HAUNTED HOUSES
A jolly place, said he, in days of old,
But something ails it now: the spot is curst.
WORDSWORTH.
A variety of strange causes, such as secret murder, acts of treachery,
unatoned crime, buried treasures, and such-like incidents belonging
to the seamy side of family history, have originated, at one time or
another, the ghostly stories connected with so many a house throughout
the country. Robert Browning has graphically described the mysteries of
a haunted house:
At night, when doors are shut,
And the wood-worm picks,
And the death-watch ticks,
And the bar has a flag of smut,
And a cat's in the water-butt--
And the socket floats and flares,
And the house-beams groan,
And a foot unknown
Is surmised on the garret stairs,
And the locks slip unawares.
Although in some cases centuries have elapsed since a certain house
became haunted, and several generations have come and passed away,
still, with ceaseless persistency, the restless spirit hovers about
in all kinds of uncanny ways, reminding us of Hood's romance of 'The
Haunted House.'
For over all there hung a cloud of fear,
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is haunted!
Corby Castle, Cumberland, was famous for its 'Radiant Boy;' Peel Castle
had its 'Mauthe Doog;' and Dobb Park Lodge was noted for 'the Talking
Dog.' Cortachy Castle, the seat of the Earl of Airlie, is noted for its
'Drummer;' and a noted Westmoreland ghost was that of the 'bad Lord
Lonsdale,' locally known as Jemmy Lowther, which created much alarm
at Lowther Hall; but of recent years this miscreant spirit has been
silent, having, it is said, been laid for ever under a large rock
called Wallow Crag. Strange experiences were associated with Hinton
Ampner Manor House, Hampshire,[264] and when, in 1797, it was pulled
down, 'under the floor of the lobby was found a box containing bones,
and what was said to be the skull of a monkey. No regular inquiry was
made into the matter, and no professional opinion was ever sought as
to the real character of the relic.' Wyecoller Hall, near Colne, is
visited once a year by a spectre horseman; and some years ago Hackwood
House, an old mansion near Basingstoke, purchased from Lord Bolton by
Lord Westbury, was said to have its haunted room, the phantom assuming
the appearance of a woman clothed in grey. Ramhurst Manor House, Kent,
was disturbed by weird and mysterious noises, and at Barton Hall,
Bath, in 1868, a phantom is said to have appeared, displaying a human
countenance, but devoid of eyes.
Allanbank, a seat of the Stuarts--a family of Scotch baronets, has
long been haunted by 'Pearlin Jean,' one of the most remarkable
ghosts in Scotland. On one occasion, seven ministers were called in
to lay this restless spirit, but to no purpose. Creslow Manor House,
Buckinghamshire, has its ghost, and Glamis Castle has its famous
'Haunted Room,' which, it is said, was walled up. At Hilton Castle
there was the time-honoured 'Cold Lad,' which Surtees would lead us
to suppose was one of the household spirits known as 'Brownies.' But,
according to one local legend, in years gone by a servant-boy was
ill-treated and kept shut up in a cupboard, and is supposed to have
received the name of 'Cold Lad' from his condition when discovered.
Sundry apparitions seem to have been connected with Newstead Abbey,
one being that of 'Sir John Byron the Little, with the Great Beard,'
who was wont to promenade the state apartments at night. But the most
dreaded spectre was the 'Goblin Friar,' previously alluded to, who--
appeared,
Now in the moonlight, and now lapsed in shade,
With steps that trod as heavy, yet unheard.
This strange, weird spectre has been thought to forebode evil to the
member of the family to whom it appears, and its uncanny movements have
been thus pictured by the poet:
By the marriage-bed of their lords, 'tis said,
He flits on the bridal eve;
And 'tis held as faith, to their bed of death
He comes--but not to grieve.
When an heir is born, he is heard to mourn,
And when aught is to befall
That ancient line, in the pale moonshine
He walks from hall to hall.
His form you may trace, but not his face,
'Tis shadowed by his cowl;
But his eyes may be seen from the folds between,
And they seem of a parted soul.
