From Andy Sheppard
Little Waldingfield
History Society was delighted to welcome Robert Halliday to the Parish Room
where, on a stormy and windy night, 34 brave (and ghoulish?) souls came along
to hear about the paranormal activity recorded in Suffolk. They were not to be
disappointed, especially when, near the end of Robert’s presentation, his
projector appeared to change the pictures on our screen all by itself.
Thankfully there was a quite harmless explanation, but it certainly got the
attention of our audience.
Robert began his talk by describing his own personal paranormal
experiences, which though benign were certainly fascinating. He described what
he saw, on two separate occasions, on the north (or evil) side of St Andrew’s
church in Walberswick: a blue person-shaped object which sadly
disappeared before he could get close enough to see it properly. He did however
examine the part of the graveyard where it was, finding the immediate area cold
and damp, despite the evening being warm and dry; scary! He subsequently came
back some time later for a proper examination, staying for four hours but without seeing the object again.
Robert’s talk then shifted to some of the many (and repeated)
records of unexplained activity in Suffolk, keeping the audience alert to the
end.
Sutherland House in Southwold
Is the site of many
sightings of a phantom lady who in the Seventeenth Century was working in the
house waiting for the return of Lord Sandwich, the man she loved, from a sea
battle with the Dutch. Sadly he was killed and on the anniversary of his death
on 28th May, footsteps and the sound of doors opening and closing
spontaneously may be heard. She may also on occasion be spied in an upstairs
window dressed in C17th attire. Happily subsequent owners of the property are
not spooked by such goings on.
The most haunted house in England - Borley Rectory near Sudbury.
The large Gothic-style Rectory was built
in 1862 for the rector of Borley and his family. It gained fame as "the
most haunted house in England", was badly damaged by fire in 1939 and
subsequently demolished in 1944.
The Rectory was alleged
to be haunted since it was built, and such reports multiplied in 1929 after the
Daily Mirror published an account of a visit to the rectory by
paranormal researcher Harry Price, who wrote two books supporting claims of
paranormal activity.
The uncritical acceptance of Price's
reports prompted a formal study by the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), of
whom Harry Price was a member. The SPR report rejected most of the claimed
sightings as either imagined or fabricated, casting doubt on Price's
credibility. His claims are now generally discredited, but neither the report
nor biography of Price quelled public interest in the stories, with new books
and television documentaries being produced to satisfy public interest in the Rectory.
The Brown Monk of Bury
The old Abbey Gateway
in Bury is one of many locations where witnesses have seen apparitions of
monks. These in the 1960s were dubbed 'brown monks' by locals, despite the fact that the monks of
the Benedictine Abbey wore black habits. Abbeygate Street itself has seen
many monk sightings, whilst cellars in the old Suffolk Hotel building in
Buttergate are said to be haunted by 'brown monks'. Many staff in the shops along
Abbeygate Street also seem to have witnessed ghostly monk apparitions, though
whether of the same or different monks is unknown.
The Mill Hotel Sudbury
Many inns and pubs claim to be haunted.often by
the ghosts of animals long dead manifesting themselves. At the Mill
Hotel the ghost is a mummified cat, found many years before the building
became a hotel. This was later sold to a nearby shop. This shop suffered many
disasters before finally burning down, though somehow the mummified cat
survived the conflagration. Thereafter the cat was held responsible for the
mayhem and returned to the Mill Hotel when everything returned happily to
normal.
Bricked up to bring good
luck to the original mill building, the mummified cat was rediscovered in 1971
when the mill was converted to a hotel. In 1999 it was again removed, and over
the next few weeks the road outside the hotel exploded, the manager’s office flooded
several times, and the person who had removed the cat met with an accident. All
returned to normal once the cat was returned.
Haunted Walberswick, George Orwell's Ghost
Eric
Arthur Blair’s family hailed from Southwold. After much travelling to India,
Burma and many parts of the UK, Blair decided that East Anglia was his home and
took the pen name George Orwell, presumably from the river running from
Felixstowe through Ipswich and Stowmarket (as the Gipping) to Mendelsham Green
near Gipping.
In a letter to friend Dennis Collings in
August 1931, although not believing in the paranormal, Orwell wrote that he had
seen a ghost in Walberswick cemetery. He was so shocked that he included a
detailed diagram of his walking route in the letter to demonstrate the
geographical impossibility that a figure he had seen would have been able to
walk away so quickly.
I happened to glance over my shoulder and saw a figure pass,
disappearing behind the masonry and presumably disappearing into the
churchyard. I wasn’t looking directly at
it so couldn’t make out more than it was a man’s figure, small and stooping,
dressed in lightish brown. I had the impression it glanced towards me but made
out nothing of the features. At the moment of its passing I thought nothing,
but a few seconds later it struck me the figure had made no noise and I
followed it out into the churchyard. There was no one in the churchyard and no
one within possible distance along the road - the figure had therefore
vanished.
Orwell concluded that this was probably an hallucination. However 84 years after Orwell’s curious experience
near an English cemetery what he saw, and how he saw it, remains a mystery.
LWHS trustees have an open mind about
happenings as described above, but interested readers can easily search the
internet or, better still, visit the places described to perhaps see and
experience for themselves what may, or may not, be happening there - enjoy!
Our next event will be
on 16th December at 7.30 in The Parish Room Little Waldingfield, when David
Steward will talk and walk us around Hampton Court Palace and gardens, showing
us what Cardinal Wolsey started and Henry VIII continued (after he “acquired
it”).
We look forward to welcoming guests new and old for what is sure
to be a quite fascinating evening’s entertainment and
a wonderful
story of a building that celebrated its 500th
anniversary last year
