It is one of the oldest questions Man has asked: is there
life after death? Oddly, you might think
it a bit morbid as a subject for a dinner party conversation but it does crop
up.
It tends to shock many when you quote the Church dictum on
the subject –“de occultis non judicat
ecclesia” or, if you don’t read Latin; “The Church has not decided about
ghosts and the ghostly.” After more than two thousand years you might think
they would have –particularly since there are an endless number of the clergy
who have, over the centuries, seen and even claimed to have spoken with the
departed.
Over the years there have been many famous ghost incidents
such as the Samford Ghost of 1810 which attracted a lot of publicity but eventually
was proven a hoax. But what of others such as the Cock lane Poltergeist in
1762. Cock Lane was near to Smithfield
Market and St. Paul’s
Cathedral. After the death of a William
Kent’s wife, Elizabeth, during childbirth, he became romantically involved with
her sister, Fanny. However, ecclesiastical laws prevented the couple marrying
so eventually they moved to London and took the
apartment in a three storey house in Cock
Lane, owned by Richard Parsons –his daughter, Elizabeth also lived in
the property.
There are several accounts of ghostly apparitions and loud
and “strange” knocking sounds. The
couple moved out and things “went quiet.”
Kent
was not very lucky in marriage and, like many others of the time, Fanny
contracted smallpox and died. Kent
did, however, get lucky in his legal action against Parsons over a small debt.
Now the haunting began again and Parsons claimed that Fanny was haunting his
property. There were regular séances to discover what “Scratching Fanny” wanted
and these no doubt pulled in a few shillings.
At times Cock Lane
was blocked by the curious wanting to “take a peek.”
It seemed that “Fanny” claimed in séances that her husband
had killed her using arsenic and so Kent was publicly suspected of
murder. Someone smelt a rat. A commission, including the famous Samuel Johnson,
looked into the matter and declared the haunting a hoax: Elizabeth Parsons
admitted that it was a scam she had been forced into by her father –resulting
in Richard Parsons being pilloried and serving two years in prison.
There was money to be made in hauntings. But the motives for
the poltergeist events at the Lamb Inn, Bristol
between 1761-1762 are a bit vague.
Investigators held out fingers in their pockets so that they could not
be seen by the two young girls at the centre of events. Raps and voices told how many fingers were
extended. Objects were also seen to rise
into the air in front of investigators –all in a small room which excluded a
hoax using string, etc.. Also, the two
poorly educated daughters of the inn-keeper responded to questions in Greek and
Latin –understood by the investigators but not the girls.
And the inn-keeper himself died after observing a “evil old
witch” appear close to him one day. Even today, you can argue both for and against
the case being genuine for hours. Was a
fraud involved? Certainly the educated
investigators could find none.
Historical accounts are full of people seeing loved ones who
are many miles away (some times hundreds of miles) appearing before them before
vanishing. Those who note the times of
such events are later shocked to learn that their loved ones died at around the
same time.
And then there are the ghosts who help living relatives
recover documents or hidden treasures.
Such is the case of the Reverend
Dr. Blomberg, who was rector at Shepton Mallet and later a Canon at St. Paul’s. Blomberg’s father, a major serving in the
army during the Seven Years War (1756-1763), died of a violent fever in Martinique. Not unusual in those days but what followed
was. Resplendent in his “Regimentals”, the late Major appeared before a Colonel
Stewart and Captain Mounsey and asked them to take care of his “little boy”
back in England.
Blomberg told the duo about his estate in England
and said that the papers necessary for his son to inherit the estate were in a
certain old chest in Yorkshire.
Mounsey Stewart could hardly refuse such a request from
beyond the grave. The papers were
located and, after legal action, Blomberg’s son won the estate. But there was
an extra “gift” due to this curious ghost story because, when it reached the
ears of Queen Charlotte, she “became interested in the youth and took him into
the Royal household,where he was ‘educated in intimate association with
the children of George the Third.’
All Saints Church in Bristol
is situated right next to the St. Nicholas covered market just off the city
centre and there are thousands of others who also pass it on the way to work or
while on shopping trips. Surrounded by
businesses and narrow streets it looks rather “snug”. Snug but with “a history”.
All Saints dates
from the 12th Century with
enlargements and alterations such as the 15th Century aisles and
East nave and in 1716 the NE tower was designed by William Paul and eventually
completed by George Townsend, The
Chancel was rebuilt in the mid-19th Century.
