Haunted Rochester E-Book

Neil Arnold

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

Seitenzahl: 175

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Rochester is riddled with tales of phantom monks, eerie tunnels, romantic spirits, dark apparitions, and ancient history, but pick up any book pertaining to ghostlore and you will find only a handful of tales from Rochester, which has become a much ignored haven of spiritual activity. Now, however, comes a unique volume which proves that Rochester is in fact one of the most haunted places in Kent. Its High Street alone harbours over forty ghost stories, whilst its surrounding schools, houses and pubs are home to many obscure spectres. The atmosphere described by Charles Dickens many years ago can now be seen in a more chilling light, so read on to discover the ghosts of Rochester's past.

Leseprobe

HAUNTED

ROCHESTER

HAUNTED

ROCHESTER

Neil Arnold & Kevin Payne

‘You don’t believe in me,’ observed the Ghost.

‘I don’t,’ said Scrooge.

Charles Dickens – A Christmas Carol

Neil Arnold would like to dedicate this book to great-grandparents, Lily Lydia Arnold and William George Arnold

Kevin Payne would like to dedicate this book to father, Peter, mother, Mina, and sister, Claire. Thank you for your support, help and patience

First published 2011

Reprinted 2013

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2014

All rights reserved

© Neil Arnold & Kevin Payne, 2011, 2014

The right of Neil Arnold & Kevin Payne to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7509 5990 2

Original typesetting by The History Press

Contents

Introduction

one

The High Street – Britain’s Most Haunted?

two

Eastgate House

three

Restoration House

four

The Cathedral

five

The Castle

six

Other Haunted Locations in Rochester

Acknowledgements

Bibliography

’The figure was tall and thin, and the countenance expressive of care and anxiety; but there was something in the hue of the skin, and gaunt and unearthly appearance of the whole form, which no being of this world was ever seen to wear.’

Charles Dickens – The Lawyer and the Ghost

THE town and former city known as Rochester was first settled upon around 100 BC when the Belgae, who crossed from the Channel, left the first evidence. Of course, much has changed since the Roman invasion of ad 43: they called the settlement Durobrivae – ‘The Stronghold by the Bridge’ – after building the first bridge to fortify the place. The City of Rochester booklet entitled Rochester’s Heritage Trail states: ‘The earliest records, dating from ad 960, relate to a bridge of nine stone piers connected by wooden beams and planks’. Rochester was once a walled town, such defences erected by the Romans, and these fortifications survived into the Middle Ages. In the High Street, the City Wall Wine Bar at No. 120 has the remains of a Roman wall on its premises, possibly dating back to ad 193. A medieval wall can also be observed between the High Street and the north-east bastion in Corporation Street.

In AD 604 the first Christian church was established. A few years after, the King’s School was founded. However, in 676 Ethelred, King of the Mercians laid siege upon Kent and destroyed Rochester, yet within a few decades Rochester was recognised as a trading city (although several more attempts would be made by an enemy to lay siege upon the city). The castle constructed in the area, according to A Chronology Of Rochester, ‘…was probably built (in 1085); a motte-and bailey construction at Boley Hill’. Three years later King William Rufus attacked the castle; in reaction, Gundulf, appointed as Bishop of Rochester in 1077, built the first stone castle.

In 1127 William de Corbeil proceeded to erect the great square castle keep. This huge keep measures over 110ft in height and some 12ft in thickness at its base. However, this didn’t prevent further sieges in 1215 and 1264.

In 1387 the stone bridge, measuring over 500ft in length, was erected over the River Medway to replace the cumbersome and deteriorated previous structure. It was completed in 1392. Between 1850 and 1856 a new bridge was built based on the design of Sir William Cubitt. This replaced the medieval bridge which a year later was demolished by the Royal Engineers. In 1914 the Victorian bridge was rebuilt – and then, during the 1960s, a second bridge was built to carry the eastbound traffic. It has housed a railway since 1891.

Kings and Queens have delighted in visiting Rochester. Queen Victoria (as Princess) even stayed at the Royal Victoria and Bull Hotel, in the High Street. This was recorded in the Rochester Gazette of Tuesday 6 December 1836. A severe storm confined her to the Royal Bull Inn after it was deemed unsafe to cross the bridge. After this visit the hotel altered its name. Years earlier, in September 1573, Elizabeth, sister of Queen Mary, was said to have visited Rochester and The Crown Inn (now The Crown). She was also said to have stayed in a house at Bully Hill (Boley Hill).

