Haunted High Wycombe E-Book

Eddie Brazil

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

Seitenzahl: 157

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

The paranormal history of High Wycombe is brought vividly to life in this, the first dedicated guide to the haunted and mysterious sites of this Buckinghamshire town. Writer, photographer and psychical researcher Eddie Brazil brings together a chilling collection of supernatural experiences, ranging from Hughenden Manor, where the ghost of Benjamin Disraeli walks the corridors, to the phantom horseman of Penn village, the sinister Woman in Black at Burleighfield House, and the troubled shade of The George Inn. Here there are haunted roads, cellars, railway lines, woods, caves and buildings, both ancient and modern, where a host of ghostly denizens from the compelling and chilling world of the supernatural draw disturbingly close to the living. Richly illustrated and full of first-hand accounts, this book will fascinate everyone with an interest in the unexplained.

Leseprobe

This book is dedicated to the memory of my parents.

CONTENTS

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introduction

one The Haunted Town, Part One: Roads, Highways and Woods

two The Haunted Town, Part Two: Houses, Hostelries, and Public Buildings

three The Phantoms of West Wycombe

four Ghosts in the Chilterns

Further Reading

About the Author

Copyright

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

NO book is ever written completely alone. I would like to thank those people who have helped with information and support during the writing of Haunted High Wycombe. Donna Barnett, Sally Scagell, Josie Atkins, Jan and Andy Maclean, Kate Osbourne, Michael Powell, my good friend and colleague Paul Adams, Peter Underwood, for his inspiration and kindness, Janet Kaye, and Matilda Richards at The History Press. And finally, to my wife Sue and my daughter Rebecca – my islands in the stormy sea.

INTRODUCTION

THE origins of this book go back almost fifty years, to the late spring of 1966, when, aged ten, I was living with my family in an eighteenth-century house in the Stockwell district of South London. We had moved into the house in November 1963, and as far as I was concerned the following two and a half years were an uneventful period of normal, family routines. However, on an ordinary June afternoon, a year before the hippy summer of love, that was all to change.

I had returned early from school around 4 p.m. to find no one at home. Letting myself in, I went and sat in the kitchen and read comics whilst I awaited the return of my grandmother. It was unusual for the house to be empty during the afternoon, as my Gran was normally at home and my father, who was a shift worker, would either be asleep or getting ready to go to work.

As I sat in the kitchen I became aware that the house had become unnaturally still and quite. The muffled sounds of the traffic and the shrieks and shouts of children playing outside seemed to have been silenced, and once or twice I looked up from my comic to peer quizzically around the quiet room.

Without warning, my younger brother’s toy robot, which he often left wherever he last played with it, clicked and whirred into life and began marching across the floor towards me. The sudden breaking of the silence jolted me from my chair, and I got up, went over and stopped the robot. There was no indication as to why it had inexplicably burst into movement. I put it back in its box and returned to my seat with a puzzled frown.

It was sometime later that I suddenly heard a door upstairs close with a sharp slam, followed by footsteps. My immediate thought was that one of my brothers, or my father, was at home and now coming downstairs. And yet the sound of the descending footfalls on the stairs, and the way they seemed to edge tentatively down each step, made me listen up. It didn’t sound like my father’s measured tread, or the rushing eagerness of one of my brothers. At once the thought came to me that it might be an intruder who had broken into the house and, on hearing my return, was now cautiously coming down the stairs to make their escape. The footsteps reached the bottom floor and seemed to halt outside the kitchen. I sat transfixed, my eyes on the door, heart thumping, waiting to see who would enter.

The author’s boyhood home in Stockwell, South London, where he first experienced the paranormal.