Holland House has had the reputation of being haunted by the spirit of
the first Lord Holland; and, in 1860, there was published in 'Notes
and Queries,' by the late Edmund Lenthal Swifte, Keeper of the Crown
Jewels, the account of a spectral illusion witnessed by himself in the
Tower. He says that in October, 1817, he was at supper with his wife,
her sister, and his little boy, in the sitting-room of the jewel-house.
To quote his own words: 'I had offered a glass of wine and water to
my wife, when, on putting it to her lips, she exclaimed, "Good God!
what is that?" I looked up, and saw a cylindrical figure like a glass
tube, seemingly about the thickness of my arm, and hovering between
the ceiling and the table; its contents appeared to be a dense fluid,
white and pale azure. This lasted about two minutes, when it began to
move before my sister-in-law; then, following the oblong side of the
table, before my son and myself, passing behind my wife, it paused for
a moment over her right shoulder. Instantly crouching down, and with
both hands covering her shoulder, she shrieked out, "O Christ! it has
seized me!" It was ascertained,' adds Mr. Swifte, 'that no optical
action from the outside could have produced any manifestation within,
and hence the mystery has remained unsolved.' Speaking of the Tower,
we learn from the same source how 'one of the night sentries at the
jewel-office was alarmed by a figure like a huge bear issuing from
underneath the jewel-room door. He thrust at it with his bayonet which
stuck in the door. He dropped in a fit and was carried senseless to
the guardroom.... In another day or two the brave and steady soldier
died at the presence of a shadow.' Windsor Castle, as report goes,
was haunted by the ghost of Sir George Villiers, who appeared to an
officer in the king's wardrobe and warned him of the approaching fate
of the Duke of Buckingham.[265]
According to Johnson, the 'Old Hummums' was the scene of the 'best
accredited ghost story' that he had ever heard, the spirit of a Mr.
Ford, said to have been the riotous parson of Hogarth's 'Midnight
Conversation,' having appeared to a waiter; and Boswell, alluding to a
conversation which took place at Mr. Thrale's house, Streatham, between
himself and Dr. Johnson, thus writes: 'A waiter at the Hummums, in
which house Ford died, had been absent for some time, and returned,
not knowing that Ford was dead. Going down to the cellar, according
to the story, he met him; going down again, he met him a second time.
When he came up he asked some of the people of the house what Ford
could be doing there. They told him Ford was dead. The waiter took a
fever, and when he recovered he said he had a message from Ford to
deliver to some women, but he was not to tell what, or to whom. He
walked out, he was followed, but somewhere about St. Paul's they lost
him. He came back, and said he had delivered the message, and the
women exclaimed, "Then we are all undone."' There is the so-called
'Mystery of Berkeley Square,' No. 50 having been reputed to be haunted.
But a long correspondence on the subject in the pages of 'Notes and
Queries' proved this to be a fallacy, the rumour, it would seem, having
arisen from 'its neglected condition when empty, and the habits of
the melancholy and solitary hypochondriac when occupied by him.' Lord
Lyttelton, however, wrote in 'Notes and Queries' of November 16, 1872,
thus: 'It is quite true that there is a house in Berkeley Square (No.
50) said to be haunted, and long unoccupied on that account. There
are strange stories about it, into which this deponent cannot enter.'
What these strange stories were may be gathered from 'Mayfair' of May
10, 1879--an interesting illustration of how rapidly legendary stories
spring up on little or no basis. 'The house in Berkeley Square contains
at least one room of which the atmosphere is supernaturally fatal to
body and mind. A girl saw, heard, and felt such horror in it that she
went mad, and never recovered sanity enough to tell how or why. A
gentleman, a disbeliever in ghosts, dared to sleep in it, and was found
a corpse in the middle of the floor, after practically ringing for
help in vain. Rumour suggests other cases of the same kind, all ending
in death, madness, or both, as the result of sleeping, or trying to
sleep, in that room. The very party walls of the house, when touched,
are found saturated with electric horror. It is uninhabited, save by
an elderly man and woman who act as caretakers; but even these have no
access to the room. That is kept locked, the key being in the hands of
a mysterious and seemingly nameless person, who comes to the house once
every six months, locks up the elderly couple in the basement, and then
unlocks the room and occupies himself in it for hours.'
