an attempt to avoid capture by the Roundheads. Goring was forced to flee when the enemy searched the house. He did not get very far and was executed on the spot while his sweetheart witnessed the whole event from an upstairs window.

Now on 15th June every year, the anniversary of his execution Goring’s headless ghost is seen riding on a white horse towards Hitchin Priory. Is the grey lady the ghost of his sweetheart?

Cadbury Castle from Corton Ridge

(Joe D, modified by Jim Campion: CC A-S A 2.5 generic license)

 Between the North and South Barrow, near Castle Cary in Somerset there was an ancient causeway. On 20^th June (Midsummer’s Eve) King Arthur, with a ghostly escort of mounted knights and teams of foot soldiers, follows this route supposedly from nearby Cadbury Castle to Glastonbury. (Cadbury is thought to be Arthur’s Camelot.)

Another legend says that every seven years a door opens in the hillside so that Arthur and his company can leave to feed their horses.

West Kennet Long Barrow entrance

 (Gazimoff: CC A-S A 3.0 unported license)

West Kennet Long Barrow in Wiltshire is one of the many prehistoric monuments that are part of the Avebury complex of Neolithic sites. It is one of the most impressive and well-preserved burial chambers in Britain, as well as being one of the most visited.

On 21^st June, Midsummer’s Day, a spectral black dog is said to appear. Black dogs are a particular feature of English folklore; they were the guardians of graveyards. This claim could be the ghost of such a guardian.

Other sources recount the appearance at sunrise of a priest dressed in white, accompanied by a dog with red ears.

***

St Mary's Church Beaminster

 (Mike Searle; Geograph Project Collection  CC A-S A 2.0 generic license)

St Mary’s Church, Beaminster, Dorset is the place to be on 27^th June to see the ghost of the schoolboy John Daniel, who was murdered there in 1728. He was buried without an inquest as his mother had testified that he suffered from fits.

An account of the Beaminster Ghost Story first appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine in 1774. The apparition appeared in broad daylight and was seen by five children, one of whom never even knew John when he was alive.

The Beaminster School used to be held in a gallery of the church to which there was an entrance from the churchyard. On Saturday 27^th June 1728 twelve children had stayed to play ball in the churchyard after school. Four boys returned to the school to search for old pens when they heard a noise in the church – they concluded that someone was hiding in order to frighten them. A search by all the boys found nothing but as they returned to their sport they heard a second noise in the school. Running round the church they heard the sound of preaching and the singing of psalms – these noises only lasted a short time.

Later one of the boys returned to the school for a book where he saw a coffin on one of the benches. He fetched the others and they thronged the school-door. Five of the twelve saw the apparition of John Daniel, who had been dead for more than seven weeks, sitting some distance from the coffin further in the school. John’s half-brother recognised the apparition and threw a stone at it, whereupon the apparition disappeared.

The lads were examined by Colonel Broadrepp, the magistrate, and based on their descriptions of the apparition and the coffin, the body was disinterred. At a coroner’s inquest a verdict was returned that John Daniel had been strangled. No steps appear to have been taken to bring anyone to justice for his murder.

Scotney Castle

How many of us know that the origin of the saying, “An Englishman’s home is his castle”, was enshrined in law by Sir Edward Coke, first Lord Chief Justice in 1628. In the Third Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England it said, “For a man’s home is his castle and each man’s home is his safest refuge.”

Despite its name I lay no claim to Kent’s Scotney Castle. However it has an interesting past and a ghost which features in this, the next of my ‘ghostly’ blogs. A Jesuit priest, an outlawed smuggler, a faked death, a coffin full of stones, and a murdered tax man take their place in the history of the Castle as well as the ghost.

 

[Picture by Sarah Dawson - PicturesOfEngland.com}

Scotney Castle built in the 14^th century by Roger Asburnham was really a fortified manor house designed to withstand attacks by the French on English towns in the south. The castle became the ancestral home of the Darrell family until it was bought by Edward Hussey in the18th century.

Catholicism was illegal in the 16^th century. Thomas Darrel had added priest holes to the castle to be used for hiding priests fleeing from the state. Father Richard Blount, a Jesuit missionary worked from the castle from 1591 to 1598 and conducted secret services for Catholics in Kent and elsewhere.

At Christmas 1598 Blount’s presence was betrayed. Despite the authorities taking up residence in house and conducting rigorous searches Blount escaped capture. Thanks to a ruse by the servants and aided by bad weather Blount was able to let himself out of his hiding place and swim across the moat. He was never caught.

In the 18^th century Arthur Darrell lived in the castle until outlawed for smuggling. Supposedly he died abroad; his body was returned for burial in 1720. At his funeral it is said that as the coffin was lowered into the grave a tall stranger in a black cloak said to a mourner, “That is me they think they are burying.” The stranger was not seen again.