I was certain that if I got up and opened the door I would be confronted by a large man with a stocking over his head and a crowbar in his hands. Yet, I didn’t need to, for noiselessly and without warning, the door swung open on its own. I quickly sat upright, half expecting someone to enter, but no one did. I eventually mustered enough courage to get up and go and look out into the hall. It was then that I realised that the sounds were not those of one of my family or the clumsy footsteps of a burglar. The hall and the stairs were empty. I immediately panicked and bolted from the kitchen and into the garden, too frightened to re-enter the house.

The arrival of my grandmother soon after restored an air of normality to the situation, and I went back inside, although not without some trepidation. My cautious looks around the room, out in the hall and up the stairs brought from her a knowing look that seemed to say, ah, so you have heard it too? Indeed, my grandmother and my father had both experienced odd incidents in the house. I was to later learn that such was my parents’ concern that my brothers and I would become so frightened if we became aware of what was occurring that both of them would try to ignore it. On certain days, when alone in the house, my grandmother would hear footsteps in empty rooms and doors closing by themselves. During the night, my father would often hear the front door of the house open and close, followed by footsteps that came along the hall and ascended the stairs. The footsteps would pause outside his bedroom before continuing up to the top floor. Getting out of bed, he would open the door and emerge out onto the cold, dark landing to see if there was anything out of place, and check that we were all in our rooms asleep, which we were. Eventually we moved from the house without discovering a reason for the strange disturbances.

One might have thought that my experience of living in a haunted house, and the encounter with disembodied footsteps and doors opening of their own accord, would have made me wary of the paranormal, or anything that went bump in the night. Yet, on the contrary, it awakened in me a fascination with the supernatural and ghosts, which has continued to this day. It is a road that has led to a collaboration with veteran British ghost hunter Peter Underwood and my close friend and colleague, paranormal historian Paul Adams, and the writing of The Borley Rectory Companion: The Complete Guide to ‘The Most Haunted House in England’ (The History Press, 2009), countless visits to alleged haunted sites, a study of haunted churches and, ultimately, to the book you are now reading.

Yet, it was also whilst living in Stockwell that I glimpsed hints of a future direction in my life. Each evening, as I played outside my front door, I would notice a single-decker Green Line bus which trundled along the road. Emblazoned across its destination panel were the words ‘High Wycombe’. I wonder where High Wycombe is, my inquisitive young mind would think. The name, at least to a youngster growing up in the grime and noise of the capital, seemed to have a bit more allure than the place names of my local area such as, Clapham, Balham, Brixton or Tooting. It conjured up visions of a lofty, rural idyll, with fields, farms, woods and meadows.

It would be twenty years later that I got my first look at High Wycombe when, on a weekend in 1985, my future wife Sue, a native of the town, introduced me to the district during a visit to see her family. Wycombe, at least its centre, I discovered, was not at all high, for it sits within a long valley of beech-covered slopes within the Chiltern Hills, thirty miles north-west of London. But appearances can be deceptive. The name is derived from the Wye Valley high above the river Thames. And it really is so; if you stand in the middle of the high street you are level with the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral in London.

In AD 800, it was neither hamlet, village or town but ‘Wicumun’ – meaning the farm or settlement in the valley. Three hundred years later and it is recorded in the Domesday Book as having twenty-seven villagers and eight serfs. Hughenden, Bassetsbury and Crendon are all listed as distant hamlets. Today’s heavily developed areas, such as Castlefield and Micklefield, were, as late as 1930, still areas of unspoilt, rolling countryside. By 2010, High Wycombe had become the largest town in Buckinghamshire, with a population of almost 170,000 people. Its centre is a mixture of old and new, and throughout the years the town has grown and expanded up and across its surrounding hills with housing and commerce, in particular the furniture industry which for many years Wycombe was justly famous for. Sadly, today, that industry has now almost disappeared within the town. Nonetheless, the lofty rural idyll I had imagined as a child can, happily, still be found in its surrounding countryside.