Of course, the best known resident of the area was Charles Dickens, who, although growing up around Chatham during childhood, and living close by to Rochester at Gad’s Hill, in Higham (four miles west of Rochester), is often connected to Rochester, as it remains, alongside London, the most featured place in his books. To celebrate his works, each year a Dickens Festival takes place during the summer and in the winter. Rochester also puts on a Sweeps Festival in May.

Rochester existed as a city from 1211 to 1998. It lost its coveted title after an apparent administrative error, a blunder which was brought to light in 2002 when The City of Rochester Society noticed that the city was missing from the Lord Chancellor’s list of UK cities (although the original error occurred four years previously when Medway became a unitary authority). The status was lost when, according to the BBC News website of 16 May 2002, ‘The old Rochester-upon-Medway City Council was asked if it wanted to employ charter trustees, who would protect the city’s status. That was deemed unnecessary, resulting in the loss of status.’

However, due to its historical nature the former city-council area was to continue to be styled the ‘city’ of Rochester. The only way for Rochester to once again officially exist as a city is if granted the honour by the Queen. On three occasions up until 2010, Medway Council applied for city status pertaining to Medway, but failed.

You’ll find that Rochester boasts a huge number of ghost stories unpublished until now. It’s no surprise that the town is so haunted: several sieges took place at the castle, and the history of Rochester is littered with grim tales of death. In April 1556, according to Samuel Dene and William Shrubsole’s 1817 book The History and Antiquities of Rochester and its Environs, Rochester became the theatre of one of those horrid scenes that disgraced the reign and religion of Queen Mary: ‘John Harpole of St Nicholas Parish in this city and Joan Beach of Tunbridge were burnt alive as heretics, according to the sentence of Maurice Griffin, Bishop of Rochester, for denying authority of the church, and the transubstantiation of the sacramental elements’. Meanwhile, in 1665, during the plague, St Nicholas Church (next to Rochester Cathedral) listed that between April and Christmas more than 500 ‘corps’ were interred in the burying ground of the parish.

Rochester – ghost capital of Kent?

The authors – Kevin Payne and Neil Arnold.

This book does not set out to prove whether ghosts exist. Belief is down to the individual. However, as you will read, many people have experienced strange things in the cellars, attics, courtyards, graveyards, corridors and halls of many of the buildings dotted throughout this historic place. We hope that Charles Dickens would have been proud to learn that his beloved Rochester continues to exude the delightful mystery he once wrote of many years ago. So, when you next visit this wonderful place, we hope you’ll be a little more observant when looking up at those old windows, and down those dark alleyways.

If you’d like to visit Rochester’s haunted locations, try the Rochester Ghost Walk, run every month by Neil Arnold. For more information visit: www.hauntedrochester. blogspot.com

Neil Arnold and Kevin Payne, Rochester 2011

‘He always said, what a curious thing it was that he should have found out, by such a mere accident as his climbing over the palings, that the ghosts of mail coaches and horses, guards, coachmen, and passengers, were in the habit of making journeys regularly every night.’

Charles Dickens – The Ghosts of the Mail

VERY little has been written about the ghosts of Rochester High Street. Hundreds of books on British ghosts have been published worldwide, but only a handful mention the more popular spook tales which Rochester harbours. Much of what you are about to read is previously unpublished material. Although Kent boasts many haunted locations, such as the village of Pluckley (reputedly England’s most spook-infested village), we believe that Rochester and its High Street is one of the most haunted places which has remained out of the public eye, until now. Medway Council’s pamphlet A Walk Around The City of Rochester states, ‘The High Street is part of the Roman Road (Watling Street) from London to the Kent coast. Countless travellers have passed this way since Roman times, because it remained the main highway to the Continent until the 20th century. The High Street formed part of the A2 trunk route up to 1980’.

Each year thousands of visitors flock to view the historical buildings dotted along the High Street, as well as take in the shops, bars, restaurants and the castle and cathedral.

We have written this chapter as a tour guide through the High Street so that when you next visit the town you can take in the atmosphere of ghostly tales along the way. We have written it as if you are walking to Rochester from the Chatham stretch. Every business listed in this chapter is correct at the time of writing. Please remember, should you wish to conduct your own ghost hunt, to respect the premises. All of these properties are privately owned, and owners would need to be contacted prior to any investigation.

