Haunted London (24 page)

The old
Cutty Sark
, reminiscent of a picturesque but hard chapter in sea history, sports a fine figurehead, an attribute regarded as embodying the very spirit of the ship and an emblem to protect her and those aboard her from harm and the horrors of the deep.

There are several stories of sailors on the
Cutty Sark
seeing what they took to be phantom ships during her sea life of over fifty years and on these occasions the sailors would hurry towards the figurehead for protection. One account relates that a sailor on his first voyage on the
Cutty Sark
made a model of her in a bottle (objects universally considered unlucky by men of the sea) and exceptionally high seas and bad weather followed the completion of the model. During a storm a score of sailors saw an enormous, five-masted sailing-ship bearing down on them with incredible speed. They hurried to the prow and watched, awestruck and powerless to do anything, as the huge vessel raced towards them. A gigantic wave engulfed the ship when it was almost on top of the
Cutty Sark
and when the wave passed the ship and all trace of it had disappeared. It transpired that at the very moment the ship vanished the sailor who had constructed the model, tired of the pessimism of his companions, had thrown the model overboard.

Visitors today can stand where those frightened sailors stood waiting for the death that seemed inevitable. The phantom ship has been likened to the
Köbenhavn
, the world’s biggest sailing ship, that disappeared on the Australian run in 1924 when the
Cutty Sark
was at Falmouth being used as a training ship.

Until recently,
Gipsy Moth IV
was alongside the
Cutty Sark
, the yacht in which Sir Francis Chichester made his famous single-handed voyage round the world. When I talked with Sir Francis at the Savage Club on one occasion I asked him whether he had encountered anything inexplicable or possibly paranormal during his incredible journey and he told me that he had had one terrifying experience that he had never told anyone about. It was an experience so strange and uncanny that it frightened him to think about it and no power on earth would persuade him to discuss it. I had to be satisfied with that for the time being, and Sir Francis died with his secret still untold.

The Royal Naval College at Greenwich stands on the site of an old royal palace built by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, youngest son of Henry IV. Here, Henry VIII was born, and Mary I and Elizabeth I. Edward VI died at Placentia, ‘the House of Plaisance’ as it was then known, and there ‘bluff King Hal’ married Catherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves and signed the death-warrant of Anne Boleyn. Henry VIII was baptized in Greenwich parish church, the predecessor of the present church where the Danes murdered the venerable Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1012, by splitting open his skull with a bone. The present church is dedicated to St Alphege.

Elizabeth I spent much of her time at Greenwich, sitting at the window or walking in the fresh air on the terrace and a contemporary description tells us that in her sixty-fifth year she was still very majestic, her face fair and unwrinkled, her lips narrow, her teeth black, wearing a red wig and the low-necked dress that was fashionable for unmarried ladies of that period. Such a figure, a small crown on her head, has been seen to walk with stately air in the precincts of the Royal Naval College, but reports are fragmentary, rare and unsubstantiated.

Anne of Denmark, consort of James I, laid the foundation of the House of Delight, later called the King’s House, the Ranger’s Lodge and finally the Queen’s House when it was completed by Inigo Jones for the unhappy Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I. Today the house, beautiful in its elegant symmetry, is in a perfect state of preservation, including the haunted Tulip Staircase which leads from the ground floor to the upper floor and balcony, a staircase not open to the public who visit the Queen’s House where Rubens, the Flemish painter, often stayed.

During the course of their visit the Hardys photographed the graceful Tulip Staircase. They had previously photographed a colonnade and subsequently some of the ships’ figureheads in the museum. The Tulip Staircase was, of course, deserted when they took the photograph, which they did in the light that was available at about five o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, aided by the electric candelabra that lights the staircase. When the photograph was developed, after their return to Canada, there was a shrouded but distinct figure (possibly two figures) climbing the stairway, a ringed hand clearly clutching the stair rail.