Did the Darrel fake his own death so he could continue smuggling? In 1924 Arthur Darrel’s iron-studded coffin in the Scotney Chapel at Lamberhurst church was opened by the sexton. The coffin contained nothing but stones.

It’s said that Darrel murdered a Revenue Office who had discovered his secret and threw his body into the moat. The Scotney Castle ghost is described as dripping wet, emerging from the moat and staggering to hammer on the front door.

Is the phantom the spirit of the Revenue man? Or is it Father Blount’s?

Festive Ghosts

Christmas and New Year’s Eve vie with Halloween for ghosts.

Local legend in Dorset concerns a phantom donkey standing on Newton Heath, near Studland. Its owner was robbed and killed while travelling across the heath; the donkey disappeared without trace. The animal returns each year on 22 December in the hope of finding its master.

 Rochester Castle

 (photo by Stephen - www.picturesofengland.com)

Famous ghosts are those immortalised in Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol. Dickens ghost walks through the gravestones in the graveyard at Rochester Castle on Christmas Eve. Dickens loved Rochester throughout his life and wanted to be buried there. In fact he lies in Westminster Abbey. His ghost is said to appear outside the Corn Exchange at midnight, winding the hands on his watch.

Hever Castle

(photo by Sarah Dawson -  www.picturesofengland.com)

On Christmas Eve a ghostly female, thought to be Anne Boleyn, glides across the bridge over the River Eden in the grounds of Hever Castle in Kent. She is also seen under the great oak where Henry VIII courted her.

December 24^th is the time at which a ghost of a monk is to be seen wandering through the ruins of the old Cistercian abbey at Strata Florida, Ceredigion in the north-east of Tregaron.

There is more than one version of why the ghostly ringing of a sunken bell may be heard at Bomere Pool, near Shrewsbury, Shropshire on Christmas Eve. A village once existed where the pool is today.

One farmer persisted in cutting his corn on a Sunday; the whole village was punished for this infringement of the 10^th Commandment by being sunk beneath the waves.

An alternative story says the people gave themselves to godless and riotous living; one year they refused to go to church on Christmas Eve. As a consequence the waters rose and drowned the village and its inhabitants.

Some people claim to hear the voices and cries of children and the church bells still toll in the watery world of Bomere Pool.

More bells but this time from the depths of a lake in Cheshire. Monks removed the bells from Combermere Abbey, near Nantwich when the original abbey was dissolved. The bells fell off the boat in which they were being transported. Now on 24^th December the bells are sometimes heard, often accompanied by sightings of a ghostly monk.

The Tudor mansion, Madingley Hall in Cambridgeshire was built by Sir John Hynde in 1543. The ghost of Lady Ursula, his wife forever walks the Hall wringing her hands in despair. Lady Ursula was distressed at her son’s destruction of the local church of St Ethelreada in Histon to obtain building materials for the Hall. Each Christmas Eve she walks between the Hall and the church.

It was Prince Albert who introduced the Christmas tree to England when he had one set up at Windsor Castle. Albert bought Sandringham House for Queen Victoria and it remains a royal residence today.

Sandringham is known for its Christmas poltergeist. Noisy activity is seen and heard in the servants’ quarters on Christmas Eve and around the Christmas period. Cards are strewn around; footsteps heard and unpleasant presence felt. Staff have felt uneasy to be alone in the footman’s corridor.

Festive Ghosts will be continued with that of Thomas à Becket and the ghosts of New Year’s Eve in a later  post.

Occult October

Warwickshire is the place to be on October 23^rd for the re-enactment of the sights and sounds of the Battle of Edgehill, The battle in 1642 was the first of the Civil War and apart from clearing the way to London for Charles I the battle was indecisive. About a 1000 lives were lost and 2- 3000 wounded.

A month after the battle shepherds witnessed what they believed to be another battle - cavalry, gun smoke, beating drums and screams of the wounded.

The battle was re-enacted again on Christmas Eve. When reports of this event reached the King, he sent six army officers to investigate. They spoke to witnesses who were said to have seen the event twice, including one who had fought at Edgehill and recognised some of the spectres. A pamphlet from the time described what happened as, “A great wonder in heaven showing the late apparitions and the prodigious noyse of war and battles, seen at Edgehill, near Keinton…” Over time the spectral battle ceased to be reported although in the 1940s a local schoolmaster reported that the ghostly phenomenon was a common occurrence in the area around the field.

However as a result of King Charles’ Royal Commission, the Public Records Office officially recognises the Edgehill ghosts. No other British phantoms have this distinction.

