Haunted Southend E-Book

Dee Gordon

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

Seitenzahl: 164

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

The popular seaside resort of Southend-on-Sea has long been a haven for holidaymakers, but the town also harbours some disturbing secrets... Discover the darker side of Southend with this spooky collection of spine-chilling tales from around the town. From ghostly sightings in Hadleigh Castle, ominous sounds and smells on the seafront and tales of mysterious shapes at the town's pubs and taverns, this book is guaranteed to make your blood run cold. Illustrated with over sixty pictures, Haunted Southend will delight everyone interested in the paranormal.

Leseprobe

To Mum and Dad, who died in 1992 and 1993 respectively but are still remembered daily with much fondness

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

one Haunted Houses

two Haunted Churches and Rectories

three Haunted Commercial Buildings

four Haunted Open Spaces

five Haunted Watering Holes

six Unlikely Haunted Locations

seven Phantom Dogs

Epilogue

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Of the many people who have assisted in my research, many are named in the stories that follow. I would like to emphasise the following as having been particularly helpful: Bill Raymond; Wendy Pullman; Wendy Newby; Elaine Bernard; David Hobbs; Kathy Scott; Bill Fletcher (Westcliff Spiritualist Church); Peter Fox; Noel Kelleway; Wesley Downes; Bradley Vaughn; Pat Gollin; Judy and Suzanne Flynn; Tonio Perrott; Gerald Main at BBC Essex; Martin McNeill at the Southend Echo; Martin Astell and Jenny Butler at the Essex Record Office in Chelmsford; Judith and Toby Williams; Susan Redfern; Marcia Fernandes-Gartside; Marian Livermore; Raymond Lamont-Brown; Mark and Rosemary Roberts (authors of Paglesham Natives); Janice Kay at Colchester Library and everyone at Southend Library; Ken Crowe at Southend Museums; Lynn Tait; Ron Bowers (spirit photographer); Nicky Alan (psychic medium); Matthew Lloyd; Lon Strickler; Ian Yearsley; Darren Mann; Chris Looker; Martin Eldridge; Gary Congram; and everyone who helped with images at www.cannon.org.uk and www.footstepsphotos.co.uk.

It is also appropriate to thank Matilda Richards and everyone at The History Press for their interest and support in this venture – as always.

Introduction

It is not necessary to believe in ghosts to be aware that there are things outside our understanding. The twenty-first century has left behind the heyday of Victorian ghosts on unlit country roads and in gloomy rooms lit only by oil lamps, but the stories linger on and are still in the ascendancy. Ghost lore is a part of folklore and of local and human history, and its popularity is consolidated not just by English literature, but by the rise in television programmes and websites devoted to ghost-hunting and contact with the spirit world.

One of the difficulties of researching ghosts and the paranormal is that many apparitions are seen by one person at a time and thus are without independent corroboration. So this book is based on published reports and on interviews with witnesses about their experiences, with some second-hand accounts. Some of the published reports and second- (and third-) hand accounts are obviously not always reliable and in some cases are certainly embroidered in the re-telling. This does not mean that the origin, or the core, is not true. Of the many people I met during the research for Haunted Southend, not one came across as anything but genuine and honest.

Certainly, I have had the unexpected, and eye-opening, opportunity to meet a clairvoyant, a medium, a spiritualist, and to correspond with ghost-hunters, a psychic medium and a spirit photographer – all outside my normal social remit! This book is intended to report local experiences, to entertain readers, to look into mysteries, and is for everyone with an open mind and a curiosity about life and death. Believers will have their faith reinforced, and the sceptical will have something to think about.

Given Southend’s fairly recent appearance as an influential Essex presence – since, effectively, the coming of the railway, prior to which it was merely the south end of Prittlewell the ghost stories within these pages encompass surrounding areas. Some are quite separate entities: from Canewdon, Stambridge and Hullbridge in the north (still rural) to Rayleigh in the west and Foulness in the east, but all are within just a few miles of what is now known as Southend-on-Sea. These villages and suburbs have just as much to offer in the way of the paranormal as does Southend itself – if not more. Also note that, for me, the Southend-on-Sea area includes Leigh-on-Sea, Westcliff-on-Sea and Shoeburyness.

