Haunted London (14 page)

Hurrying to St James’s Palace she was surprised to find Madame de Beauclair seemingly in the best of health and still more surprised when her friend told her that she had been visited by her dead companion, the Duchess of Mazarin, and knew that she would soon be dead herself. The ghost of the Duchess had apparently walked round the bed of Madame de Beauclair, ‘swimming rather than walking’, and had stopped beside an Indian chest and said, ‘with her usual sweetness’, ‘Between the hours of twelve and one tonight you will be with me.’ Having made this grim prophecy the apparition vanished. The midnight hour was close at hand and, even as the clock began to strike the hour, Madame de Beauclair exclaimed suddenly, ‘Oh, I am sick at heart!’ and about thirty minutes later she was dead.

ST JAMES’S PARK

Nearby St James’s Park has several ghosts, the best-known being the figure of a headless woman who walks between the Cockpit Steps and the lake in the park. The ghost was first reported by Coldstream Guards, quartered nearby at Wellington Barracks, early in the last century. Some twenty years before the figure was seen, a sergeant at the barracks murdered his wife and threw her headless body into the canal, which then ran through the park. That some inexplicable figure was seen seems indisputable for investigation into the affair, including statements taken down at the time and subsequently sworn before a magistrate at Westminster, are still available for examination. Two of the statements are curiously dissimilar yet not conflicting.

One of the Coldstream Guardsmen testified that he was on duty one night (3 January) when, at about 1.30, he saw a headless figure seemingly rise from the ground about two feet away from him. Although much alarmed, he was able to observe the dress worn by the figure. It was a red-striped gown with red spots between the stripes, and he further noticed that part of the dress and the figure appeared to ‘be enveloped in a cloud’. After about two minutes the figure disappeared. Another man testified that he was on guard duty one night when he heard a ‘tremendous noise’ and a feeble voice calling faintly, ‘Bring me a light! Bring me a light!’ The sentry responded, but received no answer to his offer of help. A few moments later, noises, like window-sashes being lifted hastily up and down, sounded in different places at the same time. This, it was stated, could not possibly have been due to one person. A civilian witness reported that he had seen a woman wearing a red and white dress running towards the park from the Cockpit Steps one foggy night and another late traveller, in a distraught condition, reported that he had narrowly missed running down a woman who ran across the road near the Cockpit Steps. The woman didn’t seem to have a head and her dress appeared to be white but spattered with blood. A number of other people, soldiers and civilians, have heard strange noises that they have been unable to account for during the hours of darkness in the vicinity of Birdcage Walk. Some have likened the sounds to running footsteps. Occasionally, an unexplained figure in a light-coloured dress is reported to disappear in the direction of St James’s Park.

ST JAMES’S PLACE, SW1

At 19 St James’s Place, in 1864, an apparition was seen by four people. The house had long been the home of Miss Anne and Miss Harriet Pearson, who were devoted to each other. Miss Anne died in 1858 and Miss Harriet lived on in the house by herself for six years. In November 1864, she became very ill while staying at Brighton, and urgently desired to return to her London home. She was brought back and devotedly nursed by her housekeeper, Eliza Quinton. Also in the house at the time were two of her nieces, Mrs Coppinger and Miss Emma Pearson, and her nephew’s wife, Mrs John Pearson. On 23 December, Mrs Coppinger and Miss Pearson went to bed, leaving Mrs Pearson on duty in the sickroom. They left their bedroom door open in case they were called, and the lights burning on the staircase and landing. About one o’clock they both saw a woman go past the open door and into the room where the patient lay. She wore a shawl and black cap. Mrs Coppinger called out, ‘Emma, get up. It is old Aunt Anne!’ and her cousin answered, ‘So it is, then Aunt Harriet will die today.’ Mrs Pearson then came rushing out of the sickroom in great agitation, having also seen and recognised her dead aunt. The three women roused the housekeeper and together they searched the whole house without finding anyone. Miss Harriet Pearson died at six o’clock. Before she died she told them all that she had seen her sister and knew she had come to call her away.

ST JAMES’S THEATRE, KING STREET, SW1 (DEMOLISHED)

The now-vanished St James’s Theatre of King Street, St James’s, was reputed to be haunted by the ghost of an eighteenth century actress — one of the reasons that actor-playwright Emlyn Williams set his play
A Murder Has Been Arranged
in the theatre which had a Roman façade and an interior that resembled the theatre of the Palace of Versailles. St James’s was opened in 1835, so any ghost in eighteenth-century costume must have either been an actress in period dress or some shade from the earlier building that previously occupied the site. This was Nerot’s Hotel, to which Nelson came in 1800 after the Battle of the Nile. There was also an unidentified ghost that touched people in one of the dressing rooms, and actors occupying that particular room sometimes found themselves helped on with their clothes, and occasionally they had the impression that they were being brushed down just before their call — the spectre of a former stage dresser perhaps. I have heard no word of any haunting in the office block that now occupies the site of that lovely little theatre, which is where an operatic burletta written by Charles Dickens was once staged.

The house in St James’s Place where an apparition was seen and recognized by four people independently.

