Haunted Nation

by

Steve Johnson

Britain has often been called ‘The Most Haunted Country In The World’. Why this should be so is unclear. Perhaps it is in recognition of these islands’ colourful history, replete with myths and legends stretching back thousands of years. Ghost stories have always been popular and the British Isles seem to have more than their fair share.

The Treasurer’s House in the historic city of York, in northern England, lies a short distance from the city’s beautiful Minster. The Minster is a major tourist attraction and a discovery made there would seem to verify what is possibly one of the world’s most famous true ghost stories.

In 1953, Harry Martindale was installing a new central heating system at the Treasurer’s House. This entailed him going down into the basement and knocking a hole through one of the cellar walls. He set his ladder against the wall and began climbing up to where he intended to work.

Suddenly he heard the faint sound of a horn.

He assumed that it was a radio somewhere else in the building and continued his work. Then he heard the horn again. And again. Each time, the sound of the horn seemed to get closer.

He looked to where the noise seemed to be coming from and was staggered to see a Roman soldier appear from the cellar wall and begin marching across the basement. Immediately following this legionary was a horse drawing a cart, with a Roman soldier steering.

Harry fell from his ladder, shocked and terrified.

In all, about twenty Roman legionaries marched across the cellar of the Treasurer’s House, each one of them looking weary and dishevelled. Harry said that he could hear a low murmuring as though the soldiers were muttering to one another. Each carried a short sword, spear and a large, round shield (it has been suggested that the soldiers may have actually been Roman auxiliary troops, as opposed to genuine legionaries – hence the rounded shields instead of the more familiar rectangular ones). Their footsteps could easily be heard, as could the sound of the horse’s hooves. These did not appear as wispy phantasms, according to Mr Martindale, but looked as solid as you or I.

Amazingly, each of the soldiers was only visible from the knees up!

Once the column had passed through the opposite wall of the cellar, Harry scrambled to his feet and rushed from the basement. The House’s curator met him and noticed his petrified state.

“You’ve seen the Roman soldiers, haven’t you?” he asked and explained how visitors to the cellar had seen them several times before.

Harry’s amazing ghost story was lent a great deal of credence later when excavations beneath York Minster uncovered the remains of a Roman fort. The road from this fort ran directly beneath the Treasurer’s House.

Exactly where Harry had seen the column of legionaries pass by!

Ghosts seem to have a finite existence (according to some researchers) and tend to disappear after about 400 years at the outside. Given that Mr Martindale saw Roman soldiers almost 1500 years after the Legions left our shores could suggest that the spirits he saw beneath the Treasurer’s House are the world’s oldest ghosts.

Chingle Hall in Lancashire, northern England, has been declared ‘The Most Haunted House In Britain’. Over the years, there have been reports of inexplicable noises and actual sightings of ghosts at the old house.

Chingle Hall, built in 1260, is the oldest brick house in Britain. It is said to be the birthplace of John Wall, a catholic martyr who was executed in 1679 and his head buried somewhere in or around the Hall.

Sightings of an eerie monk-like figure have been reported at the house, sometimes looking through windows or praying in the downstairs rooms. He has also been seen passing through the walls of the aptly named Priest’s Room.

It was in the Priest’s Room that a guest at the house heard the sound of bricks being moved. He went to investigate and peered through the ‘Priest’s Hole’ (where priests hid during the time in England’s history when Catholicism was outlawed). In front of him was part of a human hand, moving the bricks and causing the sound he had heard.

On Christmas Day, 1980, Gerald Main and ghosthunter, Terence Whitaker held a vigil near the ‘Priest’s Hole’ and successfully recorded rapping sounds. They also noted a rapid drop in temperature within the house. Mr Whitaker also claimed he saw ‘an indefinable shape’ moving across the floor.

To this day, efforts to capture the ghosts of Chingle Hall on film or tape continue in the hope of unravelling this eerie and fascinating mystery.

Having such a colourful history, you might expect the castle to be haunted by the ghosts of soldiers or those who were involved with the many armed struggles that took place there, but the castle’s most famous ghosts are those of the ‘Grey Lady’ and the ‘Radiant Boy’.

The ‘Grey Lady’ is believed to be the earthbound spirit of Lady Mary Berkeley the wife of Lord Grey of Wark and Chillingham and Earl of Tankerville. The story goes that she is eternally searching Chillingham for her husband, who ran away with her sister. Lady Mary was left alone with her baby and it is said that the rustle of her dress can be heard in the corridors of the castle.

The ‘Radiant Boy’ is another type of spirit altogether. He was supposed to have haunted an area of the castle known as ‘The Pink Room’.As the clock struck midnight, the terrible wails and moans of a child in pain could be heard coming from a wall where a passage led to the adjoining tower. Guests sleeping in the large, four-poster bed in ‘The Pink Room’ would report that as the wailing faded away, they would see figure of a boy dressed in blue and surrounded by an eerie, blue light.

It is said that the bones of a young boy and tattered, blue clothing were found in the wall. Once this discovery had been made, the haunting ceased.

Indeed, Borley’s history is as tragic as Chingle. Whilst still a monastery, it is said that a young monk and a nun fell in love and attempted to elope. Unfortunately they were caught and the monk was hanged. The nun was walled up alive in the building’s masonry.

From the 1920s, people have reported seeing the ghost of a nun in the area. Objects have also been seen to move by themselves and there is a remarkable photograph of a brick that appears to be hanging in mid-air.

In 1930, the Reverend Lionel Foyster and his family moved into the house. After reporting over two thousand separate paranormal incidents, the family fled five years later. They claimed that writing appeared on walls on several occasions and ghostly figures were often seen moving through the grounds at night.

Before the rectory burned down in 1939, the last family to live there was the family of Captain William Gregson. The fire was caused by nothing more paranormal than an oil lamp. It is purported that the ghosts of Borley Rectory have moved across the road to the Borley Church. In 1945, the bones of a woman were found in the rubble of the rectory. It has been suggested that these bones were those of the nun, killed because of her love for the young monk.

One thing is for certain, over the years thousands of sightings of apparitions, moving objects, even photographs of dark figures in the grounds of the rectory support Borley Rectory’s claim of being The Most Haunted House In Britain.

© S Johnson 2001

© 2005 Steven Johnson