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Situated on the border of Kent and London, the borough of Bromley has long been considered extremely haunted and now, for the first time ever, a majority of its ghost stories can be revealed. Folklorist Neil Arnold peeks into the darkest corners of the district in search of phantom highwaymen, troublesome poltergeists, creepy creatures and haunted houses, as well as investigating Bromley's most ghost-infested areas such as Biggin Hill, with its wartime spirits, and the eerie tunnels of Chislehurst Caves. So if you're interested in things that go bump in Bromley, then take a deep breath, grab a torch, and prepare for Haunted Bromley.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013
This book is dedicated to Jez – rock on!
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Introduction
one The Bromley Poltergeist & Others
two Shivers at Shortlands
three Haunting at Biggin Hill
four Spooks around Beckenham
five Orpington Oddities
six Eerie Bickley
seven Peculiar Penge
eight West Wickham Weirdness
nine St Mary Cray Strangeness
ten Legends of Pratts Bottom
eleven Horror at Hayes
twelve Scary Sundridge
thirteen Uncanny Chelsfield
fourteen Chills at Chislehurst
fifteen Encounter at Elmstead
sixteen Mottingham Mystery
seventeen Anomaly at Anerley
eighteen The Petts Wood Ghost
nineteen Ghouls of Green Street Green
Bibliography
Copyright
Many thanks to the following people who have supported me not just in writing this book, but over the years. Firstly, all my love to my mum Paulene, my dad Ron, my sister Vicki, my wife Jemma and my grandparents, Ron and Win. Many thanks also to my publisher The History Press plus News Shopper, Your County, The Victoria Advocate, Daily Telegraph, Malcolm Hayes, Richard Thompson, Colin Godden, Loaded, David Spencer Smith, Paul Masters, British Newspaper Archive, Nick Redfern, Darren Naish, Jonathan McGowan, Medway Archives and Local Studies, Terry Hunt and Jason Desporte at Chislehurst Caves, Daily Mail, John Love, The Robesonian, The Petts Wood & District Advertiser, Country Life, The Gentleman’s Magazine, The Bromley Record, Kentish Times, Orpington Times, Beckenham & Penge Advertiser, Kent Messenger, This Is Kent, West Kent Mercury, Bromley Times, Bromley Post, Western Mail, Marie-Louise Kerr at Bromley Museum, Fact or Faked, The Why Files. Special thanks to Suzanne North and staff at Bromley Archives and Local Studies, Chris and Janet Parsons and Emma Rodrigo for the illustrations.
All photographs taken by the author.
If one flicks through the pages of any local ghost book, or attempts an internet search of ghosts in relation to Bromley, you’ll find an alarming lack of stories. This is rather unusual considering just how much ground the Bromley borough covers – almost sixty square miles in fact. Maybe, due to the fact that Bromley sits on the Kent/London border, this means it has been ignored by a number of researchers when looking into its eerie history.
Bromley was first recorded as Bromleag in a charter from AD 862. The name is said to mean ‘the place where broom grows.’ It has also been known as Broom Leigh. The parish of Bromley was once recorded by author E.L.S. Horsburgh in 1929 as ‘…consisting of some four to five thousand acres of land…to the extent of one-fifth of it, nothing but woodland and waste even as late as the close of the century.’
Bromley as a market town is mentioned as being just ten miles from London. The outer London borough of Bromley is a sum of many parts – being one half urban, the other rural, taking in Chislehurst, Penge, West Wickham, Beckenham, Biggin Hill, Locksbottom, Petts Wood, Orpington, St Mary Cray, St Paul’s Cray, Hayes, Eden Park, Elmers End, Chelsfield, Crofton, Derry Downs, Anerley, Sundridge, Goddington, Elmstead, Farnborough, Kevingtown, Leaves Green, Keston, Pratts Bottom, Plaistow, Park Langley, Bickley, Southborough, Bromley Green, Bromley Park, Green Street Green, Mottingham, Ruxley and part of Crystal Palace. A majority of these locations feature in this book.