When the affair was brought to the attention of The Ghost Club, an immediate and thorough investigation of the story and scientific examination of the photograph followed and when no logical explanation was forthcoming an all-night vigil was arranged at the Queen’s House. A personal interview with the Hardys had established that the day on which the photograph had been taken was fine but cloudy and this was later verified by the Meteorological Office. The camera used was a Zeiss Ikon ‘Contina’ Prontor SVS Zavar Anastigmat lens I: 3.5f + 45 mm with ‘skylight’ auxiliary haze filter and a Kodachrome X, daylight, 35 mm colour film with speed at 64 was used. Although there is no possibility of double exposure on this camera, each picture being accounted for by number, nevertheless we submitted the photograph to Kodak and other photographic experts with the resulting unanimous decision that there was no trickery or manipulation whatsoever as far as the photograph itself was concerned. The only logical explanation from the photographic point of view was that there must have been someone on the staircase, and against this we have the evidence of the Rev. and Mrs Hardy (who are not and never have been interested in psychic phenomena), the fact that the staircase is not open to the public, and also the fact that the museum warders are very strict because the Queen’s House houses many valuable paintings.

The Ghost Club contacted Commander W. E. May, then Deputy Director of the National Maritime Museum, and eventually we obtained permission for a limited number of members to spend a night at the Queen’s House, after we had obtained authorization from the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works, which included agreeing to a number of conditions and the taking out of an insurance policy in the sum of £5,000 to cover loss or damage to the permanent collection of paintings. Permission was granted on the understanding that after admission in the evening we would be locked in and not allowed to leave until a set time in the morning; that smoking, alcohol, and the use of naked lights would be prohibited; that all our equipment was inspected and installed by the museum engineers; that two ‘warders’ would be present with us at all times, and that a not inconsiderable fee would be paid.

On first examination the photograph appears to show a figure with an exceptionally long right hand reaching ahead of the figure, but closer scrutiny establishes that both the hands on the stair rail are
left
hands and they both wear a ring on the marriage finger. The higher figure is oddly convincing, since the shadow falls directly across the light rays emitted by the electric chandelier. It is possible to see the shrouded figure leaning forward in a menacing position, apparently in pursuit of the ‘shadow’ figure as they ascend the stairs. Viewed in this light there is an overwhelmingly malevolent air about the photograph. A plausible explanation would be that the left hands are both those of the same person who is photographed twice mounting the stairs, but the senior museum photographer used yards of film in a futile attempt to obtain a similar photograph by normal means.

The Hardys’ story is simple and convincing; listen to Mrs Hardy on one point:

My husband actually took the picture as his stronger and steadier hands are better than mine at holding a camera steady ... thus I was free to watch for any possible intrusion of anything visible during the exposure time. Actually a group of people who noticed our preparation apologized and stepped back although I explained that my husband was not quite ready. I mention all this to indicate that no person or visible object could have intervened without my noticing it. Also we had previously tried to ascend the staircase but were blocked by a ‘No Admittance’ sign and rope barrier at the foot of the stairs.

The party of Ghost Club members who spent the night at the Queen’s House was joined by the senior museum photographer who took a number of photographs during the night, all of which turned out normally. During the night still and cine-photography was employed with special filters and infra-red film, sound recording apparatus was running continually; thermometers were checked regularly to discover any abnormal reading (easily detected where the temperature is kept constant to protect the paintings), and a dozen or so doors were sealed off with cotton to aid strict control of the rest of the building. The portion of the staircase rail which appeared in the photograph was coated with diluted petroleum jelly and at the end of the investigation checked for fingerprints; instruments were employed to detect draughts, vibration and other variations in the atmosphere; objects were distributed in the area of the Tulip Staircase at selected points (and ringed with chalk) to detect possible movement; and throughout the night attempts were made to tempt any unseen entities to communicate by means of various kinds of seances.