One

Haunted Houses

From little terraced houses to apartments or detached dwellings, the ramshackle to the ostentatious, the following places have stories from the past and the present. In most cases, the locations are identified by the street or road rather than anything more specific, to avoid attracting the ghoulish – and, of course, some have been demolished during the modern re-development of the Southend area. The idea of a house being haunted has different effects on different people. Sutherland Lodge in Prittlewell, for instance, once part of a farm, once a school, and once named Blue House (dating back to 1600) was renamed when it was thought to be haunted, as it was proving difficult to sell. At the other extreme, in 2006, a cottage in Hawkwell was marketed as ‘pick up your very own haunted house for a mere £445,000’!

Royal Terrace

In January 1976, Raymond Lamont Brown wrote about the contents of a fascinating journal belonging to his late grandfather, entitled Miss Warren’s Essex Ghostbook. One particular chapter (reproduced in the Essex Chronicle) featured a house in this historic location overlooking the town’s pier.

Because the journal, which covers the years 1887 to 1893, is handwritten, it is impossible to attribute the origins of this particular haunting to a particular number – it could be No. 1 Royal Terrace, No. 7 or No. 9. What is clear is the reference to a Mr George Martin who was staying in the house during the 1870s, preparing for bed, when the flame of his candle turned suddenly blue. Not only that, he heard a loud clatter, felt the temperature drop, and saw two livid eyes, full of ‘pain and utmost devilry’.

Bravely, Mr Martin, as he watched an image form around the eyes, was able to find his voice, asking the intruder ‘Who is it? What do you want?’ at which the spectre vanished. He informed his host immediately, the latter conceding that this was not the first time he had heard about the ghostly visitation, the difference being that Mr Martin was one of the first to do anything other than flee. The next day the same thing happened, and again Mr Martin stood his ground. The identical sequence of events was repeated, but this time the face was clearer: ‘a protruding forehead and dark hair … dark eyebrows … two yellow swollen eyelids and cheeks of purple hue surrounded by leprous white. The face stared out of the gloom and glistened unhealthily in the candlelight for several minutes.’ He had no opportunity this time of repeating his request, or any other, because the apparition did not linger for long.

Royal Terrace around 1909, little changed today. (Author’s collection)

This story surfaces again in an article by Wesley Downes in Issue No. 4 of Essex Ghosts and Hauntings, the main difference being the attribution of the explanation for the apparition. For Mr Downes, it was the host, or landlord, that revealed all. The host had heard that someone had died of leprosy in that very room some twenty years earlier. Mr Lamont Brown, however, indicates that it was Miss Warren who discovered the history behind the earlier death in the haunted bedroom; but there is no reference to its being leprosy, only a ‘strange and then unheard of disease’.

A few yards away is the once-imposing Clifton Court, a red-brick building on the corner of Royal Mews and Royal Terrace. Jessie Payne, in A Ghost Hunter’s Guide to Essex, writes of a couple who, between November 1966 and March 1967, had a number of mysterious visitations. The first was a ‘grey luminous shape near the end of the bed’ which vanished, leaving the room icy cold. Months later, a cowled grey shape, with some facial features visible, appeared in the same vicinity at dawn, but, on being challenged, it again disappeared. This time, an unpleasant, earthy, musty odour was left behind. Although the couple called in a vicar to exorcise the room, they never felt comfortable there and moved out soon after.

Royal Terrace, one of the oldest residential streets in Southend, was built at the end of the eighteenth century overlooking the estuary. It started life as Grand Terrace with a library and hotel at its eastern end, built as added attractions for the genteel. However, it struggled to achieve its aim until Princess Caroline, the wife of the Prince Regent, took over the central dwellings here in 1803: No. 7 as a drawing room, No. 8 for dining and No. 9 for sleeping! It was this visit that resulted in the change of name to Royal, and this surviving Georgian terrace was also visited by Lady Emma Hamilton and Lord Nelson (1803 and 1805). Such history should have perhaps resulted in more romantic ghosts, but their sojourns were probably too brief to leave a lasting impression. Although there is a Lady H room and a Nelson’s look-out in the Hamilton’s Boutique Hotel in Royal Terrace, plus Princess Caroline and Prince Regent rooms in the Pier View Hotel, there are no reports of hauntings.