The Ship Inn

Our first port of call is The Ship Inn public house at No. 347 in the High Street (on the right-hand side as you walk from Chatham to Rochester). It sits on the corner of Ship Lane and, compared to most of the properties and their stories you are about to read, it is far closer to Chatham than Rochester. It is also a very old location. In fact, a dwelling house was first built here in 1511; what you now see was erected in 1832. However, the sale of ales from the premises was first permitted in 1768, when the house registered as The Ship Ale House.

The Ship inn.

This friendly pub attracts a predominantly gay crowd. Although at the time of writing it’s under relatively new management, who have reported no paranormal activity, there is a story from The People newspaper of 3 February 2002 which suggests otherwise (albeit with an awful headline!): ‘Pub ghost is homosexuale – Locals at a historic pub are being haunted by a gay ghost.’

The Medway Today of 5 May 2002 was less dramatic, but more atmospheric with its headline, ‘Ghost raises evil spirits at gay haunt’, stating: ‘A ghost may be haunting Britain’s oldest gay pub. Staff at the Ship Inn in Rochester High Street say they have felt an eerie presence in the pub. And they believe it could be the spirit of a man who hanged himself on the premises forty years ago after splitting up with his boyfriend.’

Bar Manager Bea Torson told the newspaper:

‘Often when you go to the back bar after closing time you feel a strange presence there, as if someone is right behind you. It’s after closing time and you feel you’ve left a customer behind but there’s no-one there. Also, I have noticed one of the toilet doors opens an inch when you walk towards it.’ She added that the barman’s suicide occurred in a small panelled back room which is still used as a function room. ‘It is very odd,’ she said, ‘but you just never feel alone in that room.

Cleaner Jackie Proven added another strange feature to the case: ‘At times we have noticed that little things have gone missing, like cufflinks, and then suddenly reappeared.’

Today the pub is frequented by both heterosexual and gay people, but its gay connections date back at least 500 years. In 1717 a seaman got the death penalty after having sex with another man on the premises. But in past centuries it has also been frequented by prostitutes and their sailor clients, and staff believe there could be a second ghost from that group. About 100 years ago, a woman in her early thirties died in an upstairs room. She is thought to have been a prostitute who used it as her work base. Barman Edward Malone told the reporter: ‘That upstairs room is totally disused. It does not even have lighting. But often you can hear footsteps.’

Miss Torson had another story to share: ‘One evening just before Christmas I remember telling someone in the pub the [ghostly] woman was supposed to be a prostitute. The following morning I was working behind the bar and I was bending down to pick something up. Suddenly a gin bottle from the optics on the shelf fell on the floor and missed my head by inches.’

But new landlord Philip Clarke, who took over at the end of last year, says he is not afraid of taking over a pub thought to be haunted: ‘I don’t even believe in ghosts, so it doesn’t put me off working here at all.’

The Nags Head

Situated on the High Street and corner of Nags Head Lane (on the left hand side if travelling from Chatham to Rochester), this welcoming boozer, at No. 292, is reputedly haunted by the spirit of a prostitute named Aggie. Several locals have observed the phantom. Many years ago the site was home to stables and police cells, which were under the area where the pub now sits. It is believed that Aggie hanged herself in one of these cells, and she has been seen on the stairs and in the old cellar. However, the current landlord, despite his scepticism, stated in May 2010, ‘We know all about the ghost and I always greet her when I am in the cellar area. I don’t believe in all this rubbish, though, but if I did see her I’d move out!’

On the 14 January 1975 the Evening Post reported a more accurate version of events:

Pub ghost puts Sheba off her guard – Sheba, an Alsatian guard dog, has her work cut out at The Nags Head pub, Rochester. For there is a nightly visitor soon after midnight, when all the doors are bolted and windows fastened. But although Sheba does her job, barking and baring her teeth, there isn’t much she can do. For the visitor is a friendly ghost.

‘It’s very unnerving’, says landlady Mrs Maddy Kinsella. ‘She nearly barks the place down every night. We check each time. We always hear jumping and running and when we look in the bar there’s nothing there.’

But the unseen customer nearly always leaves evidence behind, an open door, the cellar hatch pulled aside, or a bottle or two falls from a shelf. The 400-year old Nags Head, on St Banks, is on the corner of what was once called Hangman’s Lane, where local criminals were executed on the gallows. Mrs Kinsella added: ‘We know the ghost is a girl because we’ve heard a young voice cry out.’