Folklore surrounds a well in Bromley. It is known as St Blaze’s Well (also known as St Blaise’s) and was once said to have curative powers. Over time the well became less frequently used and was eventually filled in but discovered again in 1754. The chalybeate spring is said to have iron-rich waters. The word chalybeate derives from the Latin chalybs, meaning steel. Numerous curative wells are dotted about the British countryside, some long forgotten whilst others, such as the healing spring at The Pantiles in Tunbridge Wells, are celebrated. St Blaze’s Well can be found at the old Bishop’s Palace, also known as Bromley Palace which is a manor house once occupied by bishop’s from the twelfth to the mid-nineteenth century. In 1973 Bromley Palace became a Grade II listed building and in the early 1980s became part of the Bromley Civic Centre.
The waters of the healing spring were tested in 1756 by a surgeon named Thomas Reynolds who concluded that the waters were much richer than those at Tunbridge Wells. The well can be found at the edge of a small lake, which it feeds in the grounds of the civic centre. Interestingly, the area of the well is said to be haunted by an unseen presence.
Bromley also has a hint of smuggling history, something one wouldn’t normally expect considering that a majority of Kentish smuggling yarns originate from coastal and marshy areas such as Romney Marsh. In 1910 a chamber, some 18ft in diameter, with a depth of 8ft was uncovered at Chelsfield. The chamber was believed to have been prepared and used by smuggling gangs, possibly as a place to hide and also conceal their contraband.
The borough of Bromley includes some of Kent’s most intriguing tourist attractions, including the caves of Chislehurst which stretch for around twenty miles. This eerie labyrinth worms its way some 3 metres below ground into a heart of darkness. According to the Chislehurst Caves website these tunnels ‘were dug for chalk used in lime burning and brick-making for the building of London.’ The public were first allowed access to the network of tunnels in the year 1900 and in the swingin’ 1960s, and not so swaggering ‘70s, they were used for concerts and parties. Hard to believe that just a few decades previous the passageways were used as an air-raid shelter during the Blitz and more than 15,000 people were housed there.
Bromley borough is home to a museum, which can be found at Church Hill in Orpington, and the area has also been known for a few famous residents, such as naturalist Charles Darwin and author Enid Blyton. Rock star David Bowie once resided in Bromley.
The borough also harbours Biggin Hill, known for its airport and considered one of Britain’s most haunted locations. Considering how close it is to London, the borough of Bromley is also noted for its green parks and open spaces, and in the heart of the town sits The Glades shopping centre on the busy High Street.
In the autumn of 1976 Bromley was caught up in an Unidentified Flying Object scare. Several residents awoke to the news that a strange, metallic-looking disc-shaped craft had been discovered on a golf course in the town. News spread like wildfire and the police were soon on the case. A handful more of these ‘saucers’ were found elsewhere in the country. As things got out of hand the truth finally came out. It took a newspaper reporter to discover that the discs were manufactured by hoaxers. The jokers were a group of students from Farnborough who, never in their wildest dreams expected their prank to blow up the way it did. They had merely, for the measly sum of £30, constructed the saucers and filled them with melted bread dough – to resemble their version of alien goo! Their plan was simple, to raise money for charity as part of their college Rag Week. And so, armed with a pencil and a map they simply drew a line from Somerset to Kent and decided to plant six of their man-made discs at certain points. The hoax would take a fair bit of time as only one craft could fit into a vehicle. During the early hours of 4 September 1967 two small teams drove to the designated spots under the cover of darkness and placed their UFOs. Each disc measured 20 inches in depth and 30 inches in width.
