ghostsuk

The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall

The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall is one of the most famous hauntings in Britain, because of the strange form captured by photographers from 'Country Life' magazine in 1936. Before that event the Brown Lady had been reported several times, but many of the written accounts vary considerably.

The hall dates from the 17th century, and has been in the hands of the Townsend family from that time. In some stories the apparition of the Brown Lady once haunted Houghton Hall, but came to Raynham with sister of Robert Wallpole, who married Viscount Townsend in 1713.

Lucia C Stone recorded the first reference to the ghost in 1835; the sighting takes place at Christmas of the same year. Lord Charles Townsend had invited a number of guests to the hall for the Christmas festivities. Among them was a man called Colonel Loftus, who witnessed a figure in a brown dress with another guest called Hawkins. He also ran into the apparition on the stairs of the hall. He described her as an aristocratic looking lady with one horrific feature, where her eyes should have been were only empty sockets, highlighted in a face that glowed with an unearthly light. The captain drew a sketch of the apparition, and others also said that they had witnessed the ghost.

The next sighting was by a Captain Marryat (1792-1848), an author of sea novels, although no firm date is given for this encounter. In most accounts the captain has asked to stay in the haunted room because he believes that the haunting is the result of local smugglers. He is returning to his room with two companions, when they see a figure with a lantern coming towards them. They take refuge in a doorway, and the figure turns and grins at them in a "diabolical manner", the captain, who is armed, looses off a shot, which passes straight through the figure and becomes lodged in the opposite wall. Fortunately the figure is not a guest with a sense of humour in disguise, and the apparition vanishes.

The next publicised sighting was in 1926, when Lady Townsend admitted that her son and his friend had witnessed the ghost on the stairs. They identified the figure with the portrait of the lady hanging in the haunted room.

Ten years later in 1936, the most famous event occurred in the potted history of the haunting. Two professional photographers, Captain Provand and his assistant Indre Shira, were taking photographs of the hall for 'Country Life' magazine. The date was the 19th September, and at 4.00pm that afternoon they were photographing the Hall's main staircase. They had completed one exposure, and were preparing for another, when Shira saw a misty form ascending the stairs. He shouted to the captain that there was something on the stairs, and asked if the Captain was ready, he replied "yes" and took the cap off the lens, while Shira pressed the trigger for the flash light.

After this the captain came up from under the protective cloth, and asked what all the fuss was about. Shira explained that he had seen a shadowy, see-through figure on the stairs. When the negative was developed it showed the famous image. There were three witnesses to the negatives development, as Shira had wanted an independent observer to verify the event. He ran and got a chemist called Benjamin Jones, who managed the premises above which the development studio was located. A full account of the experience was published in Country Life magazine on the 26th of December 1936.

The photo was later examined by experts at the Country Life offices, where it was declared unlikely to have been tampered with. There have been a few detractors saying that Shira hoaxed the image by smearing grease on the lens or moving in front of the camera, but there is unlikely to be a definitive explanation for the photo. It is still held in the offices of Country Life.

There have been more recent stories suggesting the haunting has moved to a road between South and West Raynham, but this has not been verified. The spirit has not been reported at the hall since the photograph was taken

British Ghosts and Haunted Houses

Britain has more than its fair share of haunted houses. Ghosts have been reported at all of the historic buildings and places listed below.

Abbey House, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
Alderley Edge, Cheshire
Althorp, Northampton, Northamptonshire
Amen Court, London
Anthony House, Torpoint, Cornwall
Arundel Castle, West Sussex
Assembly Rooms, Bath, Avon
Athelhampton Hall, Dorset
Baddesley Clinton Hall, Knowle, Solihull, Warwickshire
Bateman's, Burwash, East Sussex
Bedruthan, Cornwall
Bellister Castle, Haltwhistle, Northumberland
Ben MacDhui, The Cairngorms, Highlands
Berkeley Castle, Berkeley, Gloucestershire
Berkeley Square, London
Berrington Hall, Leominster, Hereford and Worcester
Berry Pomeroy, Totnes, Devon
Bettiscombe Manor, Bettiscombe, Dorset
Bisham Abbey
Blickling Hall, Aylsham, Norfolk
Bodiam Castle, East Sussex