The haunting was also covered in the same newspaper four years later, on the 15 May 1979, when a group of paranormal investigators, calling themselves the Ghost Squad, from Gravesend, spent two nights in the cellar of the pub during the weekend of the 12-13 May. The only activity recorded was a watch stopping at 4:00 a.m. – the battery of which was found on the floor – and the movement of heavy carbon-dioxide cylinders, which were thrown across the floor. The newspaper added that the ghost was said to have been of seventeen-year old ‘Aggie’, a woman forced into prostitution, who was then murdered. At the time, the landlord, a Mr Bob Nichols, reported that several previous owners had encountered the ghost and reported odd clicking noises and bumps in the night.

The Nags Head.

One privately owned property very close to The Nags Head also has a haunting. The premises began life as an old inn, but the couple who live there now believe the house is haunted by a gentleman dressed in clothes dating back to the 1600s. The husband recently had a disturbing experience whilst removing a boxed-in area above the beam of an old fireplace. When his wife came home she found him on the floor gasping for breath. Thankfully he recovered, and told his wife that as soon as he removed the cover to reveal the original beam, he was suffocated.

The couple researched the property and found that an old man who resided there fell asleep one night whilst holding his pipe. He burned to death. The couple believe that they set his spirit free whilst restoring the property. They also believe ghostly children wander the house and often, in a playful manner, move items.

Rochester Railway Station

Our next port of call is Rochester Railway Station, which, if you are travelling from Chatham, is on the right-hand side. The station is on the Chatham Main Line in Medway and has four platforms. It was opened 1 March 1892 and only one ghost story appears to be attached.

More than a century ago a passenger on a train from London was said to have committed suicide. A guard on the late-night train conversed with the gentleman in a compartment and was told to notify the chap as soon as they had reached Rochester. However, when the destination was reached, the guard found the passenger dying from a bullet wound to the neck. A gun was by the side of the man. The man was rushed to St Bartholomew’s Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Rochester Station.

A Doctor William Crewe, surgeon at London’s Guy’s Hospital, came to the conclusion that the man had committed suicide. However, the victim, for some strange reason, had travelled from his home in Nottingham to Rochester before shooting himself.

Two months after the incident, two porters claimed to have seen the apparition of a man standing on the platform. The man appeared to be clutching his neck in pain but as the witnesses approached the figure vanished into thin air.

The Medway Little Theatre

When you emerge from the station car park, on the opposite side of the road you are faced with St Margaret’s Bank (also known as The Banks) which overlooks the High Street. Although the High Street here is now a busy road which runs left to Chatham, and right to Rochester, it’s hard to believe that many years ago the river used to lap at the adjacent bank (which is now occupied by several premises). An old inn or two used to sit on the bank (The Mariner and The New Inn, whilst The Nag’s Head is still there) and Lord Horatio Nelson was said to have lodged in the area in order to visit Chatham Dockyard. The bank area was an interesting ‘night spot’ many years ago: it harboured a brothel and the rough ‘n’ ready were all too eager to loiter in the shadows of the buildings, making the location an unsavoury place.

The Medway Little Theatre.

At No. 256 sits The Medway Little Theatre, which was converted from a disused warehouse in 1958 by a dedicated group of amateur dramatists. The theatre, which has put on over 400 productions, houses more than 100 seats, but it would seem that a few visitors to the theatre are not always welcome, for it is said that a ghostly presence often pesters those who are enjoying the performances on stage. A spectral figure, dressed in a long coat and wearing a large, wide-brimmed hat, has been seen roaming throughout the theatre, even startling the occasional performer. Could this character still linger from a time when the busy warehouse existed and stored items taken from ships moored on the river?

Rochester Independent College

Several addresses throughout Rochester are occupied by the Independent College. Various buildings at Star Hill were purchased by Brian Pain and Simon de Belder, who, since 1984, have come on leaps and bounds in providing educational courses for students in a rather trendy environment. During the 1990s the Thomas Watson building at No. 252 (formerly No. 238) High Street, Rochester, was snapped up; Thomas Watson was a shipowner and shipbroker and his business, Thomas Watson Shipping Ltd, once used the premises. This substantial double-fronted three-storey semi-detached brick Grade-II listed building was originally used during the early nineteenth century by the Royal Fleet Club. Kent peg tiles partly cover the pitch roof.