We did not succeed in scientifically proving that a ghost exists at the Queen’s House, but a number of curious sounds were never satisfactorily explained and several members of the investigation team had distinct, definite and inexplicable impressions during the night. Footsteps which did not originate from any member of the party were heard on several occasions. They were heard during periods of otherwise complete silence and in total darkness, a strategy we employed at various times throughout the night, when those taking part were stationed at intervals up and down the Tulip Staircase—especially opened for us.

Efforts were also made by The Ghost Club to identify the ring which the figure in the photograph wears on the wedding finger, for it would have been extremely interesting if it could have been established that such a ring was associated with the unpopular Henrietta Maria, Queen of England and daughter of Henry IV of France, who certainly had ties with the Queen’s House and must have known and used the Tulip Staircase. However, these enquiries, which included consultation with the National Portrait Gallery (where pictures not on public view were examined) and the Victoria and Albert Museum, proved unsuccessful.

No substantial ghostly associations or any reputed haunting was traced at the Queen’s House, but among the unsubstantiated stories of possibly paranormal activity in the vicinity there is evidence of a former museum warder finding the doorway to the Tulip Staircase (where the Hardy picture was taken) uncomfortable and disturbing. Time and again, we were told, this man, an experienced and unimaginative attendant, found his attention being drawn in the direction of the little doorway whenever he was on duty and although he never saw anything unusual, he always felt that there was something malevolent about that part of the building.

The same attendant claimed to have once seen an unexplained figure which vanished inexplicably in the tunnel which runs underneath the colonnade immediately outside the Queen’s House, and he and other museum warders have heard footsteps which they have been unable to account for while on duty at the Queen’s House.

There is also an odd and unsubstantiated story that many years ago a young married couple, living in first-floor rooms at the Queen’s House, had a violent domestic quarrel and their baby son was dashed to his death from the balcony on to the mosaic floor below, where we held several seances during our all-night vigil. The facts of the story (if it has any basis in fact) now seem to be lost, but it appears unlikely that there is any connection with a sinister figure creeping up the Tulip Staircase.

After the photograph of the Tulip Staircase was published in my
Gazetteer of British Ghosts
my friend and well-known medium Trixie Allingham visited the Queen’s House, and in a clairvoyant vision saw an insanely jealous woman conspiring with her confidant, identified as ‘Viscount Kensington’, in the hall below. They planned to lure the mistress of the woman’s husband to the house and murder her on the stairs and Trixie described to me how she saw red blood flowing down those dark stairs.

On the other hand I am indebted to a correspondent, Miss Dorothy E. Warren of Chelsea, for pointing out to me that the figure or figures on the staircase look like monks or friars, possibly abbots or priors (though the rings should be on the right hand). Miss Warren informs me that recent archaeological finds at Greenwich show remains of an abbot’s house, and when Baldwin II, Count of Flanders, died in 916, his widow, Elstrudis, youngest daughter of Alfred the Great, gave the manors of Greenwich, together with Woolwich and Lewisham, to the Abbey of Ghent as a memorial to her husband and for a long time the Abbots of Ghent received rents and tithes of the priory estates, before they were taken over by the Crown of England in the late fourteenth century. There seems to have been a large medieval house at Greenwich (according to Beryl Platts’
History of Greenwich
) which had an upstairs room grand enough for visiting prelates in the thirteenth century and Miss Warren suggests that this part of the great house may have stood on the site of the later Queen’s House and well away from the enclosed parts of the priory. The figures in the photograph do seem to be mounting a staircase extraneous to the present one; a staircase that may have formerly been the stairway to the abbot’s guest room. Beryl Platts mentions that in the fourteenth century the abbot let part of his domestic buildings, ‘only holding back accommodation for his courts’; so the question of positively identifying the ghosts at this period of time looks like being very difficult indeed, unless more new evidence turns up.

It would be very interesting to discover any other photographs of the Queen’s House that includes an unexplained figure, or one of the Tulip Staircase with a shrouded and cowled figure creeping up the stairs, its jewelled hand clasping the stair rail as so many hands must have done in the long history of this beautiful house.