The Mermaid Inn in Rye, Sussex is reputed to be Britain’s most haunted pub. One of the many haunting experiences there is a ghostly duel with swords said to be re-enacted on 29^th October. The fight ends with one swordsman plunging his rapier into the chest of the other. He drags the body into the corner of the room, opens a trap door and disposes of the body under the floorboards, before disappearing.

In Lydiard Milicent, Nr Swindon, Wiltshire the ghost of Lady Blunt returns to the garden of the manor house on 30^th October – the anniversary of the date on which she witnessed the murder of her betrothed over two centuries ago.

For Halloween you have many ghosts to choose from - a huntsman and hounds at Civiger Gorge near Burnley; a phantom dog and the pealing of bells at Armboth Fell in The lake District; a ghostly monk walking in the chapel ruins at Minsden, Hertfordshire. But it’s Netley Abbey, next to Southampton Water that warrants a special mention.

[By Daphne Grant     www.picturesofengland.com ]

Thomas Gray once described the Abbey as: 'Pregnant with poetry ... one need not have a very fantastic imagination to see spirits at noon-day' but was it all imagination'

At Halloween it’s the ghost of, Blind Peter, a Cistercian monk that takes centre stage. The curse of Netley Abbey is dates from the time of the dissolution of the monasteries and when Blind Peter became the guardian of the Abbey’s treasure. A man named Mr Slown attempted to find the treasure and started to dig a hole. Moments later he ran out screaming and collapsed from a heart attack, his dying words, “For God’s sake block it up.” He had been frightened to death.

The influence of Netley Abbey on Robert Walpole, Thomas Gray, the artist Turner and Constable is described along with history, ghosts and all, can be seen at: http://www.southernlife.org.uk/netley_abbey.htm

It has even been argued that the Abbey inspired Jane Austen to write her spoof Gothic novel, Northanger Abbey, whilst on a picnic with her niece Fanny Knight and other family members.

In Northanger Abbey Catharine Morland observes, “As they drew near the end of their journey, her impatience for the sight of the Abbey....returned in full force, and every bend in the road was expected with solemn awe, to afford a glimpse of its mossy walls of grey stone, rising amidst a grove of ancient oaks, with the last beams of the sun playing in beautiful splendour on its high Gothic windows.”

August Hauntings

Essex, Northumberland and Bedfordshire are the location for our August ghosts.


Let's start, not with an Essex girl, but with the sounds of crying and wailing in despair reported on both the 11th and 22 August at Beeleigh Abbey, Near Maldon. Sir John Gates was held at the Abbey to await his execution which took place at Tower Hill on 22nd June 1553.

Beeleigh Abbey was built in 1180 for the White Canons. Henry VIII granted the Abbey to Sir John in 1540. Sir John was a supporter of Lady Jane Grey who became the nine-day queen. When Queen Mary [Bloody Mary] came to the throne supporters of Lady Jane were not deal with kindly. Sir John was beheaded; it took three strokes of the axe to do the deed.

The biography of Sir John Gates may be seen at: www.tudorplace.com.ar/Bios/JohnGates.htm

On 15th August at Rock in Northumberland a grey lady may be seen walking from South Charlton to Rock on the anniversary of the death of her husband. Now she really takes her life in her hands as she has to cross today's A1. She is thought to have been a former occupant of Rock Hall. I have been unable to find more detail about this haunting. Rock Hall, an 18th century house, is now a school at Rennington, near Alnwick.

A phantom woman, dressed in black, believed to be the nun, Berta Rosata, is seen at Chicksands Priory in Bedfordshire on the 17th before she disappears through a wall.

Chicksands Priory is mentioned in the Doomsday Book in 1086. The Gilbertine Order took up residence in 1147. The Priory became a refuge for Thomas a Becket from the wrath of Henry II. Berta Rosata was the nun, pregnant by one of her superiors, who was bricked up alive in one of the walls; the last brick was not put into place before she had been forced to watch her lover being beheaded.

Chicksands was to play an important part in WWII when it received signals later decoded at Bletchley Park where the codes for the German enigma machines were decoded. Officers and civilians at RAF Chicksands reported seeing more than one phantom nun. After the war Chicksands became an American airbase; now it is a secret intelligence base for the British Military.

The history of Chicksands may be found at www.sheffordtown.co.uk/chicksands-history

Hauntings in July

A priory church in London, a castle in Norfolk, two battlefields - one in Somerset, one in Scotland -are the locations for ghosts this month.

Around 7 o'clock in the morning is the time to be in London's oldest parish church. At that time on each 1st July the ghost of the founder of the original monastery and hospital, built in 1123, is said to walk in the Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield.

Rahere, a favourite courtier (some sources say, a jester) of King Henry I, fell ill on a pilgrimage to Rome. He vowed that if he recovered he would ‘erect a hospital for the restoration of poor men.' He then saw a vision of St Bartholomew who commanded him to build a priory church as well as a hospital at Smithfield. When he died in 1145, Rahere was buried inside the church.

