Haunted Aberdeen and District E-Book

Geoff Holder

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 189

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

From reports of haunted castles, hotels, public houses, chapels and churchyards, to heart-stopping accounts of apparitions, poltergeists and related supernatural phenomena, this collection of stories contains both well-known and hitherto unpublished tales from around the city of Aberdeen. This spine-tingling selection includes Fyvie Castle, home to the Green Lady; Aberdeen Central Library, where the ghost of a former librarian still helps customers; the Four Mile Inn, whose staff have heard ghostly footsteps; and His Majesty's Theatre, said to be haunted by a ghost named Jake, a theatre hand who was killed in a stage accident. Richly illustrated with over seventy-five photographs and ephemera, Haunted Aberdeen is sure to appeal to all those interested in finding out more about Aberdeen's haunted heritage.

Leseprobe

Dedication

Black spirits and white, Red spirits and grey, Mingle, mingle, mingle, Ye that mingle may.

William Shakespeare, Macbeth

CONTENTS

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introduction

One The Historic Centre

Two Poltergeist!

Three There’s a Ghost in My House

Four Old Aberdeen

Five Spirits Served Here – Ghosts of Pubs, Restaurants & Hotels

Six All Aboard! – Transport Ghosts

Seven Phantom Armies & Rural Terrors

Appendix – Access to Locations

Select Bibliography

Index

Copyright

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

One of the pleasures of writing a book such as this is that the author gets to include a roll of honour for the fine people who have contributed to its production. Firstly, I owe a debt of gratitude to Rachael Hayward and Al Hayes of East of Scotland Paranormal (ESP) for actually making this book possible. Secondly, thanks go out to all the people who put up with my impertinent questions and let me poke around their premises – with a particular tip of the stovepipe hat to Diane Melville and the staff of Reptiles in The Green; Craig ‘Flash’ Adams and the staff of the Moorings Bar; Chris Croly of The Tolbooth Museum; Paul Hudson and Johanna Duncan of His Majesty’s Theatre; John Dow and Robin Bradford, Centre Manager and Security Manager respectively of Aberdeen Central Market; and the staff of the Old Blackfriars.

I am also grateful to the staff of various museums, institutions and other organisations who politely and efficiently answered my sometimes bizarre queries. Respect is due to those writers who have gone before me in this area, particularly Norman Adams and Graeme Milne, both authors of fine books on the supernatural in the North-East. The staff of the AK Bell Library in Perth and Aberdeen Central Library were unfailingly helpful. And, of course, there is the divine Ségolène Dupuy. Just because.

This book is part of a larger grouping of works by this author dedicated to the mysterious and paranormal. For more information, or to contribute your own experience, visit www.geoffholder.co.uk.

INTRODUCTION

What indeed do we not owe to the influence of the departed?

They are not dead. Thousands of them live for us, they still speak to us out of every century, and from far down the ages, till we have reached the furthest bounds of history.

Somehow they seem all around us.

Henry Montgomery, Life’s Journey (1916)

In many respects the departed are indeed all around us in Aberdeen, for in some ways it can be seen as a city built on the dead. People have been living on the thrust of dry land between the Rivers Dee and Don for thousands of years, and prehistoric burials have been uncovered in many places, from King Street to Schoolhill and Mounthooly. The area around The Green – now covered by Carmelite and Stirling Streets, among others – was the site of several extensive medieval cemeteries. More built-over graveyards were located at Correction Wynd and Gallowgate. Hundreds of skeletons have been found beneath St Nicholas Kirk. There were plague burials near York Street, while executed criminals were interred where they were hanged, at Gallows Hill near Pittodrie and the former East Prison (now the site of the headquarters of Grampian police). Hundreds of people died violently at the Battle of The Green (1336), the Battle of Craibstone (1571) and the Battle of Justice Mills (1644).

Of course, the view that ghosts are the spirits of the dead, although popular, is only one hypothesis among many. Throughout this book you will find people who subscribe to various psychic, spiritualist, religious, psychological, scientific and magical beliefs about ghosts. These views may be contradictory or complementary, but their sheer diversity shows that the subject of ghosts is not easily solved by one approach – which is why phenomena that baffled and alarmed our ancestors continue to fascinate us today.