This isn’t the only sky-related anomaly to feature in Bromley lore. In fact the following story suggests that the borough is far stranger than anyone could have imagined. In 1797 a peculiar episode took place involving the then Bishop of Rochester, Samuel Horsley and his family at Bromley House. In a letter, later reprinted in The Kentish Notebook of 1892, he records:
Bromley House – July 10th, 1797 – ‘Sir – The forenoon of this day (July 10th) was remarkably sultry, with little sunshine, except for about two hours and a half from noon. The greatest heat was about 3 o’clock when the sky was overcast again. At that time the Thermometer already in the shade, at a window on the north side of my house, and so fixed as to face the east, was at 81 degrees. But a little before it was taken to 77 degrees, and the Barometer at the same time, which in the morning had been at 30,08, was sunk at 30,03. Just about this time I observed the cows and Welsh poneys in my paddock all galloping towards the yard, as if something had frightened them. The sky was overcast with dark lowering clouds, the swallows were flying very low, and from many appearances I apprehended that a heavy thunderstorm was approaching. We had sitten down to dinner (perhaps about 5 or 10 minutes past four) when a young Lady at table suddenly exclaimed in great surprise, that ‘the hay was all falling about the garden.’ Running to the window I saw many little handfuls of hay falling gently and almost perpendicularly through the air upon my lawn. Going to the front door, I saw the same sort of shower descending upon the grass on the contrary side of the house, and found my gardiner and laborours gazing at it. I observed a large black cloud coming over the house with a very slow motion from south to north, or nearly in that direction. Fixing my eyes steadily on the middle of that cloud, I saw several of these parcels of hay, one after another, dropping in appearance from the bosom of the cloud, and becoming first visible at a great height in the atmosphere. They descended with a very slow motion and with a very small deviation from the perpendicular in the direction in which the cloud moved. The atmosphere all this time was remarkably close and still. Not a leaf of the trees moved, not a breath of air was stirring, and my own hay was lying motionless in the field. Towards the evening a light breeze sprang up, which soon died away again; and the whole day has passed off without thunder, rain, or storm of any kind. The specimen of this hay, which I have the honour to send you, is the aggregate of two of the little parcels picked up by myself on opposite sides of the house.’
Centuries later odd things were still falling from the skies of Bromley. On the 28th October 1967 something very unusual fell from the sky and crashed onto the roof of a house in Bickley. A Mr John Boatwright was startled by the sudden crash on the roof at his home and so decided to investigate. He found an object measuring some 2ft in length that had taken out telephone wires on route to the roof. The sound of the object hitting the house was so loud that Mr Boatwright’s neighbour heard it too. Bromley police were called out to investigate the strange fall and took the 2 inch round object away in a bucket.
In some instances of poltergeist phenomena, as mentioned in the case of the poltergeist in the Bromley segment, objects such as coins and stones have materialised from nowhere as if falling from the sky or the roof of a building. In this case the object was not believed to have fallen from a passing plane as there were none in the area at the time. No further details of the weird episode were forthcoming so maybe a mischievous spirit was to blame.
I write this book during a festive season. As the cold nights draw in, there is a layer of glistening frost on the ground. The leaves that remain on the stark trees are crisp and white and the only lights that puncture the darkness are those twinkling Christmas decorations in the distance. Christmas, for me anyway, isn’t just a time for giving and receiving presents, but a time for telling stories, and there is nothing more powerful than that of the Christmas ghost story. Author Charles Dickens wrote what is without doubt the most famous festive ghost tale, A Christmas Carol but any good spook tale is suited to be told round a crackling log fire. I hope the stories I’ve chosen in relation to the borough of Bromley tingle your spine just as the winter weather does. I always tell people that it’s not important whether you believe in ghosts, but it is important to have mystery and imagination in our lives. Of course, some stories contained herein are relatively vague; they exist as anecdotes passed down through generations, probably at Christmas, and also All Hallows Eve. Other stories however seem to have a sinister edge, and come from the mouths of those who actually experienced them first hand. These are the tales so hard to dismiss, so, before