Borley Hall, Borley, East Sussex
Bramber Castle, Steyning, West Sussex
Bramshill House, near Hartley Wintney, Hampshire
Brodick Castle, Isle of Arran, Strathclyde
Brodie Castle, Forres, Morayshire, Grampian
Buckland Abbey, near Tavistock, Devon
Burnmoor Tarn, Eskdale, Cumbria
Canterbury Cathedral, Canterbury, Kent
Clophill Church, Bedfordshire
Charlecote Park, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
Chartwell, Westerham, Kent (family home of Winston Churchill)
Chingle Hall, Goosnargh, near Preston, Lancashire

Clandon Park, West Clandon, Surrey
Claydon House, Middle Claydon, Buckinghamshire
Cley Hill, Warminster, Wiltshire
Clouds Hill, near Bovington, Dorset (resting place of Lawrence of Arabia)
Corfe Castle, Purbeck, Dorset
Cotehele, Calstock, Cornwall
Coughton Court, Alcester, Warwickshire
Cragiavar Castle (Peel Ring), Lumphanan, Aberdeenshire, Grampian
Crathes Castle, Crathes, Kincardine, Grampian
Croft Castle, near Leominster, Hereford and Worcester
Crown Hotel, Poole, Dorset
Culloden, east of Inverness, Highland
Culzean Castle, Maybole, Ayrshire, Strathclyde (used as location for the filming of The Wicker Man)

Borley Rectory

The paranormal investigator Harry Price dubbed the old rectory “The Most Haunted House in England” and claimed that over two hundred ghosts resided within its sturdy Victorian walls. Although the house burnt down in 1939, the church and its surrounds are still eerie and many visitors report a sudden feeling of foreboding that grips them the moment they set foot in the neat, though seemingly neglected little churchyard. And, some would say, with good reason, for ghostly organ music has often been heard wailing from inside the empty church. Investigators have tape-recorded phantom footsteps, mysterious tapping, and even a harsh, menacing cry that has terrified those who have heard it. Many photographs taken of the church exterior have been found to include ghostly forms gliding amongst the sunken graves or along the uneven paths of what is still one of England’s eeriest and marrow - chilling places.

Sudbury - The Mill Hotel

The hotel stands over the river which once drove the mighty wheel that can still be seen encased behind glass in the restaurant. When the building was a mill a lady is said to have drowned beneath the wheel and her ghost still haunts the older sections of the hotel. Cleaning staff will not venture alone into some of the older rooms, and those who find themselves alone in the restaurant late at night can find it an unnerving experience. Displayed beneath the floor in the hotel foyer lie the mummified remains of a cat, its facial features frozen in an eternal snarl. Bricked up to bring good luck to the original mill building, it was rediscovered in 1971 when the mill was converted to a hotel. Whenever the cat is removed from the hotel a spate of bad luck always follows. In 1999 the cat was removed. Over the next few weeks the Road outside the hotel exploded, the managers office flooded several times and the person who had removed the cat met with an accident. All returned to normal once the cat had been returned.

Wicken Fen

Primitive and mysterious, Wicken Fen has changed little since the days when Hereward the Wake roamed its marshy expanse, battling against the Norman invaders. At night, its wild avenues of beech and rowan tower over beds of giant reeds through which the breeze whispers eerily, and where the sudden movement of a tiny mammal is easily mistaken for the advance of something far more sinister. Strange, twisting shades of Roman legionaries, perhaps? For they have been known to materialise before startled witnesses and then melt back just as suddenly into the silent shadows. Battles fought long ago are still repeated by phantom armies that are heard though never seen. A sinister black dog wades through the dark waters its eyes fixed on an unseen prey. But the most feared of all the spectres that roam this brooding wilderness, are the “lantern men”. These strange lights that dance and twist their way over the dark surface of the great mere or skip erratically in and out of the reeds, are said to be evil spirits whose sole intent is to lure unsuspecting mortals to a hideous death and a watery grave deep within their marshy domain.

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