Berry Pomeroy Castle, Devonshire, was long said to be haunted by
the daughter of a former baron, who bore a child to her own father,
afterwards strangling the fruit of their incestuous intercourse; and
all kinds of weird noises are heard at Ewshott House, Hampshire. Bagley
House, near Bridport, is haunted by the ghost of a Squire Lighte,
who committed suicide; and at Astwood Court, once the seat of the
Culpepers, was an old oak table, removed from the side of the wainscot
in 1816, respecting which tradition declares that it bore the impress
of the fingers of a lady ghost who, it has been suggested, probably
tired of appearing to no purpose, at last struck the table in a rage
and vanished for ever. Holt Castle was supposed, in bygone years, to be
haunted by a mysterious lady in black who, in the still hours of the
night, occasionally walked in a certain passage near the attics. It was
likewise said that the cellar had been occupied by an ill-favoured bird
like a raven, which would sometimes pounce upon any person who ventured
to approach a cask for drink, and, having extinguished the candle with
a horrid flapping of wings, would leave its victims prostrate with
fright. A solution, however, has been given to this legend that 'would
imply a little cunning selfishness on the part of the domestics who had
the care of the ale and cider _depôt_.'[266]
At Althorp, the seat of Earl Spencer, is said to have appeared the
ghost of a favourite groom, and Cumnor Hall, the supposed scene of the
murder of Lady Amy Bobsart, was haunted by her apparition. According to
Mickle--
In that Manor now no more
Is cheerful feast and sprightly ball;
For, ever since that dreary hour,
Have spirits haunted Cumnor Hall.
The village maids, with fearful glance,
Avoid the ancient moss-grown wall;
Nor ever lead the merry dance
Among the groves of Cumnor Hall.
Full many a traveller oft hath sighed
And pensive wept the Countess's fall,
As, wandering onward, they espied
The haunted towers of Cumnor Hall.
Powis Castle had once its ghost, and Cullaby Castle, Northumberland,
the seat of Major A. H. Browne, is haunted. According to a
correspondent,[267] in the older part of the castle, which was the
pele-tower of the Claverings, there was known to be a room walled up,
'which Mrs. Browne, during her husband's absence, had broken into;' but
the room was found to be quite empty. She says, however, that 'she let
a ghost out who is known as "The Wicked Priest." Ever since they have
been annoyed with the most unaccountable noises, which are sometimes
so loud that one would think the house was being blown down. I believe
the ghost has been seen--it is a priest with a shovel hat.' The seat
of the Trevelyans is haunted with the incessant wailing of a spectral
child, and the ruins of Seaton Delaval Castle are said to be haunted.
Churton Hall, at one time the seat of the Duke of Argyll, 'has marked
Tyneside with the ghost of the Duke's mistress, who is locally known as
"Silky."' 'Tyneside,' writes Mr. W. T. Stead, 'abounded with stories
of haunted castles; but, with the doubtful exception of Dilston, where
Lady Derwentwater was said to revisit the pale glimpses of the moon
to expiate the restless ambition which impelled her to drive Lord
Derwentwater to the scaffold, none of them were leading actors in the
tragedies of old time.'
Bisham Abbey, report says, is haunted by the ghost of Lady Hoby, who
treated her son by her first husband so unmercifully, on account of his
antipathy to study, that he died. As a punishment for her unnatural
cruelty she glides through a certain chamber, in the act of washing
blood-stains from her hands. One of the rooms at Combermere Abbey,
Cheshire, formerly known as the 'Coved Saloon,' is tenanted by the
ghost of a little girl, the sister of Lord Cotton, who had died when
fourteen years old.[268] Then there was the famous 'Sampford Peverell'
ghost, which created much interest at the commencement of the present
century,[269] and Rainham, the seat of the Marquis Townshend, in
Norfolk, has long been haunted by the 'Brown Lady.' At Oulton House,
Suffolk, at midnight, a wild huntsman with his hounds, accompanied by
a lady carrying a poisoned cup, is said to take his ghostly walk; and
Clegg Hall, Lancashire, long had its restless spirits, and the laying
of these 'Clegg Hall boggarts,' as they were called, is described
elsewhere. At Samlesbury Hall, near Blackburn, a lady in white attended
by a handsome knight is seen at night;[270] and a headless lady walked
about Walton Abbey. Hermitage Castle, one of the most famous of the
Border keeps in the days of its splendour, has for years past been
haunted, and has been described as--
Haunted Hermitage,
Where long by spells mysterious bound,
They pace their round with lifeless smile,
And shake with restless foot the guilty pile.
