Haunted London (19 page)

Bruce Castle has an interesting history. The present building dates from the sixteenth century and there are records of the estate passing into the hands of Sir William Compton, a favourite of Henry VIII, in 1514, and in fact the king visited the house on more than one occasion. No one knows the purpose of the detached sixteenth-century tower. In the seventeenth century, when the property was owned by the Coleraines, the porch was heightened and contemporary dates and initials are still to be seen, carved into bricks on one side of the porch. About 1720, the present wooden staircase was erected and much of the north side of the block. In the eighteenth century, the Townsends added two wings and replaced the old gables with a brick parapet and dummy windows. Early in the nineteenth century, Sir Rowland Hill and his brother added a new block at the back of the building, and at the end of that century, the property was acquired by the then Urban District Council of Tottenham.

The manor of Tottenham at one time belonged to Robert Bruce and it is believed that Bruce’s ‘castle’ was pulled down by the Comptons. Early foundations have been found nearby. Bruce himself is reputed to haunt the round tower, which is difficult to understand since the tower was not erected until two centuries after his death.

Some fifty years ago, thirteen watchers held an all-night vigil on the anniversary of Costania’s fatal jump and, although no screams were reported, several of the watchers heard footsteps from the direction of the deserted spiral stairs. Mr Rock told me that he joined the watchers and the thing that particularly interested him was the apparent failure of the clock (situated immediately above the haunted chamber) to strike one o’clock, although it struck the hours of midnight and later quite normally.

COLLINS’ MUSIC HALL, ISLINGTON (DEMOLISHED)

The famous Collins’ Music Hall (now alas no more), where old-time stars of the calibre of Marie Lloyd, Eugene Stratton, Little Tich and Harry Randall appeared, was long said to be haunted by Sam Collins, the singing Irish chimney-sweep who founded the theatre, and also by the ghost of Dan Leno.

Chris Rowlands, stage manager at Collins’ for forty years, claimed that Dan Leno’s ghost was often seen at rehearsals and auditions, invariably occupying one particular seat and occasionally showing his disapproval at a poor performance by snapping his fingers.

Mr Lew Lake, proprietor of Collins’ in 1948, often complained that his office at the theatre seemed to be the centre of the manifestations. On many occasions, a single clear knock would sound on the office door when no one was near it. On one occasion, his table cigarette lighter, a tall, slender object, somewhat top-heavy, suddenly jumped into the air and then came to rest on the desk at an angle of forty-five degrees. Doors shut of their own accord so often that they had to be wedged open with a piece of iron, and even then the wedge was sometimes moved and the doors closed. One hot evening, Lake became so annoyed at the continual closing of the door, which he had wedged open, that he slammed it shut with a curse. A few moments later, it opened by itself. The disturbances usually occurred around nine o’clock in the evening, a time that approximately coincided with the interval during the second performance.

One night, a friend of Lew Lake said he would sleep in the office, a large and pleasant room with big windows looking out to Islington Green. Soon after settling down for the night he felt icy hands running over his face and then fingers clutched at his throat. Soon afterwards he gave up the idea of spending a night in the room and awakened his host who put him in another room!

HAMPSTEAD

Hampstead has several ghosts. An old house not far from the parish church was the scene of a murder and was reputed to be haunted for years afterwards. People who lived there and visitors who knew nothing of the story often heard a curious sound, half a sigh and half a shudder, that seemed to come from just behind them in the hall. Pattering footsteps, faint and yet distinct were also heard time after time in the house — running footsteps that put one in mind of a child running downstairs. Sometimes they would halt suddenly and then retreat at a slower pace, almost as if a child had unexpectedly found itself face to face with a stranger or someone of whom it was frightened.

Upstairs, too, strange noises were often heard from the stairway. They were sounds that suggested someone creeping stealthily up, a step at a time, as though anxious not to awaken or disturb anyone. A shuddering sigh would sometimes be heard in the upstairs rooms, especially at dead of night and most often during the month of September. And when the first rays of daylight began to light up the shadows of the old house, the figure of a charwoman with red hair and carrying a carpet bag would sometimes be seen, standing just inside the front door, apparently breathing heavily and much exhausted from some fatiguing labour. The crime at the unquiet house had been committed by a woman with red hair. She had murdered a child of the household, dismembered the body and carried the remains out of the house in a carpet bag.

Hampstead Heath is reputed to be haunted by the ghost of Dick Turpin in the vicinity of the old-world atmosphere of the Vale of Health. Mrs Helena Steibel said she was walking near the Vale of Health when she saw a man on horseback riding straight towards her. She thought he must run her down and, although getting on in years, she tried to get out of the way, but it was no use and she prepared herself for the inevitable collision, but both the black horse and its black-clad rider just vanished! There was no doubt in her mind but that she had seen the figure and she described the black coat ‘and funny hat... the kind that comes over the forehead in a point — a tri-corn’. A few months before Mrs Steibel’s experience a running enthusiast had reported seeing a man on horseback near the Vale of Health, when he had been doing a practice run across the heath. The rider looked like Dick Turpin riding a black horse.

A basement flat in Adamson Road, Hampstead, seemed to be haunted a few years ago by a hundred-year-old dwarf who came to be known as ‘Little Charlie’. At first the disturbances seemed to be of a typical poltergeist character with knives and forks, scissors and even a plate of fish and chips vanishing without trace. Books were said to fly through the air, strange marks appeared on doors, and none of the residents’ pets would go near the basement. Then one night the young son of a tenant was found almost hysterical with terror. He said he had opened a cupboard to put some toys away and inside he saw the figure of a small crippled man. The boy’s mother maintained that she had also seen ‘Little Charlie’ once: he was so small and ugly that she took him for a monkey and was about to telephone the zoo to say that she had an escaped animal in the house, when the apparition suddenly vanished. A previous occupant of the flat was traced who also stated that the place was haunted, but after new tenants occupied the premises no further disturbances were reported.