Like many towns throughout Britain, High Wycombe is not without its ghosts, many of which we will encounter throughout these pages. If the houses, churches, ancient inns, roads and streets of a town are the fingerprints of all who have left their mark, then its ghosts are the memories of its past. Neolithic wanderers, Bronze- and Iron-Age dwellers, Roman invaders, Saxon settlers, and Norman conquerors have all left traces of their occupation in what would become this unassuming Chiltern market town. It has been said that such past events and peoples can leave echoes; reverberations of episodes and incidents now long forgotten, but which linger on into the present until someone, in the right time and place, catches a glimpse of that lost past. Are ghost sightings visions of what has gone before, or are they proof of an afterlife? The answers, or some of them, it is hoped, are to be found within this book.

Our exploration of Wycombe’s haunted sites is divided into four chapters. The first looks at those phantoms and ghosts which have been encountered on the open road, in fields, woods and open spaces. The next takes a look at the town’s ancient and modern haunted buildings. The ghosts of West Wycombe (the site of the infamous Hellfire Club) are examined in Chapter Three, whilst those readers who would like to continue their ghost hunting in the towns surrounding Wycombe are provided with a number of haunted sites in Chapter Four. Throughout the book, to illustrate that the ghosts encountered in Wycombe are not unique, I have included incidents of paranormal phenomena recorded across Britain that are similar to those strange episodes that have been reported in and around the town and district.

The subject of ghosts can be a controversial one; either you believe in them, or you don’t. To the sceptic they are nonsense unworthy of a second thought, whilst to the believer they represent fundamental questions regarding the nature of human beings, our existence and the greatest mystery facing us all – what happens when we die? Yet, such weighty concerns should not reduce us to endless navel-gazing or furrowed brows. Ghost hunting is not only fascinating but fun too. In recent years, investigating the paranormal and conducting haunted house vigils has become something of a popular hobby, with numerous ghost-hunting clubs and groups being established throughout the country. On any given weekend, instead of going out to the theatre, pub or restaurant, many ghost-hunting enthusiasts will happily sit in the draughty, darkened rooms, corridors and cellars of alleged haunted houses waiting for something paranormal to happen or appear. Most of the time they will return home disappointed after experiencing nothing strange or mysterious. And this, rather frustratingly, is what 99 per cent of ghost hunts are like. Yet, there will be those occasions when a long, tiresome vigil at a haunted site will result in the intrepid observer being rewarded with a fleeting glimpse into the unknowable, but intriguing world of the supernatural.

But what of High Wycombe’s ghosts? The reader may wonder what chances there are of encountering them. Who can tell? As we will discover throughout this exploration of the town’s haunted heritage, we have yet to fully understand how the paranormal works, and why ghosts appear when and where they choose, and how they can interact, mentally and physically with us. It has been said that successful ghost hunters need the investigative powers of a detective, the reasoning of a scientist and the patience of a saint, for he will need all three disciplines in his quest for the true nature of ghosts.

In 1997, a team of paranormal researchers decided to hold a lengthy vigil at Chingle Hall in Lancashire, reputedly the most haunted house in Britain, where it was said that anyone who entered its doors would not leave without having an experience involving a ghost. The team’s investigation was to last a week, but by the sixth night, with nothing whatsoever of a paranormal nature occurring, the researchers came to the conclusion that the twelfth-century house was haunted by nothing more than rumour and exaggeration, and they decided to end the vigil. As one of the team was collecting his gear from an upstairs room, he heard soft footsteps outside. Looking into the corridor, he was astonished to see the figure of a cowled monk standing silently at the far end. The ‘brother of mercy’ had his head bowed and his arms clasped in front of his habit. The figure remained motionless for a few moments, before turning to the right and vanishing through a wall. You see, you never know when a ghost is going to show up.

I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I have writing it. If you have had your own experiences with the paranormal, by all means please get in touch with me. They would be welcome additions to either a future edition of Haunted High Wycombe, or in a sequel volume. And lastly, what are my own views on ghosts, do I believe in them? I will leave it to the Bard of Stratford to answer: ‘There are more things in Heaven and Earth, than are dreamt in your philosophy.’