Despite extensive (and often unsympathetic) urban redevelopment, Aberdeen is fortunate in still possessing some wonderful historic buildings, such as the sixteenth-century Provost Skene’s House and the seventeenth-century Tolbooth, both of which are open to the public and allegedly haunted. These are covered in the first chapter, ‘The Historic Centre’, which also includes many other allegedly haunted locations – from libraries and theatres to shops and street corners – in the heart of the city. One challenge to the standard view of ‘ghosts as the spirits of the dead’ can be found in the cases examined in Chapter Two, ‘Poltergeist!’ A broader range of phenomena flourishes in the private homes haunted in Chapter Three, ‘There’s a Ghost in My House’ – as early as the 1500s Aberdonian writers were recording that some houses were haunted, a tradition that continues unabated today. Ghosts of academic and student life – not to mention some truly spooky paranormal events – make up the following chapter, ‘Old Aberdeen’, the home of the University of Aberdeen.

Pubs, hotels and other buildings open to the public for the price of a drink or a meal are detailed in the chapter entitled ‘Spirits Served Here’ – this section probably contains the most extreme contemporary phenomena in the book. Chapter Six, ‘All Aboard!’ introduces a miscellany of ghosts who have travelled by bus, tram, truck or train. And finally, we conclude with cases of supernatural soldiers and other creepy tales from the countryside in the chapter on ‘Phantom Armies & Rural Terrors’.

The cases described in the book draw on many earlier published sources such as books, articles, periodicals and newspapers (plus You Tube!), supplemented by new research conducted in 2009-10. Some witnesses who shared their stories with me asked to remain anonymous, while others were happy for their names to appear in the book. I am grateful to them all. Any mistakes in transcription or misinterpretation are of course my own. A list of allegedly haunted locations open to the public can be found in the Appendix, while the key published sources are listed in the Bibliography.

Welcome to Haunted Aberdeen. Enjoy your stay, and please ignore the faint traces of ectoplasm.

Geoff Holder, 2010

one

THE HISTORIC CENTRE

From medieval times up until the late 1700s, Aberdeen was essentially a small patch of irregular streets and crowded buildings bounded by Castlehill to the east, the valley of the Denburn to the west (where the railway and dual carriageway now runs), the River Dee to the south (now diverted and re-engineered as the docks area) and a reedy loch to the north. The Castlegate was the very centre of the burgh, the main road north to the Bridge of Don leaving by Broad Street and Gallowgate, and the only route south a twisting inconvenient switchback following Shiprow, The Green, and then the Hardgate to the Bridge of Dee. The topography was dominated by St Katharine’s Hill, which was levelled when Union Street was built, straight as a die for a mile, in 1801. The straight lines of Marischal Street, Union Street and King Street have been superimposed on top of the original street plan, but the medieval pattern can still be made out in the older streets, particularly where the ground slopes down from the higher ground beneath Union Street and towards the shoreline. This means that central Aberdeen is a split-level urbanscape, with an ‘underground city’ of underpasses, culverts, cellars and tunnels passing beneath the ‘flyover’ of Union Street.

Punishment and the paranormal at the Tolbooth

At the centre of the old town was the Tolbooth, the centre of civic administration, tax-gathering and justice. Much of the original building has been replaced, but Aberdeen is fortunate indeed to retain the former Wardhouse or prison, built between 1616 and 1629. Now called the Tolbooth Museum, it is situated off Castlegate between the Sheriff Court and Lodge Walk. It consists of a number of eighteenth-century cells containing displays relating the civic history of Aberdeen, with particular emphasis on crime and punishment.

As well as countless ordinary felons, the prison was used to house people accused of witchcraft, rebel Jacobites, and Quakers who were persecuted for their religious beliefs. Many condemned criminals, including numerous murderers, spent their last nights on Earth here, sometimes unable to sleep for the sound of the gallows being built outside in readiness for the hanging.

