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10 Spooky Supernatural Stories From

19th-Century England
TRISTAN SHAW DECEMBER 17, 2016

While they might not have believed in things like witches and vampires, the Victorians still
had a great interest in the supernatural. Telling and reading ghost stories was a popular
pastime, especially on Christmas Eve. Spiritualism was also wildly popular, and urban
legends like that of the infamous Spring-heeled Jack abounded in the cities.

10

The Hotwells Haunting

Photo credit: John Hassell

In April 1831, a retired lawyer, his daughter, and three servants moved into an old house
known as Hotwells near the city of Bristol. Less than two weeks later, two of the servants
left, complaining that the house was haunted by a phantom black dog and a large ape.
They also heard frightening noises in the attic and courtyard, as though people were being
beaten and strangled.
Although the house drove several more servants away, the lawyer didnt see or hear
anything unusual until November, when a loud scream woke him up in the middle of the
night. The scream came from above, on the roof, and then he heard the sounds of 20 or 30
men ripping off the roof tiles and throwing them into the garden.
When the lawyer went to investigate outside, he found nothing in the garden or on the
roof. After a few more incidents like this, the lawyer decided to sell the house in 1832. The
subsequent owners also experienced trouble, however, and the house was torn down.

The Ghost Of Anne Boleyn

Photo credit: National Portrait Gallery

The infamous Tower of London is said to be one of Englands most haunted places. Anne
Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry the VIII, was imprisoned and beheaded here in May
1535. Annes ghost reportedly haunts the Queens House, the building where she stayed
before her execution.
In 1864, a guardsman at the Queens House encountered a floating white figure that might
possibly have been Annes spirit. The figure materialized out of nowhere, and when the
guard pierced it with a bayonet, continued to float. This scared the guard so badly that he
fainted, and he was later found unconscious by a superior.
For allegedly sleeping on duty, the guardsman was court-martialed. Fortunately, the case
ended in an acquittal, because other guards stepped up and reported seeing the same
figure as well.

The Thing In 50 Berkeley Square

Photo credit: Charles George Harper

On December 24, 1887, sailors Edward Blunden and Robert Martin decided to spend the
night at 50 Berkeley Square, a house in London that was plagued with all sorts of ghostly
activity during the Victorian era.
Blunden and Martin had just come from the West Indies, and since they had no money,
they didnt mind breaking into the empty house and sleeping in it. That night, while
staying upstairs, they heard somebody coming up the staircase. A shapeless mass then
suddenly barged in and filled up the room, sparking Martin to run out the door, down the
stairs, and out of the house.
Outside, Martin found a policeman and explained what happened. It was too late, however,
to save his friend. Presumably to escape the monster, Blunden had jumped out the

bedroom window, impaling himself on a spiked railing that was down below.

The Ghost Of Theodore Alois Buckley

Photo credit: Wikimedia

On the night of February 2, 1856, Kenneth R.H. Mackenzie was trying to get to sleep when
he suddenly felt a cold hand over his face. When Mackenzie opened his eyes, he found his
friend Theodore Alois Buckley standing next to his bed. Without a word, Buckley then
walked away to the window, where he stood for a minute before vanishing out of sight.

Although Mackenzie didnt know it at the time, his friend had died three days earlier. Back
in 1850, Buckley made a promise with Mackenzie that whoever died first would have to
visit the other as a ghost. Buckley duly kept his promise and even appeared to his friend
again a few nights later, this time carrying an old letter he had written.

The Luminous Chamber Of Taunton

Photo credit: Wikimedia

In an 1873 issue of the journal Notes and Queries, a contributor named Mr. T. Westwood
related a puzzling story he heard 30 years earlier from a squire in the town of Taunton.
While on his way home from hunting each night, the squire noticed an abandoned house in
the area that always had an eerie light shining from a central window. This light always
shone from the same room, so the squire nicknamed it The Luminous Chamber.
One night, the squire and a friend set out to find the source of the light. They searched
every room in the house, saving the Luminous Chamber for last. When they finally opened
the door to the illuminated room, they were shocked to find only a few pieces of furniture.
The light seemed to be natural, dimly casting itself over every spot of the room in equal
measure.

After the two friends left, the old caretaker who let them inside said that the family that
owned the building never used that room. He believed that there werent any ghosts,
but that the light was inherent to the room.