you scoff at Haunted Bromley, just remember, ghost stories, in whatever form, have existed for many, many years. Not every alleged encounter can be dismissed as hallucination, hoax or the result of the witness in question being in the company of too many spirits of the pub kind! Ghosts will always exist as lore, long after you and I have passed over, and I’d like to think that there’s something beyond this earthly plateau. Maybe we’ll never find out what lies beyond the veil and if, after all there is nothing, then so be it but the eye witness accounts suggest otherwise. However, for now, let’s entertain ourselves with another set of creepy tales, best suited to a stormy night of raging gales and pattering rain. And, as I stare from the window of my study I wonder just what manifestations lurk out there in the darkest corners, not just of our woods and streets, but of our minds, because let’s face it, it is the power of the mind that keeps these bone-chilling stories everlasting. And so, I offer to you my latest batch of tantalising tales, in the form of Haunted Bromley. Strike the match, light the candle and let us take a wander into the darkness …
(Image created by the Author)
Neil Arnold is the author of many books including Paranormal Kent, Haunted Maidstone, Haunted Chatham, Haunted Rochester, Shadows in the Sky: The Haunted Airways of Britain, Haunted Ashford, Shadows on the Sea: The Maritime Mysteries of Britain and Mystery Animals of the British Isles: Kent. He has written for magazines such as Fortean Times, Paranormal and Fate, and runs ghost walks through the cobbled streets of Rochester (www.hauntedrochester.blogspot.com) and the dark woods of Blue Bell Hill (www.bluebellhillghostwalk.blogspot.com) near Maidstone.
‘The mere mention of a ghost causes a bit of controversy. Men scoff and women shudder, and you are considered a halfwit if you believe in them…’ Peggy Martyn Clark, Secretary of Kentish Authors Group (1964)
Author John Dunkin refers to Bromley as being ‘pleasantly situated on a hill, on the high road from Hastings to London.’ There is an obscure legend which claims that ‘Bromley church’ was originally built elsewhere at Widmore (situated one mile east of Bromley) but one dark night was plucked from the land by unknown forces and placed where it sits today! Science fiction writer H.G. Wells was also born at No. 46 Bromley High Street, in 1866.
In April 1973 a series of weird events plagued an allotment shed in Bromley. Over the course of fifteen months psychic investigators would be called to the allotment to delve into a mystery that would become known as the ‘Bromley poltergeist’. The shed in question belonged to members of the Kentish Garden Guild, those being Mr Tony Elms and Mr Alf Taylor. It all began one afternoon when Mr Elms claimed that several powdered substances stored in the shed began to hit the ceiling followed by the drastic movement, by its own accord, of a pewter jug. Elms and Taylor would often use the shed as a shop and sell garden implements and fertilisers to other allotment holders. These tools of the trade would become the focus for an unseen entity that began to remove the tops of bottles, and more ominously, use certain garden tools as weapons. Both men were the target of this troublesome spirit, on one occasion Mr Taylor was hit on the head by a whole box of gardening utensils, but it was Mr Elms who seemed to be the main target for the aggression. On other occasions there were strange showers of matches and soil until eventually Mr Elms, sick of the episodes, attempted an exorcism. His ritual, however, only made matters worse. Two members of the Society of Psychical Research twice visited the allotment and witnessed the activity. The invisible presence seemed to attempt some type of communication to the witnesses using the fertiliser in an effort to spell out words. On one occasion the numbers 1659 appeared on a wooden panel as if suggesting some type of date. Whilst, at other times, symbols resembling a cross and on a separate occasion, a skull, had appeared.
A poltergeist was said to have once pestered a Bromley allotment! (Illustration by E. Rodrigo)
The alleged poltergeist activity was reported on in several newspapers, and one of the psychic investigators, a chap named Manfred Cassirer, eventually wrote a small booklet on the strangeness. On one occasion, Manfred reported that he and fellow investigator Pauline Runnalls were having a cup of tea outside the shed – so as to avoid any contamination from the fertiliser in the drink – when one of the beakers placed on the bonnet of a car began to move. This was the one episode that convinced the researchers that something uncanny was afoot. During another episode, holiday money belonging to Mr Elms had vanished and so Pauline Runnalls, in an attempt to prove the existence of the spirit, asked it if it could return the money and with that two coins sprang from nowhere, both of which struck her on the head.