Royal Mews

When Tonio Perrott moved into his home in 1988, it needed a lot of work, and he called in an architect to assist him. The architect set about removing an internal wall, which turned out to be five bricks deep, revealing a small room, complete with a wagon wheel … and a skeleton. The skeleton was draped over the wheel as if he had dozed off there and not woken again, and there were still some remnants of clothing, including an ancient cloth cap. Obviously, the police had to be called in, but the mystery of his identity remains unsolved – the assumption is that he was the old man who lived there previously.

It comes as no surprise, then, to hear that this mews cottage has since been haunted by an old man, holding a walking stick out in front of him. His first appearance, on the stairs, gave Tonio’s wife quite a fright, but he is now happy to live alone with his ghost, who is a benevolent presence.

Skeletal image á la Royal Mews. (Image courtesy of www.clipart.com)

Tonio has also been conscious of what appears to be a second, separate, image, which is no more than a black shadow which appears at certain times of the month. He can see this shape out of the corner of his eye, and it is always preceded by an intense drop in temperature. A visitor with psychic abilities claims to have spoken to this second spirit, identified as a man in his forties with a malformed hand and a degenerative illness of some kind.

Just before midnight on Christmas Eve, every year, a very special event takes place on the forecourt of this particular dwelling. Tonio and his friends only have to wait a few minutes before they can hear the sound of a horse clip-clopping over cobbles (now tarmac-ed over) and the calls of the coachman, geeing up the horse. The sounds – and the smells, too, of horse and sweat – disappear in the direction of the High Street. What is particularly fascinating about this is the fact that the sounds and smells are witnessed by several people, and it does not occur at other times – Tonio’s theory is that the combined energy of a number of people results in this annual visitation.

Phantom coach and horses from an earlier century. (Image courtesy of www.clipart.com)

The mews cottages here were built around 1770, originally as stables for the large mansion-type houses in Royal Terrace. Given their age and provenance, those bricks no doubt have a lot more stories to tell.

Gordon Road

A man who lived here with his family for three years moved in when the owner retired abroad, in around 2004. He knew, before moving in, that the house had a reputation for being haunted, but kept this to himself, even though he too heard movements on the upper floor when no one was there. However, he also heard footsteps on the stairs, coming downstairs and into the room where he was sitting, followed by a touch on his shoulder – with, again, no one visible.

On one occasion, his partner, who was sitting in the corner of the room, had also been aware of, and was scared by, the sound of these footsteps entering the room. This prompted her to investigate further.

She went upstairs to ask her daughter if she had been playing in the hall. The girl’s answer not only confirmed that she had not been downstairs, but suggested that it could have been the ‘other little girl’. When questioned further, the girl described this ‘other girl’ as being happy, blonde, and as someone who liked to play in the hall and look into the rooms, apparently on a regular basis. As a child, this had seemed perfectly ‘normal’ to her, not worth mentioning. Further probing revealed that this same blonde girl had been seen by earlier residents.

The earlier history of the house had additional reports of extreme cold in the upstairs back bedroom and on the landing, but this is not necessarily connected to the ‘happy girl’ seen in the hallway. But what is an unexplained coincidence is a report from a house in Ashburnham Road, very close by, of an identical blonde child laughing and playing in the hall.

Gainsborough Drive

In December 1990, not only the local Evening Echo (as it was then called) but the national Sunday Telegraph ran a story of a violent pre-Christmas spirit. First the police, and then an exorcist, were called to the house after its occupant had discovered his two-year-old son ‘floating’ five feet in the air and screaming out for him to look at ‘the woman in the ceiling’. The father had thought his son was sleeping until he heard him shouting, and he himself felt ‘something’ on the stairs on his way up to see to the child.

The police reported furniture having been seemingly hurled across the room, and it was even said that the family dog had been seen flying through the air. The man’s wife missed the excitement as she was in hospital, giving birth. Her husband, however, was understandably distraught, and asked the police to call in an exorcist. However, a local chaplain refused to perform this task, fearing that something more violent and uncontrollable might be unleashed.

Fleeting image – make of it what you will. (Image courtesy of www.ghostseen.com)

Although the proceedings were taken very seriously by the police, who confirmed that there was no evidence to suggest that the man had been drinking, there was little that they could do as no crime had been committed. It seems that this was not the first supernatural experience the boy’s father had had, and he had in fact sensed a conflict of forces in the house since moving in some three years earlier – between who he suggested was an earlier female occupant (or perhaps her grandmother) and an unidentifiable male. Could the child have been at the centre of some kind of spectral tug-of-war?