The Ghosts Of Darlington Station

Photo credit: Ben Brooksbank

On a winter night in 1890, a night watchman at a Darlington train station named James
Durham went down into the porters cellar to take a rest and have a snack. While Durham
was warming himself up in front of the fireplace, a man dressed in old-fashioned clothes
walked into the room with a black retriever. The man smiled at Durham and, without
warning, punched him.
Durham tried punching the stranger back, but his fist went right through the mans body.
The man called for his retriever, and the dog bit Durham in the calf. He and the dog then
walked off into the room where they had entered. Even though the room had no other exit,
Durham found it empty when he followed after his attackers.
Over the next few weeks, Durhams story spread across town. An elderly man named

Edward Pease was especially interested and invited Durham over to his house. He told
Durham that a worker at the station committed suicide some years ago. Not only did the
worker match Durhams description of the ghost, but he also had a black retriever.

The Pig-Faced Lady Of Manchester Square

Photo credit: Illustrated Police News

In the winter of 1814, rumors spread across London of a pig-faced lady who lived with her
family in the citys Grosvenor Square. A crowd of Londoners supposedly chased the
woman while she was out riding in her carriage, and a young man named Sir William Elliot
even claimed to have been attacked by her.
By February 1815, the story attracted the attention of The Times, which felt the need to
comment on it after a man had asked the paper to run an advertisement seeking the
ladys hand in marriage. The Times, skeptical of the womans existence, lamented that Our
rural friends hardly know what idiots London contains.

The Ghost Of William Field

Photo credit: Colin Bates

In 1804, wheelwright William Field hanged himself in the village of South Moreton. For
more than 40 years, Fields ghost haunted the area near his barn, terrifying the villagers.
By 1850, a group of 11 clergymen had had enough and decided to exorcise the ghost.
While the clergymen carried out their exorcism, a pair of brothers named John and James

Parkes secretly watched under some straw. Before being exorcised, Fields ghost asked
that it be given either a nearby rooster or the two mice under the straw.
Luckily, the clergymen gave away the rooster and then chased Field into a pond. To
ensure that the ghost stayed there, they also somehow drove a stake into him to hold him
in place.

The Kissing Ghost Of Renishaw Hall

Photo credit: Wikimedia

In 1885, Sir George Reresby Sitwell celebrated his 25th birthday with a party at his
ancestral home, Renishaw Hall. After trying to sleep in her room, one female guest
complained to Sitwell that she felt like something cold was kissing her in bed. Sitwell
didnt take the grievance very seriously, but his friend Mr. Turnbull did. According to
Turnbull, another woman who stayed in the room a few years earlier also received cold,
invisible kisses.
Sitwell was a notorious skeptic, having once debunked a seance, earning him media praise.
He dismissed ghosts as hallucinations and further doubted his guests experience because
she was a woman.

Amazingly, sometime after the party, an empty coffin was found underneath the
floorboard of the haunted guestroom. Who the coffin was for, and why it was buried there,
is a mystery, although some claim it belonged to a boy who drowned in the 18th century.

The Willington Mill Haunting

Photo credit: bedsarchives.bedford.gov.uk

Between 1831 and 1847, businessman Joseph Procter Jr. and his family lived in Willington
Mill, a mill house built on land that was once the site of a witchs cottage. The first few
years were ordinary enough, but in 1835, the Procters and their servants began to hear
inexplicable footsteps pacing across an empty room above their nursery. Other strange
noises, like knocks, ringing bells, and voices, could soon be heard all over the house.
Nobody in the house was spared from the haunting. The childrens beds not only shook
but were circled around by invisible footsteps at night. One of the girls reported seeing the
disembodied head of an old woman staring at her in bed, while another saw a woman

without any eyes sitting on her mothers bed.

The number of other apparitions seen at the Procters house was seemingly endless: A

large white cat that walked into a furnace, a ghost who stared at neighbors through an
upper-story window, and a dancing handkerchief-like object that flew outside the home
were among a few of the ghosts spotted by the Procters and their friends and visitors.

Tristan Shaw runs a blog called Bizarre and Grotesque, where he writes about unsolved
mysteries, paranormal phenomenon, and other creepy and weird things.

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