Till sink the mouldering towers beneath the burdened ground.
The story goes that Lord Soulis, 'the evil hero of Hermitage,' made a
compact with the devil, who appeared to him in the shape of a spirit
wearing a red cap, which gained its hue from the blood of human victims
in which it was steeped. Lord Soulis sold himself to the demon, and in
return he could summon his familiar whenever he chose to rap thrice
on an iron chest, on condition that he never looked in the direction
of the spirit. Once, however, he forgot or ignored this condition,
and his doom was sealed. But even then Lord Soulis kept the letter of
the compact. Lord Soulis was protected by an unholy charm against any
injury from rope or steel; hence cords could not bind him, and steel
could not slay him. When, at last, he was delivered over to his enemies
it was found necessary to adopt the ingenious and effective expedient
of rolling him up in a sheet of lead and boiling him to death:
On a circle of stones they placed the pot,
On a circle of stones but barely nine;
They heated it red and fiery hot,
And the burnished brass did glimmer and shine.
They rolled him up in a sheet of lead--
A sheet of lead for a funeral pall;
They plunged him into the cauldron red,
And melted him, body, lead, bones and all.
This was the end of Lord Soulis's body, but his spirit still lingers on
the scene. Once every seven years he keeps tryst with Red Cap on the
scene of his former devilries:
And still when seven years are o'er
Is heard the jarring sound,
When hollow opes the charmèd door
Of chamber underground.[271]
Hugh Miller, in his 'Schools and Schoolmasters,' says that, while
working as a stonemason in a remote part of Scotland, he visited
the ruins of Craighouse, a grey fantastic rag of a castle, which the
people of the neighbourhood firmly believed to be haunted by its
goblin--a miserable-looking, grey-headed, grey-bearded old man, who
might be seen, late in evening and early in the morning, peering
out through a narrow slit or shot-hole at the chance passenger. He
further adds that he met with a sunburnt herd-boy who was tending his
cattle under the shadow of the old castle wall. He asked the lad whose
apparition he thought it was that could continue to haunt a building
whose last inhabitant had long been forgotten. 'Oh, they're saying,'
was the reply, 'it's the spirit of the man who was killed on the
foundation-stone, soon after it was laid, and then built intil the wa'
by the masons that he might keep the Castle by coming back again; and
they're saying that a' varra auld hooses i' the country had murderit
men builded intil them i' that way, and that all o' them hev their
bogie!'
Among Irish haunted houses may be noticed the castle of Dunseverick,
in Antrim, which is believed to be still inhabited by the spirit of
a chief, who there atones for a horrid crime; while the castles of
Dunluce, of Magrath, and many others are similarly peopled by the
wicked dead. In the abbey of Clare the ghost of a sinful abbot walks,
and will continue to do so until his sin has been atoned for by the
prayers he unceasingly mutters in his tireless march up and down the
aisles of the ruined nave.
The 'Cedar Room' at Ashley Hall, Cheshire, was said to be tenanted
by the figure of a white lady, reminding us of similar so-called
apparitions at Skipsea and Blenkinsopp Castles. At Burton Agnes Hall,
the family seat of Sir Henry Somerville Boynton, there is a spirit of
a lady which haunts the ancient mansion, known in the neighbourhood
as 'Awd Nance.' The skull of this lady is preserved at the Hall, and
so long as it is left quietly in its resting-place all goes well, but
should any attempt be made to remove it, all kinds of unearthly noises
are raised in the house, and last until it is restored.[272] Denton
Hall has for many years past attracted interest from being inhabited
by a spirit known by the names of 'Old Barbery' and 'Silky,' and
Waddow Hall, Yorkshire, is haunted by a phantom called 'Peg O'Nell.'