ST THOMAS’S CHURCH, OFF REGENT STREET (DISUSED)

The once fashionable St Thomas’s Church, Regent Street, has, or had, a ghost priest in a black cassock. The church, now approached by way of Tenison Court, was built in 1702 as a chapel of ease to St James’s, Piccadilly, and lost its Regent Street frontage in the 1860s. Closed for several years, in 1972 a firm of architects applied for permission to demolish the church and to replace it with shops, offices, flats, and an underground car park.

Here, where thriller-writer Dorothy L. Sayers was once a churchwarden and Christopher Fry’s 1951 play
A Sleep of Prisoners
was first produced, Prebendary Clarence James May told me he saw a ghost when he was curate at St Thomas’s in the 1920s.

Entering the church one morning in 1921, the assistant priest saw the figure of a man dressed in a black cassock, kneeling before the altar. The young curate thought that it must be a priest who used to be associated with the church and he waited for the kneeling figure to finish his prayers. Presently the figure rose, passed in front of the high altar and disappeared from view. Thinking that the stranger had gone into the sacristy, Mr May decided to make himself known to the visitor. He hurried towards the sacristy door, reaching it, as he thought, immediately after the cassocked priest, but to his astonishment he found the door locked, the key hidden in its customary place and no sign of the strange priest.

Puzzled by the apparent disappearance of the lifelike figure in black, Mr May cast his eyes round the deserted church and slowly walked back towards the altar. As he did so, his footsteps distinctly audible on the flooring of the chancel, he realized that the feet of the unknown priest had made no sound whatever as he had walked towards the sacristy. This fact, coupled with the quite inexplicable disappearance of the figure, convinced Prebendary Clarence May that he had seen a ghost, as he recounted in his book of reminiscences many years later.

Although Mr May never established with any degree of certainty the identity of the black-robed ghost priest of St Thomas’s, he did discover, on very good authority, that a phantom priest had been seen in the church on at least three occasions during the previous twenty years, and the general conclusion was reached that the form was that of a previous rector who had died some twenty years earlier. One is inclined to regret that in the busy underground car park, or the impersonal shops and offices, the silent and harmless figure of a priest in a black cassock will probably pass unnoticed.

VINE STREET POLICE STATION, PICCADILLY

In ancient times, a vineyard existed in Vine Street, off Swallow Street, Piccadilly, which gave the place its name. Now the tiny street houses a grim hundred-year-old police station that is said to be haunted by the ghost of a police sergeant who committed suicide in the cells early last century.

The heavy pounding of footsteps have been heard from deserted corridors and locked cell doors have been found inexplicably opened time and time again. Official papers and documents, especially in one particular office, have been found scattered and disarranged, as though someone has been reading them or searching for something. This has happened when the doors of the office have been locked and it has been impossible for any human being to enter the place. In 1969, a senior police detective stated that he was thoroughly scared by what had been going on at Vine Street Police Station, especially on two frightening occasions when he had felt the unmistakable presence of someone else in the office when, in fact, he was there alone. He had made no official report for fear of being laughed at, but afterwards he was careful not to spend much time in that room unless someone else was there with him. Another police officer heard the heavy footsteps, which he said he would never forget. He found himself listening to the pounding footsteps apparently approaching him along a corridor that he could see was utterly deserted. As soon as he gathered his wits together he ran, but he found that the sounds of heavy footsteps ceased as soon as he moved.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY, WESTMINSTER

There is a strange legend associated with the founding of Westminster Abbey and there have been many reports of ghostly incidents in the 900-year-old building, including the figures of a monk, a First World War soldier, ghostly footsteps and a door that opens by itself. The latter was experienced during a recent visit by a film unit.

The place where Westminster Abbey now stands was once known as the Isle of Thorney and legend has it that a sacred grove among the wild roses and sweet-smelling thyme blossomed into a primitive church centuries before the present abbey was founded. A poor fisherman was casting for the last time in the dying sunlight just off the opposite bank when, as he drew in another empty net, he heard a voice hail him from the shore. The stranger, an old man dressed like a monk, asked to be ferried across to Thorney Island and, once there, to the fisherman’s surprise, the quiet stranger asked him to wait, as he disappeared through the brambles towards the primitive place of worship. After a moment, the fisherman later recounted, the darkness of the little island, 470 yards long and 370 yards wide, was illuminated by a thousand golden lights and he saw choirs of angels descend out of heaven towards the church. His ears were full of the sound of celestial singing and the sweet smell of incense was all around.

Vine Street Police Station where inexplicable footsteps sound in deserted corridors.

The mysterious stranger reappeared and indicated that he required to be rowed back across the river. As he stepped ashore the bewildered fisherman asked him the meaning of his ‘vision’, whereupon the ‘monk’ stated that he was Peter, ‘keeper of the keys of heaven’, and he had consecrated the church. He told the now amazed fisherman to cast his net next day, ‘and you will catch some good salmon — but you must give a tenth to the Abbey of Westminster.’

Next day, the fisherman’s net was full and he dutifully took a tenth of the catch to the abbey and told his story. And he saw for the first time the marks of consecration on the little church: twelve crosses and stumps of candles. Cynics say the story was invented by the monks to enhance the prestige of the abbey and to make sure of their tithe of the river’s salmon, but other people point to the abbey’s red flag of St Peter with its crossed keys of gold and regard it as symbolizing a link between the saintly stranger and the fisherman of long ago.