Right Aberdeen in 1661. TheRiver Dee almost laps onto TheGreen, and St Katherine’s Hilldominates the tiny town. (Author’sCollection)

Left Aberdeen in 1822. Union Street andother straight routes have been imposedover the medieval street pattern. (Author’sCollection)

Below The small town of Aberdeen in theseventeenth century. The spire in the centreis St Nicholas Kirk, with the Tolbooth toits right. (Author’s Collection)

The Tolbooth as it was in the early nineteenth century. (Author’sCollection)

Clockwise from above

Lodge Walk, the alleyway beside the Tolbooth. (Author’s Collection)

The Tolbooth in 1661, at the heart of the city, surrounded by the spaceof Castlegate. (Author’s Collection)

Above The current sign outside theTolbooth. (Photo by Geoff Holder)

With this history of violence, suffering and death, it is not surprising that the Tolbooth has come to be regarded as haunted. Indeed, with its narrow spiral staircases, original doors, chains and locks, and low-vaulted windowless rooms, the interior resembles a set for a Gothic horror film, and conforms to what many people would regard as a classic ‘haunted house’. On my visit, with only Chris Croly the curator, and my wife, for company, I found it grimly atmospheric, but despite spending ten to fifteen minutes alone in the darkened Jacobite Room, with its models of prisoners shackled to a metal bar in the stone floor, I did not pick up any sense of anything spooky.

In contrast, on a hot day in May 2007 author Graeme Milne was in the Crime and Punishment Room, on a tour with a group of eight people, when he felt icy cold down his left side; along with four others in his group he heard a sound like shuffling feet or a chain being moved close by. In his book The Haunted North, Milne also includes an episode related to him by a Mrs Wood. In 2005 she had seen the apparition of a man wearing a brown striped suit and a 1920s’ trilby hat. His overall height was very small, as if he was cut off at the knees due to the floor level having been raised since his lifetime. The sighting was on the first floor of the Tolbooth. Unusually, the apparition noticed Mrs Wood, nodding its head at her, at which point she became very scared and left the museum.

Two of the massive doors that are still in place within the maze of prison cells and passages in the Tolbooth Museum.(Ségolène Dupuy)

Ghost-hunting in the twenty-first century

In recent years there has been an upsurge in small groups of like-minded individuals setting out to investigate locations that have the reputation of being haunted. Some of these groups have greater quality control than others when it comes to the rigour of collecting, reporting and interpreting data. The procedures of these groups vary, but typically there will be a mix of long-established tactics (use of mediums, lone and group vigils, and ‘calling out’ – asking any spirits present to make themselves known) and new technology (digital video cameras and audio recorders, digital thermometers to measure temperatures at a distance, and EMF meters to record any changes in the ambient electromagnetic frequencies; electrical devices, mains circuits and humans all have EMF fields, and it is assumed that ghosts can either affect EMF fields, or generate their own). Another typical procedure is the use of ‘trigger objects’, small items set up with a chalk outline around them; a video camera is often trained on the objects in an attempt to record any movement caused by invisible forces.

In general this tactical mix is thought to make the best of both subjective (internal, human-centred) experience and objective (external, technology-centred) recording. In practice, no matter how sophisticated the technology and competent the operators, most events recorded during a modern ghost-hunt tend to be subjective, subtle, even barely-noticeable, and inevitably require interpretation as to whether there is anything paranormal prowling about. Factors affecting this interpretation include: the belief systems of the participants; environmental sources (air-conditioning, central heating, draughts, infrasound, waterpipes, and noises from the external city); and the kind of group psychology that can develop on a ghost-hunt, where participants are typically in a heightened state of nervous arousal, and feelings of excitement, anxiety, paranoia, anticipation and ‘paranormality’ can easily be communicated and shared through the power of suggestion. Other factors may also be at work – as one Glasgow man in his twenties told this author, hanging out in darkened rooms at night in frightening circumstances is ‘a great way to meet girls’. Victorian and Edwardian investigators used cutting-edge technology such as photography and film in their investigations, while the séance rooms of the period were often a hotbed of suppressed sexuality. In some respects then, modern ghost-hunts may have the gadget trappings of the twenty-first century, but are still repeating the paradigms of their nineteenth-century predecessors.