Bridge End House, Burnley, was said to have its ghost; Crook Hall, near
Durham, has its 'White Ladie;' South Biddick Hall, its shadowy tenant,
'Madam Lambton;' and Netherby Hall, a 'Rustling Lady' who walks along
a retired passage in that mansion, her dress rustling as she moves
along.[273] There was the famous Willington Mill, alluded to in the
previous chapter, which some years ago became notorious in the North of
England, having been haunted, it is said, by a priest and a grey lady
who amused themselves at their victims' expense by all kinds of strange
acts.[274] A correspondent of 'Notes and Queries' (4th S. x. 490)
referring to the Willington ghost says: 'The steam flour mill, with the
house, was in the occupation then of Messrs. Proctor and Unthank; the
house was separated from the mill by a space of a few feet, so that no
tricks could be played from the mill. The partners alternately lived in
the house. A relation of mine asked one of those gentlemen if there
was any truth as to the current rumours. He remarked, "Well, we don't
like to speak of it; my partner certainly cannot live comfortably in
the house, from some unexplained cause, but as to myself and family we
are never disturbed."'
Several parsonages have had their ghosts. Southey, in his 'Life of
Wesley,' speaking of Epworth parsonage, which appears to have been
haunted in the most strange manner, and alluding to the mysterious
disturbances that happened in it, says: 'An author who, in this age,
relates such a story, and treats it as not utterly incredible and
absurd, must expect to be ridiculed, but the testimony upon which it
rests is far too strong to be set aside because of the strangeness of
the relation.' In the 'Gentleman's Magazine' is recorded an account of
an apparition that appeared at Souldern Rectory, Oxfordshire, to the
Rev. Mr. Shaw, who had always ridiculed the idea of ghosts, announcing
to him that his death would be very soon, and very sudden. Suffice it
to say that shortly afterwards he was seized with an apoplectic fit
while reading the service in church, and died almost immediately. This
strange affair is noticed in the register of Brisly Church, Norfolk,
under December 12, 1706: 'I, Robert Withers, M.A., Vicar of Gately, do
insert here a story which I had from undoubted hands, for I have all
the moral certainty of the truth of it possible.'
The old parsonage at Market, or East, Lavington, near Devizes--now
pulled down--was reputed to be haunted by a lady supposed to have been
murdered, and, it has been said, a child came also to an untimely end
in the house. Previous to 1818, a correspondent of 'Notes and Queries'
(5 S. i. 273) says: 'A witness states his father occupied the house,
and writes "that in that year on Feast Day, being left alone in the
house, I went up to my room. It was the one with marks of blood on the
floor. I distinctly saw a white figure glide into the room. It went
round by the washstand by the bed, and there disappeared."' It may be
added that part of the road leading from Market Lavington to Easterton,
which skirts the grounds of Fiddington House, used to be looked upon as
haunted by a lady, who was known as the 'Easterton Ghost.' In 1869, a
wall was built round the road-side of the pond; and, close to the spot
where the lady was seen, two skeletons were disturbed--one of a woman,
the other of a child. The bones were buried in the churchyard, and no
ghost, it is said, has been seen since.