Interestingly, a far more rural Gainsborough Drive was where the pregnant Florence Dennis was killed by a gunshot in the head in 1894, a crime for which her lover, James Canham Read, was subsequently hanged; coincidence? Probably – though you never know …

Ronald Park Avenue

Bill Fletcher has been a spiritualist for fifty-two years, so it is not surprising that he has had a number of experiences at his Ronald Park Avenue home. The more receptive you are to sightings, then the more likely you are to have them. Even during the initial repairs (effected by gas light!) upon moving in, nearly forty years ago, he was aware of ‘someone’ in the doorway; an opaque, fading image of a smiling woman. It was scary enough to drive Bill out of the building, with chisel and hammer in hand, but when he saw her again on the stairs of the house, he felt that she was merely visiting to see what was going on. This seems to have been confirmed when he described her to his next-door neighbour, and she matched the description of a woman who had lived and died in the house.

Another woman, dressed in a high collar and leg-of-mutton sleeves, appeared clearly at the bottom of his bed at a later date. When Bill awoke, she said ‘I’m sorry. I lost direction’ and faded from sight. He had seen her quite clearly, and is convinced that she had gone to the wrong house.

There is also a sad tale regarding the death of Emma, his daughter, twenty years ago in a car accident when she was just nine years old – but Emma’s spirit has visited Bill to tell him not to be sad, the same words quoted by a young neighbour who also saw her. Emma also told him that she was ‘all right now’ and she has appeared at the bottom of his bed to ensure that he ‘understands’ – understands that she had had her time perhaps. It is fascinating to find that the last essay Emma wrote at Chalkwell Infants School was about an accident when she hurt her head, an essay found after her death.

The last time Bill saw Emma was when she made an appearance inside a white opalescent cocoon in the aisle of Westcliff Spiritualist Church a year after her death, wearing a plain white, ankle-length gown hemmed with gold, with a round neck and long sleeves. She just smiled, and Bill, the only one to see her, was happy because he felt that she had made real progress.

Bill’s mother had been living with him and his family before her death in the 1990s. His mother had heard her name called in the night, and Bill, too, had seen a nun dressed in white holding her hands out and leading him to his mother’s bedroom, again during the small hours, a susceptible time for such visions. So both of them had an idea that her death was fast approaching, and, after her death, Bill observed a white mist rising from her body, forming a ball and moving away, witnessed also by his brother. Bill saw other deceased relatives around the bed at this time, if only briefly, and these relatives appeared to remove the ball of light from the room. His last memory of that day is of the vision of his mother superimposed on her bed, looking bright eyed with newly permed hair, looking in fact as he wanted to remember her rather than ravaged by the disease that finally killed her.

There have also been visitations from Bill’s father who died over four years ago. A medium who visited Westcliff Spiritualist Church saw a 6ft-tall man with a military bearing, who spoke to him about a willow casket and funeral arrangements – the description fitted Bill’s father. Additionally, the funeral arrangements were accurate as the deceased had saved a lot of willow in his shed which had been put to good use. On another occasion, when Bill’s wife was working at night, he heard a sigh and heard the bed creak, with a visible physical depression appearing in the bed. On reaching out, Bill could feel – but not see – the bony frame of his dead father. This, however, appears to have comforted Bill rather than worry him.

Devereux Road

Although this story is anonymous, it has so much detail that it is impossible to ignore. In 1989, the tenant of a flat in this road was awoken by his dog, obviously upset by something unseen in the room, moving from the window to the door. The dog then chased it out of the room, barking, stopping outside a built-in cupboard underneath what had once been a spiral stairway (blocked off some time before 1989).

The dog repeated his barking and ‘chasing’ on another occasion, when he chased ‘something’ up to a wall, unable to pursue his quarry any further – and looking suitably puzzled.

But it was not only the dog that had the next experience. The barking woke up his master – and, briefly, a figure of an old-ish man with a hat and coat, very close by, appeared, and disappeared. After also hearing footsteps, together with a number of repeat performances from the dog, his owner – now really spooked – began to investigate.