Ghost Tour

A city as large and twisty as London has scores of walking tours daily and you'll see hordes of tourists, following a single little man with mouths agape and cameras at the ready. Many of these are ghost tours, because, quite frankly, no city of any size can escape possession of a few haunts. On this previous Friday, I braved my path as one of these gaping tourists and joined in a ghost tour. While it was particularly scary, as the sun refused to set and the stories were less-than-intimidating, it was interesting and informative.

For a building as old and famous as St. Paul's, I'm surprised that it only has one known ghost. This old fellow, who haunts the Kitchener Chapel, has long grey-white hair and wears old-fashioned priests robes. You will hear him whistling to himself as he walks and he follows the same path every time he comes to visit, disappearing into the same bit of wall. After WWI, when St. Paul's was undergoing renovations, they excavated that bit of wall, only to find a door, leading up a stairwell to a secret room (personally, I think that the priests used it for naps). Presumably, the guy is only doing what he did in life and in any case, he's not a particularly disruptive or threatening ghost. More of an echo, really, by most accounts.

I chose this specific photo of St. Paul's because in it, you get a very clear view of the statue of Queen Anne. The statue isn't haunted. In fact, it's not even original and I'm sure that if Queen
Anne were to haunt someplace, she'd pick a cosier location. But the placement of the statue does catch one's interest. She's facing away from the church and there's a reason for that.

Queen Anne's life was quite sad. Despite her best efforts, the poor woman could not produce an heir and you really can't say she didn't try. She had 11 miscarriages, 2 stillbirths, 1 who died in infancy and 2 more who died before the age of 10. Understandably, after all of this, the lady turned to drink and became quite the lush, earning her nickname: Brandy Nan. It is as a result of her fondness for brandy that she is not facing the holy epicenter of St. Paul's but rather the liquor stores and bars that surrounded it once upon a time. And thus goes the children's rhyme:

Brandy Nan, Brandy Nan
Stuck in such a lurch
Your face is to the liquor store
Your back is to the church

Apparently the lady was also quite a bit more rotund than her trim and shapely statue would lead you to believe.

This, for those of you who can't tell, is a street sign. I didn't take a picture of the street, because it's gated off and also because there were loads of people standing around me, so you're just going to have to visualize. Down this particular street live the caretakers and priests of St. Paul's, but that's not why it's important. What is important is that at the end of this tiny little street stands a small grove of trees, which hides a wall. That wall is all that remains of what once was the largest prison in the city, Newgate Prison.

When the prison was still in existence a doctor was thrown in (actually, lots of men were, which was kind of the problem with the prison, but I don't remember his crime. It pales in comparison with what happened to him). The prisoners were not particularly well-taken-care-of and they certainly weren't fed. So when this charmingly plump, well-fed doctor was tossed in with them, they simply couldn't resist. The story goes that they jumped him and began shredding his flesh, devouring it raw. And when they were finished, nothing remained except for a pile of bones with some rats gnawing on them.

However, those hungry prisoners paid the price for feeding off of human flesh. For the rest of their lives they were haunted by a huge black dog with glowing red eyes. It is also said that the dog haunted the cell where it's spirit met its demise. Now, occasionally, in the darkness of the trees at the end of this alley, you will see two red lights beaming out at you. You will momentarily wonder whether these are the tail-lights of a car before realizing that the road dead ends behind those trees. And then you will shut the blinds and pretend that you didn't see it, for the black dog is an ill omen for all.

This is also where the concept of the black dog as an ill omen originated.

Apparently, the King's Wardrobe is more than just somewhere that the King keeps his old socks. It is, however, where he kept his robes of state and other such fancy attire. He also had parties here from time to time. One evening, while the King was prancing around in front of his mirror (presumably, I mean, what else does one do in a wardrobe?), he heard chanting outside his window. Looking out, he saw a group of women dancing in the courtyard, dressed only in their shifts (equivalent of underwear), chanting and tossing around a baby. He shouted for them to stop the racket and sent his guards outside to ensure that they stopped, except when the guards opened the door, they found no one in the street at all.

Upon relaying this story to a few people, the king discovered that long before his house had stood there, when the area was just fields and marshland, witches used to gather in that very place to work their magic. Here's a shot of the street, although I doubt there's anything from that time period left there. Overall, not a scary spot, particularly if you take into account the drunk guys on the corner (to the right of my photo) who happened to be in the mood for tourist baiting.


This place isn't haunted, or if it is, I don't know about it. It's not called the Cockpit because pilots like to hang out there and it's not a dirty joke. It earned its name because once upon a time, there were cock fights held in it. In cock fighting, you win some and you lose some. And if you lost more than you could afford, which is to say that you didn't have enough cash on you to pay your debt, you were stuck into a basket and towed up to the ceiling so that people could throw their empty beer bottles at you. And then you still had to pay your debt.

However, it seems that the place has become significantly more classy since then.

What is now St. Anne's Vestry Hall (with friends!!) was once someone's house. Those of you have seen the movie Penelope, or read the book, will be familiar with the concept of a pig-faced girl. In this case, she really existed and her name was Thomasina. Thomasina was a very well off German girl. She was quite statuesque, tall and slim, but having the face of a hog does tend to make guys go running in the opposite direction. Having no success finding a mate in her walks along the Rhine, Thomasina moved here, to London, where she had heard that there were lots of guys hard up for cash. She bought this house, as well as one in Covent Garden. When people started to gossip about the pig-faced girl and began gawping through her windows, she'd move to Covent Garden. When the same thing started happening in Covent Garden, she'd move back here. Apparently, not even the hefty bribe that she was offering was enough to convince a guy to marry her and Thomasina spent the rest of her days alone.

Years after her death, the place was rented to an actor and his wife. He thought it was a lucky find, since it was close to the theatre where his play was running and didn't ask questions about the low rent. At night, the couple heard footsteps on the stairs and came out onto the landing to see a tall woman walking away from them. And when she turned, they saw the pig face.

Needless to say, they vacated their apartments pretty quickly and to this day, Thomasina still seeks a husband.

This is the top of Bailey's Courthouse, which stands where Newgate Prison used to be. No ghost story here and you probably can't see it in this photo, but this is one of the few statues of Justice where she is not blindfolded.


This church, which is attached to a hospital, has a couple of ghosts; one friendly and one decidedly less so. The first ghost is that of its founder. He is, by all accounts, a cheerful ghost, just walking around, causing no harm and looking quite chipper. The problem here is that he walks around where the ground used to be and back in the days when this church was founded, the ground level was several feet lower. So if you are lucky enough to see him, you will see the top half of a cheerful, rotund man in a habit moving around. Or if you happen to be under the church in the vaults, you'll two legs popping out of the ceiling, moving around on their own (I hope he wears underwear).

The other story is sadder. One evening, a nurse was straightening up in the room where all of the medicines are kept and saw another nurse on the other side of the room, doing the same. When she left, she absentmindedly locked the door, coming back a few minutes later to make sure she hadn't locked the other woman in, but the room was empty. Upon enquiring from one of the other Sister's, she learned that she had seen the resident ghost, a nurse who had accidentally killed a patient because she'd given him the wrong medicine. The nurse had then killed herself in her anguish and now haunts the site of her mistake, forever trying to correct it.


The roses here are quite pretty and there's another row of them on the other side of the path. There are two queens buried here, but the important one is Queen Isabella, who still reportedly haunts the place. Her story is an interesting one, but you'll have to ask me in order to hear it.