Ghosts Of Old London:An Opinionated Guide To Haunted London.

Britain is the most haunted country in the world and London is the most haunted city in the world. In fact there are said to be as many ghosts in London as every other city in the UK combined.

Not my view. But the view of Fortean Times news editor Ian Simmons who was at The Bell in Whitechapel, with the London Fortean Society, to launch his new book The Opinionated Guide to Haunted London with a talk of the same name. The talk was free, there was wine available - which was also free, and the room was as packed as I'd ever seen it. I did not partake in the free wine but I was impressed enough with the talk that I bought a copy of the book and fully intend to shamelessly plagiarise it for a future London by Foot walk or two.

Why not? It's not like people pay me to guide them round London so it's not as if I'd be making money out of Ian Simmons and the Fortean Times. More spreading the word. Which would seem very much in keeping with the ethos of last night's events. Simmons took to the stage and took us on a journey around some of London's most haunted locations and the phantoms, and other curiosities, that can be found lurking within.

It's not that strange that London should be the most haunted city on Earth (and I'm saying that as someone who doesn't believe in ghosts). London is very old (soon to celebrate its 2000th birthday) and between 1825 (when it overtook Beijing) until 1925 (when New York took up the mantle now held by Tokyo) it was the most populous city on Earth.

That's a lot of dead bodies and in a city of toxic fog, festering graveyards, riots, insurrections, Satanic pacts, incinerated heretics, and gin and laudanum addiction and that's a lot of potential ghosts. There is a ghost for everyone. Maybe everyone is a ghost. There are grim ghosts, grisly ghosts, and silly ghosts. There are ancient ghosts and there are modern ghosts. Ian Simmons claims that some of his former acquaintances who have passed away are now ghosts. But where the 'real' ghosts of London differ from fictional ghosts, Scooby Doo ghosts if you like, is that they're very rarely transparent and they're far more often seen in daytime than at night.

The Tower of London is home to at least thirteen ghosts. There's the two princes believed to be murdered by Richard III, Lady Jane Grey, and Walter Raleigh and there's a headless Anne Boleyn (classic ghost behaviour) who can be seen, if you're lucky, leading a procession around the Tower. There's also a phantom bear who, in life, was once part of the Tower's menagerie. To see the phantom bear is not a good thing. The bear is an omen of death and not long after seeing the bear you will die.

The British Museum is even more haunted. Haunted by the ghosts of warders, visitors, and suicidal curators as well as an assyriologist who is believed to be continuing his work on deciphering cuneiform tablets as a ghost. There's a cursed mummy, an Aztec serpent god (who once trapped a television crew in his gallery and turned the heat up to make them uncomfortably hot - naughty!), and there are restless Egyptian gods. There are so many ghosts that when the British Museum tube station was closed down in 1933 some suspected it was due to it being overcrowded with spectres.

Some believe that Cleopatra's Needle on the Embankment contains the trapped spirit of the pharaoh Ramesses II and that the two sphinxes that flank the Needle are turned in towards it to protect the Nineteenth Dynasty pharaoh who reigned over Egypt between 1279 and 1213BC. A suicidal naked ghost has been seen jumping in the river at this location on more than one occasion.

 

Another seen jumping, with suicidal intent, in to the Thames yearly is the ghost of Jack the Ripper. One of the Ripper suspects, the barrister Montague Druitt, did, in fact, die this way on a stretch of the river in Chiswick. The Ripper's victims, also, have appeared in ghostly form. One of them has been seen sat at the bar drinking in The Ten Bells pub in Spitalfields, much has she would have done when alive. Ghosts don't seem to change their habits much.

The Ten Bells is just one of many haunted pubs (note to self:you already have the pub stops for future haunted London walks). The Bow Bells in, er, Bow is haunted by a trickster called The Phantom Flusher whose only ghostly behaviour seems to be mischievously flushing the ladies toilet when a customer is sat upon it. A seance to exorcise the ghost from the property angered The Phantom Flusher so he, or she - we just don't know, smashed a mirror. Since then the flushing has been allowed to continue unbothered.

The Bleeding Heart Tavern, now a fancy bistro, near Farringdon station used to be the place where organ grinders would go to buy their monkeys. They cost more clothed but you could purchase a naked monkey quite cheap. You could also avail yourself, if need arose, of tortoises, porcupines, and dancing dogs in tutus. It is said one of its original owners made a pact with Satan and was later seen dancing in the pub with a clawed man before being killed. Her ghost now haunts the pub and is usually seen with her still beating heart in her hand.