Something of a similar character seems to have infested a shoe shop in Kilburn High Road, a branch of the Anglo-American Shoe Stores. It caused shoes to move of their own accord, hammers and chisels to fly through the air, locked doors to open, candles to move and light by themselves, and tappings to sound on solid walls.

Jim Best, a thirty-eight-year-old crippled shoe-repairer, had worked contentedly in the shop for twenty years until tappings sounded on the wall, and then he found brown shoes dyed black. Other shoes were found out in the street, tools started to fly about and the workbench was smashed. Jim reported the matter to his manager, Charles Fishburn, who was sceptical until a chisel suddenly whizzed past his ear and thudded into the wall behind him.

Two shop assistants tried to help and were greeted by a shower of tin tacks and a book which was thrown with such force that its cover was broken. One girl felt somebody was behind her but before she could turn round a soldering iron hit her on the elbow. Once Jim Best decided to make sure the door stayed shut and he and the manager put four locks and a bolt on the shop door and locked up. As they walked away they heard a ‘click’ and when they touched the door it swung open.

I was in touch with Charles Fishburn at the time of the disturbances and was interested to learn that nobody had ever seen an object begin to move. It seemed that each time the articles commenced their movement out of sight and then flew past the occupants. All the disturbances were confined to the small workroom used by Jim Best, and it was invariably left-hand shoes that were moved, never right-hand ones. For a while, Jim Best worked in another part of the shop. His old room was redecorated and then after three weeks of puzzling and unsettling happenings, the disturbances ceased completely.

HIGHGATE CEMETERY

Highgate Cemetery, with its 45,000 graves, is best known for the tomb of Karl Marx, but those buried in the older part of the cemetery, where graves have repeatedly been disturbed in recent years, include the parents of Charles Dickens, Sir Rowland Hill, who introduced the penny post, Tom Sayers, the old-time prize fighter, and Michael Faraday, the distinguished scientist.

It is this older part of the vast cemetery that has long been reputed to be the haunt of a vampire. Graves have certainly been disturbed and it is not difficult to imagine a vampire lurking among the forsaken tombs, many overgrown with the ever-increasing tangle of weeds, bushes and trees. At one time it was a chilling scene of utter ruin and decay where vaults yawned in the shadows and gravestones crumbled beneath one’s feet.

In 1969, a man was discovered at dusk, armed with a pointed stake and a crucifix, waiting for the vampire that he is still convinced walks in Highgate Cemetery. In 1970, a grave was rifled and its corpse, a woman, removed and burnt. The head was missing and has never been recovered. Almost certainly some kind of sacrificial rite had taken place and the head removed for further rites. The human skull has long been regarded as the centre of psychic power and skulls play a big part in the rituals of modem black magicians. The ‘catacombs’ at Highgate Cemetery, with their rows of huge tombs and stacks of coffins, attract vampire-hunters and sensation-seekers who have been observed at night, entering the vaults, opening the coffins and daubing the walls with symbols.

In the newer portion of the cemetery where, among many others, George Eliot and Herbert Spencer are buried, two ghosts of the more traditional kind are said to walk. One is a solitary spectre with bony fingers that is reported to linger in the vicinity of the huge iron entrance gates. The white shrouded figure seems to gaze pensively into space and is oblivious to human beings until they approach too close and then it suddenly disappears, only to reappear a short distance away, adopting the same listless stance. There are those who claim to have communicated with this passive phantom.

The other ghost is that of an old woman, her thin hair streaming behind her as she passes swiftly among the mouldering tombs and disappears into the almost impenetrable thickets and decaying vaults. I have talked with two people who claim to have seen this ghost from different viewpoints at the same time, but always the fast-moving figure disappears from view before it can be closely studied and it always eludes those who try to follow it. The ghost is thought to be that of an old and mad woman whose children were buried here after she had murdered them, and now her sad and restless spirit seeks the graves of those she harmed but really loved.

HILLDROP CRESENT, KENTISH TOWN

Hawley Harvey Crippen, an American doctor, was hanged in 1910 for the murder of his wife Cora (alias Bella Elmore, etc.) with whom he had lived in disharmony at 39 Hilldrop Crescent, not far from Kentish Town Station. There is a piece of waste ground nearby where Crippen would often stroll at night, perhaps in the early days of 1910, dreaming about Ethel Le Neve and scheming how best to rid himself of his wife. Whatever the attraction, ‘Peter’ Crippen (as he was known) spent many night-time hours there, deep in concentration and thought, permeating the darkness with his tremendous vitality, and completely self-sufficient in his awareness of supernormal powers. I have talked with Fred Cavell who was the jailer in charge of Crippen at Bow Street for six or seven weeks. Crippen would be brought up from Brixton jail every morning and taken back at night. He was described to me as a quiet, monkey-faced little man who never spoke except to ask the time, which he did twenty times a day. He always seemed quite content with his two slices of bread-and-butter and a cup of tea twice a day. He never had any food brought in and nobody ever came to see him. He didn’t seem to have a friend in the world, and he didn’t give a moment’s trouble. But what about after his death?

Highgate Cemetery has long been reputed to harbour a vampire, a stationary spectre in a white shroud and the fast-moving phantom of a mad old woman, searching for the graves of the children she murdered.

One man was sufficiently interested in the possible return of Crippen, in one form or another, to spend several nights at the dark, open piece of waste ground, following the hanging of Crippen on 23 November 1910. The execution was carried out at six o’clock in the morning and that night our investigator arrived to carry out the first of his nocturnal vigils. Just before midnight he felt a sudden and intense coldness all about him, and a scratching sound alerted him for what might follow.