There is perhaps a high expectation that, with all the advantages of cool technical toys, contemporary ghost-hunts will deliver instant, dramatic results, the ideal experience for those seeking thrills, or irrefutable evidence for believers in survival after death. In practice, most properly-conducted paranormal investigations produce findings that are at best ambiguous, with suggestions that such-and-such a phenomenon might be of supernatural origin. Typical of this more cautious approach is the work of East of Scotland Paranormal (ESP). Since 2007 ESP has conducted several investigations in Aberdeen, some of which are discussed elsewhere in this book, while several are presented in this chapter.

ESP has conducted three investigations in the Tolbooth, on 11 December 2007, and 12 March and 20 August 2008. Recorded phenomena included fluctuations in temperature and humidity; a ‘thick and muggy’ atmosphere; odd noises such as something that sounded like the jangling of keys, footsteps, a loud ‘breath’ and a high-pitched whistle; a sense of presence or of being watched; possible human voices, including singing; feelings of despair or oppression; and moving shadows such as a ‘tall dark figure’ and a man with a ‘faded’ appearance. The phenomena were not consistent across the several visits and did not appear to be concentrated on any particular cell – in fact, rooms that had been ‘active’ in one investigation produced nothing on subsequent visits.

The first investigation included several mediums, who reported a wide variety of impressions of people and events. Some of these were quite intriguing, such as one medium feeling the labour pains of a fifteen-or sixteen-year-old girl who died in childbirth in the prison, and the presence of young children (kidnapped children were indeed held in the building for a time – see The Green on page 30 for the full story). However, the investigation also demonstrated the potential weakness of relying on the subjective impressions of mediums. None of the impressions could be backed up by written records, and in one case the ‘received information’ was quite incorrect – a medium stated that the Civic Room had been used as some kind of place of worship, when in fact it was a late addition to the building and was built only to store civic documents.

Perhaps the most intriguing event took place on the third visit. In less than fifteen minutes, various members of the team heard or recorded a female voice in the Great Escapes Room, a large light ‘anomaly’ leaving the same room, then two successive loud bangs, one in the Jacobite Room and the other in the Civic Room.

ESP’s detailed reports can be read on www.esparanormal.org.uk, where the team note that many of the phenomena could result from natural, physical or human causes (such as the age of the building, the seasonal differences between summer and winter, and sound pollution from the street or adjacent buildings such as the Court House, which may account for the jangling of keys). In addition, the brooding, slightly malevolent architecture, combined with even the slimmest knowledge of the Tolbooth’s dark history, can create a sense of foreboding or anxiety in which mundane sights and sounds can be easily misinterpreted. ESP cautiously conclude, however, that some of what had been experienced might have been paranormal, although it is unclear if it is some kind of active, conscious entity, or an imprint, the non-conscious ‘recording’ of past events that are somehow being replayed.

The ghosts of Union Street

At 8.30 p.m. on a summer’s evening in 1859, twenty-six-year-old Revd Spencer Nairne saw Miss Wallis, an acquaintance, strolling along Union Street. As they passed each other, Nairne turned round – but both Miss Wallis, and the man she was with, had vanished. In September Nairne met Miss Wallis again, this time in London, where she told him that she had had a similar experience – she and her brother had been on Union Street, spotted Nairne, and then looked round to find that he was nowhere to be seen. The strangest part of an already strange episode was that she had recorded the meeting in her journal, showing the event took place in July. But Nairne’s diary, kept during his travels (he was about to leave Aberdeen on a holiday to Norway) had the encounter listed as 31 May. Somehow the pair had seen each other’s double in the same place, but on different days in different months.

Two views of busy Union Street, site of theReverend Nairne’s meeting with an apparition.(Photos by Geoff Holder and Ségolène Dupuy)

The account, penned by Nairne, appeared in Lord Halifax’s Ghost Book in 1936. The book shows that this was not the first time Nairne had encountered a double. In 1850 or 1851, when he was seventeen, Nairne was sauntering slowly through the London suburb of Clapham, arm-in-arm with a schoolfellow named Henry Stone, when they passed their headmaster, Revd C. Pritchard, walking rapidly in the opposite direction. As custom required, both boys touched their hats, and although Pritchard didn’t look at them he did return the salute. About two or three minutes later the reverend passed them again, even though it would have been impossible for him to run around another way. Nairne and Stone, although mind-boggled, did not ask Pritchard about it, and he never mentioned seeing them twice.