The church
contains memorials and graves to a number of 18th Century
businessmen and merchants not to mention the tomb of Edward Colston
(1636-1721); Colston helped to fund the restoration of the All Saints Church's
tower in 1716.
The Church itself is said to be haunted by
a “black monk” of the Kalendars Order, who supposedly hid the treasures of the
place from Henry VIII. How the monk
died, whether killed by Henry’s men or having committed suicide is
uncertain. However, at that period the
act of suicide was to damn oneself so it’s rather unlikely a religious man
would resort to this. As for the treasure….never
been found.
In 1846 the local talk was of poltergeist activity in the
house associated with the church.
Strange lights crossed the room of the servant-maid whose honesty was
strongly attested to. She had the
unenvied honour of seeing this restless night visitor;
she declared she had repeatedly had her bedroom door
unbolted at night, “between the hours of 12 and 2 o’clock” by something in
human semblance. This was a whiskered man whose clothing was that of the
Kalendars –something the maid knew nothing about.
My personal experience on so called “ghostly matters” are
not very spectacular. Back in
1966/1967,I was living in Dalborn,Germany. One overcast,slightly drizzly but very
oppressive thundery day,along with two of my cousins,I headed for a stream that
had become flooded –we had much fun crossing the stream using the trunk of an
old tree placed there by someone months before.
We watched as soldiers in trucks drove by and waved but the
horrible,smokey brown low cloud made little difference –we were having fun!
Not far from the stream, in easy view, was an upward sloping
path near to a reputedly haunted mill [though we never knew that at the
time]. The entire length of the path was
covered in an arch of tree branches with the far end allowing in light. At one point, all three of us turned to look
up this path. At the very end of the
path stood a tall, misty grey figure devoid [seemingly] of any facial or
clothing features. The figure moved
forward.
Three kids ran like Hell!
Of course, in the prevailing weather conditions it is
possible any normal person might have seemed grey and featureless. That would explain it away to my
satisfaction. But why did all three of
us turn at the same time and run without speaking to each other?
In my grandparents home in St Werburgh’s, Bristol, we had a typical terraced house
situation for the mid-1960s. The old tin
bath has on a hook outside the back door for bath nights and the toilet was
outside the house. The row of houses
looked out onto Mina
Road Park
and there was a stream, an off-shoot of the River Frome which ran under
houses. On more than one occasion, while
seated in “the throne room” I heard voices quite distinctly, though what
exactly was being said I couldn’t tell you.
I was not the only person to hear these voices –my mother dreaded having
to use the outside toilet but just said, in a thick German accent “it’s
spooky”.
There was a small back bedroom that over-looking the garden,
privy and park and there was definitely something “odd” about it. The room had been given over to my mother and
father on returning from Germany. Within the week my mother would not even
venture into the room alone and rooms were swapped around. It is odd but, thinking about it years later,
I recall my grand mother never ventured into the room by herself either and
never used it for a bedroom. Two later
lodgers did complain about “something wrong” with the room.
There are many thousands of such accounts and even a few
photographs. Some of these photographs
are proven hoaxes or even misidentifications –optical effects caused by shadow
and light. There are some interesting
images, though, but not having looked into those cases personally it is hard to
say “genuine.” It was the advent of
digital video recorders and cameras that brought us the “orb” phenomena.
Unlike old cameras, digital ones pick up every small detail
and the big thing back in the 1990s were “ghost orbs” –the alleged
manifestations of the departed. Orbs
were everywhere and said to be the “final evidence” that ghosts existed. In fact, particles of dust, hair and even
insects were being picked up by the digital camera. Even today, when this has been proven, orbs
are still cited as evidence –as are camera flashes reflected off camera straps,
cobwebs and even the photographers thumb!
But with increased use of infra red and night vision cameras
some interesting things have been filmed and photographed.
EVP –Electronic Voice Phenomena- are recordings of,
allegedly, the departed at haunting sites.
In the old days investigators used reel-to-reel tape recorders or dictaphones
but today, again, digital sound recorders and other pieces of equipment are
recording odd sounds but in many cases you really do have to use your
imagination to accept that some of the EVPs are not just noises that “sound
like” words.
Maybe the Church knows what it is doing by sitting on the
fence but to those having items move around the house, sees strange figures and
are some times chased out of their dream homes, the ghostly undoubtedly exist.
© 2012 T. Hooper
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