His tomb was repaired in the 19th century when his body was found to be well preserved with even his clothes and sandals intact. After his tomb had been sealed one of the church officers fell ill and confessed that he had stolen one of the sandals. It was never returned to the foot of the owner, and since that day Rahere has haunted the church. His shadowy, hooded figure appears from the gloom and brushes past witnesses before fading slowly into thin air.

In the mid 20th century a Reverend Sandwich, showing two ladies round the church, sighted a monk standing in the pulpit delivering a sermon to an unseen congregation. No sound could be heard; the two ladies were quite unaware of the ghostly apparition.

In May 1999, the security company informed the verger early one morning that the alarms inside the church were going off. The verger searched the building but the church was empty, He had switched off the lights and was about to leave when he heard slapping footsteps down the central aisle. When he called out the footsteps stopped for a moment before continuing along the aisle. He locked the doors and called the police. Their search found no windows or doors open; there was no sign of anyone in the building. When the security company's engineer came to check and reset the alarms he found that only the central beam that passes Rahere's tomb had been broken. Whatever, or whoever, was responsible had managed to simply appear at the centre of the church. It was then that the verger remembered that the footsteps sounded like the ‘slip-slap' of sandals.

A seemingly tragic enactment takes place on the 3rd July at the ruins of Burgh Castle in Norfolk. A body, or what appears to be a body, shrouded in a white blanket or flag is flung from the ruins onto the foreshore. The real life origin of the presumed death is not known.

I have only established one source for this story but there is more than one account of ghostly galleons seen approaching the shore overlooked by Burgh Castle.

The Battle of Sedgemoor in 1685 is said to be the last battle in England. The battle site in Somerset is the scene of ghostly horsemen and troops on 5th July. Voices are said to call out to witnesses over the nearby River Cary, and horsemen gallop silently along. People have reported pockets of cold air, and seeing a white woman glide over the marsh, near where her lover was murdered by Royalists. Sounds of fighting have been heard on the anniversary of the battle.

The battle between the ‘pitchfork' rebels led by the Duke of Monmouth and the army of James II under Lord Faversham, took place on the 6th July 1685. The royalists ruthlessly slaughtered wounded rebel soldiers who survived the skirmish. Monmouth was captured two days later and executed in London. Disembodied voices are heard and the ghostly figure of Monmouth is said to re-enact his attempted escape every year.

The revolt had started in June 1685, when the Duke tried to claim the throne. The Duke mustered support from the Somerset people; they suffered terribly in the aftermath of the battle, during the trails known as the 'Bloody Assizes', presided over by the notorious hanging Judge, Judge Jeffries, who sentenced hundreds of people to death.

The events of the battle and the bloody aftermath left a deep mark upon the local people.

A local lad fighting with Monmouth's army captured after the battle was known in Somerset as an exceptional runner; his captors told him that his life would be spared if he could keep pace with a horse. Although he managed to stay beside their finest horse at full gallop, this feat did not save his life for after the race his captors reneged on their promise and he was put to the sword. His sweetheart devastated by the news of her lover's death drowned herself in the shallow waters of the levels, her ghost accompanied by the sound of a man and a horse running at full pelt is now said to haunt the levels.

From Somerset we move to Pitlochry in Perth and Kinross, and to the Pass of Killiecrankie. On 27 July 1689 this was the scene of a bloody battle between the government troops of William of Orange and Jacobite Highlanders supporters of the deposed King, James VII of Scotland (James II of England), commanded by Viscount John Graham of Claverhouse, better known as "Bonnie Dundee".

The battle site is said to be haunted, the whole scene replaying in all its gory details with young highland women picking over the corpses for valuables. Other witnesses have reported ghostly soldiers at the site. The haunting is said to be more intense on the anniversary of the battle. A dull red glow bathes the area and people have been startled by the sudden appearance of ghostly troops, marching through the ravine in the fading light of day; others have heard the distinct volley of muskets, firing in the air close-by them, and one woman looked up from a picnic to see the phantom forms of dead soldiers lying on the ground!

During the battle, the government troops dazzled by the sun watched as a screaming avalanche of tartan swept down the slopes of the gorge towards them. A government soldier named Donald Macbear, took one look at the advancing hoard and ran for his life. Reaching at the rocky shore of the River Garry, he escaped by jumping 18 feet to its opposite bank, leaving his pursuers gazing in astonishment across the gap, which is still known as "Soldiers Leap."

As if this was not enough, the area is also haunted by the drifting head of a woman murdered on the site during the seventeenth century, and a tall white spectre who tries to grab people passing along the roads; anyone the ghost touches dies within the year!