Eddie Brazil, 2013

1

THE HAUNTED TOWN PART ONE

Roads, Highways and Woods

THE ghosts and phantoms which are alleged to haunt High Wycombe are many and varied, and they include a rich panoply of paranormal phenomena no lover of haunted houses or ghostly happenings could fail to be frightened or fascinated by. Throughout this exploration of the town’s haunted heritage we will meet not only unearthly horsemen, phantom motorcars, headless spirits and ghostly children, but also spectral coaches, disembodied footsteps, ‘black magic’ ghosts and kind dog-loving monks.

However, before we embark on our journey into Wycombe’s paranormal past, we should perhaps first ask what is a ghost, and why do places become haunted? How is it that certain houses, public buildings, open spaces, lonely lanes and highways become areas where strange and bizarre incidents occur? Incidents which would appear to be outside the realm of the established laws of physics and science, giving those who are fortunate enough to witness it, a glimpse into the fleeting and unknowable world of the supernatural.

The most immediate and readily acceptable answer, certainly to a champion and supporter of ghostly phenomena, is that a ghost – the spirit of a dead person – has returned to haunt the place in which they lived, or the person they loved during life. Following death, until he or she can move on to a higher form of consciousness, which a religious person might call heaven, they are doomed to wander the earth, or in our case the streets and buildings of High Wycombe, searching for an unobtainable desire or unfulfilled need. As unsuspecting observers we will, if we are in the right place at the right time, witness incidents and manifestations which are as yet unexplainable to modern-day knowledge; those indistinct figures or shadows which we fleetingly catch out of the corner of our eye as we make our way home after dark through the silent town or countryside, or perhaps the strange and mysterious sounds which awaken us during the small hours.

Yet, there are as many theories to what ghosts are as there are ghosts. They include mental imprint manifestations, atmospheric photograph ghosts, crisis apparitions, ghosts of the living, stone tape visions and teenage-angst-induced poltergeists. If they all have one thing in common it is their rejection by established science as evidence of an afterlife, and that they are seen as preternatural phenomena which will eventually be proven, by scientific means, to have a rational explanation.

Whatever ghosts are, we know that they have been reported from around the world for thousands of years. The first recorded account of a poltergeist haunting, contained in the Annales Fuldenses chronicle, took place in Bingen, now in modern Germany, 800 years before the birth of Christ. In the first century, Greek historian Plutarch reported the haunting of a public bath in Rome. Fifty years later Roman scholar, Pliny the Younger, carried out what is considered to be the first serious investigation of a haunted house in Athens.

Yet, despite years of research carried out by paranormal investigators, notably the Society for Psychical Research, established in 1882 by a group of Cambridge academics, we are no nearer to fully comprehending those things that ‘go bump in the night’.

Perhaps one theory which might account for the ghosts and phantoms that are said to haunt High Wycombe, and one which would probably find a place on the scientific table for discussion, is that of the stone tape. The term ‘stone tape’ first appeared in the early 1970s following the television play of the same name written by Nigel Neal. It speculates that inanimate materials such as the stone or brick walls of a building can absorb a form of energy released from living beings during moments of stress, or harrowing and traumatic episodes, such as tragedy or death. At a later date, a person possessing psychic or mediumistic abilities, on entering the building where the drama took place and acting somewhat like a psychic video player, will sense, hear or witness a recording of the event. According to this hypothesis, ghosts are not spirits of the dead but simply non-interactive recordings similar to a film or television picture.

Most modern-day parapsychologists look upon the stone tape theory as a possible explanation for ghosts, although the hypothesis is not a new one. Elenor Sidgwick, president of the Society for Psychical Research in 1908 and wife of one of its founding fathers, Henry Sidgwick, proposed the theory that objects such as furniture or buildings can absorb psychic energy or impressions which could, over time, be transmitted to people.