Haunted Britain and Ireland: Over 100 of the Scariest Places to Visit in the UK and Ireland. Derek Acorah
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success and to have bought the dagger some time earlier in order to kill him as soon as he had the chance.
As Terris lay dying in the street his mistress rushed out and held him in her arms. He whispered to her, ‘I’ll be back.’ Since then he has been seen several times in the theatre, in the nearby Covent Garden tube station, which was built on the site of his favourite baker’s shop, in Maiden Lane and possibly in the Lyceum Theatre as well (see page 71). He wears a grey suit and white gloves and has been seen walking through a whole row of seats and disappearing through a wall. One evening several men were working in the theatre when they saw a glowing green light which turned into the misty figure of the former actor. He floated across the stage and into the stalls. Rapping noises have also been heard in the dressing room Terris used. Apparently he used to tap on the door of an adjoining room to let his leading lady know that he was going out for a few minutes.
Richard Arbor Prince was certified insane and confined to a mental institution.
The Adelphi Theatre, The Strand, London WC2E 7NA; Tel:020 7344 0055
Amen Court
Amen Court is a small alleyway close to St Paul’s cathedral. It backs onto the site of the former Newgate prison. It is thought that many prisoners tried to escape from Newgate by climbing over the wall into the court. It was also the site of the prison’s scaffold, where 12 men could be executed at the same time, and the lime pits where their remains were buried.
Now the alley is known as ‘Dead Man’s Walk’ because so many people have seen a dark shapeless figure sliding along the wall and heard the sound of clanking chains. It is thought that this may be the ghost of Jack Sheppard, an infamous cat burglar who escaped from Newgate three times before finally being hanged in November 1724.
The ivy-covered wall at the end of Amen Court is haunted by ‘the Black Dog of Newgate’. Just before a prisoner was hanged this ghostly dog was said to glide up and down the alley, accompanied by a sickening smell, and crawl along the top of the wall. It is said that it first appeared in the thirteenth century, when a famine hit London and a scholar charged with sorcery was killed and eaten by his fellow prisoners. However, he had his revenge one night soon afterwards, when the mysterious dog appeared, dripping blood from its jaws, and tore them limb from limb. Though the prison was demolished in 1902, people still claim to have seen the dog crawling across the wall, dropping into the courtyard and disappearing into thin air.
Amen Court, London EC4
DEREK’S TIP
Give each investigator the opportunity to call out to the spirit world. Whilst one person’s voice vibration may fail to attract the attention of spirit entities, another person’s voice may just be appealing enough to generate activity. Personalities are carried on voice vibrations and like attracts like – it is spiritual law. A spirit person may respond to a certain personality type because they have similar traits, whereas they will ignore another.
The Carlton Mitre Hotel
The Carlton Mitre Hotel stands on the banks of the River Thames, directly opposite Hampton Court Palace. Parts of the hotel date back to 1665 and it was originally a lodging-house for courtiers who could not be accommodated at Hampton Court Palace. It was renovated in 1993.
The hotel has a restaurant, Hamptons, with excellent river views, also a riverside bar/brasserie, which has a secluded terrace and private moorings. It can also offer excellent facilities for business travellers, with a business centre and a range of rooms available for meetings, seminars and conferences.
During a stay here I regularly ‘bumped into’ a gent dressed in Elizabethan attire who Sam informed me was called Edward. This small snippet of information was all that I received, but I was taken by the frequency of Edward’s appearances and by the manner in which he conducted himself – he noticed none of the changes that must have taken place over the long years since he had walked the Earth plane, just carried on as he had over 400 years ago. He was happy.
I suppose that Edward still wanders around the hotel, oblivious to the fact that we are now in the twenty-first century.
Even though he has no idea that time has moved forward and that the Elizabethan era ended long ago, Edward remains very much ‘alive’ today.
The Carlton Mitre Hotel, Hampton Court Road, Hampton Court, London KT8 9BN; Tel:020 8979 9988
DEREK’S TIP
I would advise that unless you have a trained medium with you, you should not attempt to invoke spirits by using ouija boards or any similar device,especially if the location is reputed to harbour
a particularly nasty spirit.
Cleopatra’s Needle
Cleopatra’s Needle is a 60 ft tall Egyptian obelisk which stands on the Thames Embankment between Waterloo Bridge and Hungerford Bridge. It was made for Pharaoh Thotmes III in 1475 bc and given to the British by the Turkish Viceroy of Egypt in 1819. It is known as Cleopatra’s Needle as it came from Alexandria, Cleopatra’s royal city. It was brought to London in 1878 to commemorate the British victory over Napoleon 63 years earlier.
Some say Cleopatra herself cursed the Needle, and its-journey to Britain was certainly fraught with danger. An initial attempt to move the Needle failed when it toppled over into the sand. It remained there for many years until a cigar-shaped container ship, called the Cleopatra, was specially designed, at great expense, to carry it to London. The Cleopatra was towed by a steamship, the Olga, but in a storm off the Bay of Biscay she nearly sank. The Olga sent six volunteers to rescue the crew, but their boat sank and they all drowned. They are commemorated today on one of the plaques at the base of the Needle. The Cleopatra’s crew was eventually taken off by the Olga, and the Cleopatra herself, with the Needle, was cut adrift on the stormy sea. Five days later she was spotted floating off the north coast of Spain and was towed into the port of Ferrol. Another steamship, the Anglia, finally towed her home.
Today four plaques at the base of the Needle give a brief history of the Needle and it is flanked by two large bronze Victorian sphinxes. Underneath it lies a Victorian time capsule containing a set of coins, a newspaper, a razor, a box of pins, four Bibles, a railway guide and 12 photos of Victorian beauties. During World War I the plinth and one of the sphinxes sustained damage during a Zeppelin air raid. This can still be seen today. The Needle has a twin, which now stands in Central Park, New York.
It is not the Needle itself that is haunted, but the area surrounding it. Mocking laughter and anguished cries have been heard there and most of the suicides that take place along this stretch of the river occur at this particular spot, which some say is due to the encouragement of the spirit voices.
The ghost of one of the suicides has been seen on many occasions. He is a tall naked man who runs from behind the Needle, jumps onto its base and throws himself into the river without making a splash.
Cleopatra’s Needle, Victoria Embankment, London SW1
The George Inn
The George Inn in Southwark is the only galleried coaching inn left in London. There were once many such inns, but with the coming of the railways most were demolished. The George itself had a narrow escape. The Great Northern Railway used it as a depot and pulled down two of its fronts to build