Though it is suggested that the story comes from the pub name rather than vice verse but why let light in on magic? Nearby, Smithfield Market was once a popular site should you wish to execute people. It being an abattoir it was easy to repurpose equipment used to kill animals and instead use it to kill people. William Wallace was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Smithfield and Mary I of England had fifty heretics burnt at the stake there. Earning her the nickname Bloody Mary.

Later things calmed down. A little. Fraudsters and coin forgers were simply burned to death in pots of oil. The Town of Ramsgate, in Wapping near the former Executioner's Dock, is both the oldest pub on the Thames and, of course, proud home to a ghost. The ghost of Judge Jeffreys, the "hanging judge". Jeffreys operated at the time of the Bloody Assizes and James II and he operated with both glee and extreme prejudice.

But following 1688's Glorious Revolution when William III and Mary II took power he found himself out of favour and was imprisoned before dying of kidney disease after a failed attempt to escape to France. His ghost can still be seen, sometimes, down by the riverside hoping to finally make that journey to the continent.

The World's End in Camden was built on the site of Jenny Bingham's Mother Red Cap cottage and Jenny Bingham was said to have sold her soul to Satan. Today, she still haunts the pub and below the pub there is said to still be a torture chamber. Below the pub, in reality, is the Underworld live venue where I once saw Swervedriver and Chapterhouse play live. Some of Chapterhouse's more self-indulgent shoegazing moments were a bit dull but I'd probably not go so far as to describe it as torture.

The Anchor pub in Borough was a prime spot to find yourself being pressganged into joining the navy. Samuel Pepys wrote that he drank there as his house, across the river, burned down during the Great Fire of London. Brompton Cemetery is said to be haunted by a phantom red squirrel and the largest mausoleum in the cemetery is also believed to have a time machine inside. Could the phantom squirrel be a time traveller? We can't rule it out.

It was at Pond Square in Highgate where Francis Bacon (not that one) tested his hypothesis that chilling meat would preserve it. He tried it with a dead chicken and it worked but it is said that the chill Bacon himself caught contributed to the pneumonia that would later kill him. Not long after his death, in 1626, a ghost appeared. But it was not Bacon's ghost. It was that of the unfortunate chicken. Poultrygeist!

The pornographer and property developer Paul Raymond (1925-2008) was known as the "King of Soho" and is also behind a ghost animal story. Raymond, ever keen to chase the money, got in on the growing craze for dolphinariums at its peak and was behind a show where two dolphins would whip scampi off scantily clad models. The dolphins eventually died and are now reported to haunt the Peacock Theatre in the West End.

The Theatre Royal in Haymarket is another playhouse with a resident ghost and this one has been spotted by such celebrated sons and daughters of the stage as Judi Dench, Patrick Stewart, and even Donald Sinden. More recently, it has been reported that the Dominion Theatre on Tottenham Court Road, which once hosted Ben Elton's Queen musical We Will Rock You, is haunted by the ghost of Freddie Mercury. Somebody has claimed to have seen a little silhouette of a man, scaramouche, scaramouche, can you do the fandango?

The man born Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar in 1946 (and was once in a band with Derrick Branche who played Gupte in Only When I Laugh) is not even the first ghost to grace the Dominion's stage. The theatre used to be the site of a huge brewery and on the 17th October 1814 a massive tank of porter exploded and covered the area in tsunami of booze. Several buildings collapsed and eight people were killed. One of the unfortunate victims can still be heard giggling in the theatre. They've got a Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps live show coming up so that should silence the laughter finally.

Mercury is neither the oldest ghost or the newest to be seen at the Dominion. Bruce Forsyth only died eight years back but his ghost has already been spotted, tap dancing and telling old jokes no doubt, lingering around the stage curtain. Nice to haunt you, to haunt you nice.

The ghost stories went on and on and at one point I thought Ian Simmons would happily talk all night but, thankfully - I do have a home to go to, he didn't. He did, however, have time to talk a little about the Highgate Vampire, the Enfield poltergeist, the Battersea poltergeist (said to be the ghost of Louis XVII of France, not sure how he ended up near Clapham Junction), and the various ghosts that can be found in St Paul's, the Guildhall, Hampton Court Palace, Lambeth Palace, Crystal Palace Park, and the Nestle tower in Croydon as well as Farringdon and Covent Garden tube stations. Some have it that the entire Bakerloo line is haunted and I've certainly seen sights at Elephant & Castle late at night that have made me wonder. I've even been one of those sights.

I won't go into those stories. I'll save some for the book and I'll save some for the aforesaid future walk (or maybe even walks, lots of ghosts, so little time) but for now just to say thanks to the London Fortean Society, thanks to The Bell, thanks to David for hosting, thanks to Jade, Michael, Paula, and Tim for keeping me company, and thanks to Ian Simmons for such an enjoyable, funny, and interesting talk. I left the pub and took the (ghost) train home.