Occasionally, churches have been haunted. The famous phantom nun of
Holy Trinity Church, Micklegate, York, has excited a good deal of
interest--an account of which is given by Mr. Baring-Gould in his
'Yorkshire Oddities.' The story goes that during the suppression of
religious houses before the Reformation, a party of soldiers came
to sack the convent attached to the church. But having forced an
entry they were confronted by the abbess, a lady of great courage
and devotion, who declared that they should only pass it over her
body, and that should they slay her and succeed in their errand of
destruction, her spirit would haunt the place until the time came
that their sacrilegious work was expiated by the rebuilding of the
holy house. Many accounts have been published of this apparition,
the following being from the 'Ripon and Richmond Chronicle' (May 6,
1876): 'In the middle of the service,' writes a correspondent, 'my
eyes, which had hardly once moved from the left or north side of the
[east] window, were attracted by a bright light, formed like a female,
robed and hooded, passing from north to south with a rapid gliding
motion outside the church, apparently at some distance. There are four
divisions in the window, all of stained glass, but at the edge of each
runs a rim of plain transparent glass, about two inches wide, and
adjoining the stone-work. Through this rim especially could be seen
what looked like a form transparent, but yet thick (if such a term
can be used) with light. The robe was long and trailed. About half an
hour later it again passed from north to south, and, having remained
about ten seconds only, returned with what I believe to have been the
figure of a young child, and stopped at the last pane but one, and then
vanished. I did not see the child again, but a few seconds afterwards
the woman reappeared, and completed the passage behind the last pane
very rapidly.' It is said to appear very frequently on Trinity Sunday,
and to bring two other figures on to the scene, another female, called
the nurse, and the child. Likewise, on one of the windows of the Abbey
Church, Whitby, was occasionally seen--
The very form of Hilda fair,
Hovering upon the sunny air.
According to a correspondent of the 'Gentleman's Magazine,' a ghost
appeared for several years, but very seldom, only in the church porch
at Kilncote, Leicestershire. Folk-lore tells us that ghosts are
occasionally seen in the church porch, and, in years gone, it was
customary for young people to sit and watch here on St. Mark's Eve,
from 11 at night till 1 o'clock in the morning. In the third year, for
the ceremony had to be gone through three times, it was supposed the
ghosts of all those about to die in the course of the ensuing year
would pass into the church. It is to this piece of superstition that
James Montgomery refers in his 'Vigil of St. Mark':
''Tis now,' replied the village belle,
'St. Mark's mysterious Eve;
And all that old traditions tell
I tremblingly believe.
'How, when the midnight signal tolls,
Along the churchyard green
A mournful train of sentenced souls
In winding sheets are seen.
'The ghosts of all whom death shall doom
Within the coming year,
In pale procession walk the gloom,
Amid the silence drear.'
A strange illustration of this superstition is found among the Hollis
manuscripts in the Lansdowne collection. The writer, Gervase Hollis,
of Great Grimsby, Lincolnshire, was a colonel in the service of
Charles I., and he professes to have received the tale from Mr. Liveman
Rampaine, minister of God's word at Great Grimsby, Lincolnshire, who
was household chaplain to Sir Thomas Munson of Burton, in Lincoln, at
the time of the incident.[275]
A curious and somewhat unique advertisement of a haunted house appeared
some years ago, and ran thus: 'To be sold, an ancient Gothic mansion,
known as Beckington Castle, ten miles from Bath, and two from Frome.
The mansion has been closed for some years, having been the subject
of proceedings in Chancery. There are legends of haunted rooms, miles
of subterranean passages, &c., affording a fine field of research and
speculation to lovers of the romantic.' It was no doubt true of the
ghost of this, as of most other haunted houses--
We meet them on the door-way, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.
FOOTNOTES:
[264] See Ingram's _Haunted Homes_, 2nd S. pp. 159-180.
[265] See Lord Clarendon's _History of the Rebellion_, and _Notes and
Queries_, July 1860.
[266] _Gentleman's Magazine_, 1855, pt. ii. pp. 58, 59.
[267] _More Ghost Stories_, p. 64.
[268] _All the Year Round_, December 24, 1870.
[269] See Ingram's _Haunted Homes_, 2nd S. pp. 226-233.
[270] _Ibid._ see p. 222.
[271] _More Ghost Stories_, W. T. Stead, 1892, p. 63.
[272] Henderson's _Folk-lore of Northern Counties_, pp. 314, 315.
[273] _Henderson's Folk-lore of Northern Counties_, pp. 314, 315.
[274] See _Ibid._ p. 315; Ingram's _Haunted Homes_, pp. 266-277; _More
Ghost Stories_, W. T. Stead.
[275] Quoted in _Book of Days_, i. p. 649.