The Mercat Cross onCastlegate, with the SalvationArmy Citadel behind.(Ségolène Dupuy)

Norman Adams’ book Haunted Neuk recounts an experience Michael Ross of Peterhead had when he was a child. As he and his mother passed the Mercat Cross in the Castlegate, he saw a strange woman, dressed in Victorian-era clothes, carrying a parasol and wearing small spectacles. She smiled at the boy, but when Ross said to his mother, ‘That lady is smiling at me,’ no such person was visible.

Rachael Hayward and Al Hayes of ESP also run ghost tours of Aberdeen centre. One evening they were waiting by the Mercat Cross, as the customers for the tour gathered, when they were approached by two community wardens who related the tale of the ‘Mad Hatter’, an apparition of a man apparently seen at the spot where he used to own a hat shop. According to the wardens the ghost was well-known, but neither Hayward nor Hayes had heard of it before, and knew nothing of the ‘Mad Hatter’.

The Mad Hatter of Aberdeen was actually Samuel Martin, who ran a hat shop at 34 Union Street, on the corner with Broad Street, between 1842 and his death in 1888. His nickname perhaps over-exaggerates his eccentricity, which was merely that of a larger-than-life, flamboyant individual who was most famous for extravagant advertisements in the AberdeenHerald. Over several decades, the self-styled ‘People’s Hatter’ filled his publicity with patriotic and amusing opinions on politics, international affairs and war and peace, sometimes laced with eye-catching typographic jokes such as:

SAMUEL MARTIN does not expect TO BE MADE A FIELD-MARSHALL

Rachael Hayward and Al Hayes, of East of ScotlandParanormal, in their ghost tour costumes. (East ofScotland Paranormal)

A typical page of advertisements bySamuel Martin, the ‘Mad Hatter ofAberdeen’ who is supposed to hauntUnion Street. (Author’s Collection)

Other than the mention by the community wardens, and their assertion that the story is well-known, there appears to be no further record of sightings of the Mad Hatter. Also missing from the documentary record is the spirit that is alleged to grab the arms, ankles and throats of pedestrians on Union Street. The incidents are supposedly linked to the murder of a little girl, although it is not clear whether the spirit doing the grabbing is the murderer seeking new prey, or the victim trying to get help. Again, several people have told Hayes and Hayward that this story is ‘well-known’, but no-one has come forward with an actual encounter, so it may be a piece of urban folklore.

The Drummer Boy and the little girl of Correction Wynd

One of the occupational pleasures of running ghost tours is that people tell you ghost stories. Two more have come to light from customers or passers-by on the tours run by Rachael Hayward and Al Hayes. In both cases the stories were claimed to be ‘well-known’, although once again it has so far proved impossible to track down the details of an actual sighting (during the writing of this book I asked several people about these two stories: everyone had heard of them, but no-one could provide an actual source – they just seem to be stories that are passed around).

The first concerns the Drummer Boy of St Nicholas Lane. The lane runs from St Nicholas Street to Correction Wynd, parallel to Union Street, and is best identified by the feathers on the sign of the Prince of Wales pub. The back story is a tragic episode in Aberdeen’s history. On 11 September 1644, during the period of the Civil Wars, the Marquis of Montrose wished to take the city for the King, Charles I. Montrose’s forces were drawn up to the south-west of the city, opposed by a defending force of townsfolk led by Covenanters. Observing the standard customs of war, Montrose sent a herald and a drummer boy to negotiate surrender under a flag of truce. While the herald was in discussions – which resulted in the Covenanters rejecting the terms offered – the boy was given something to eat and tipped a piece of silver. However, on their way back to the Royalist lines, someone – it is not known who – fired a shot at the boy’s back, killing him. Montrose, enraged at this atrocity under a flag of truce, unleashed his forces. The ensuing conflict, known as the Battle of Justice Mills, saw the defenders utterly overrun, 160 dying in the fighting. Even worse, Montrose, a general who usually displayed great judgement, allowed his army of Irish mercenaries to plunder, rape and murder their way through the town.