Ghosts of the Tower of London

Great Escapes from the Tower of London
Tortures of the Tower of London
Beefeaters of the Tower of London
The Tower of London As It Was

Introduction

Hauntings in the Tower

‘Ghosts!’

The ghostly hand at Traitor’s gate

The Phantom of Waterloo Block

Mystical Miasma

The Threshold

The Middle Tower

The Outer Ward

The Bloody Tower

Tower Green

The Beauchamp Tower

The White Tower

The Martin Tower

The Salt Tower

Conclusion

Bibliography

Ghost stories have a certain fascination for most people, whether or not they believe in them, and it is difficult to imagine a more appropriate habitation for ghosts (if they exist) than Her Majesty’s Tower of London, with its nine hundred years of eventful and, at times, grim and violent history.

Over the centuries, and indeed in recent times, people have reported inexplicable sights and sounds in the Tower. Yeoman Warder Abbott is to be congratulated on his carefully researched collection of these experiences, made additionally interesting by the inclusion of historic details of the Tower and of the victims whose ghosts are said to haunt their erstwhile prison.

I am confident that the reader will find this little book both interesting and instructive.

Field Marshal Sir Geoffrey Baker
GCB CMG CBE MC
Constable of Her Majesty’s
Tower of London

October 1979

Grateful acknowledgements to the Constable of Her Majesty’s Tower of London, Field Marshal Sir Geoffrey Baker, GCB, CMG, CBE, MC, the Resident Governor 1971–79, Major General Sir W. D. M. Raeburn, KCVO, CB, DSO, MBE, MA, and to his successor, Major General Giles Mills, CB, OBE. Also those of my colleagues, past and present, without whose experiences this book would have been a spiritless effort indeed!

The verses at the beginning of each section were written especially for this little book by my wife Shelagh, to whom I am deeply grateful both for them and for so much besides.

GHOSTS OF THE TOWER OF LONDON
by Geoffrey Abbott, Yeoman Warder (retd.)

(Note; this article was based on the author’s researches while living in the Tower during the 1970s and 80s, a period when the threat of possible terrorist attack within the castle was ever-present; lest it be thought that some of these ghostly visitations could have been carried out by practical jokers, it should be remembered that at that time, all night patrols of the grounds were carried out by armed sentries).

The Tower of London, that stone time-machine whose walls have witnessed so many horrific scenes of torture and execution, must surely lay claim to be the most haunted group of buildings anywhere. This royal palace, the oldest Norman castle in the country, has not only been a royal residence and court, a place of extravagant splendour in which Tudor kings and queens regaled themselves, and from where the coronation processions set out for Westminster Abbey, but also a State prison in which were incarcerated those accused of treason and conspiracy.

Behind its embattled walls, violent death in all its many forms snuffed out the lives of the famous and the infamous. The sword ended the life of Queen Annne Boleyn, the axe slew Queen Katherine Howard, Lady Jane Grey, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, and Lord Hastings. Griffin, Prince of Wales, fell to his death from the high windows of the White Tower, and the Duke of Clarence was drowned, plunged into a butt of malmsy wine. A fatal disease struck down Judge Jeffries, the ‘Hanging Judge’, in the Bloody Tower, and Lady Arabella Stuart died insane in the Queen’s House. Headless corpses of those decapitated in public on Tower Hill were buried in the Royal Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula within the castle, and enemy spies of both World Wars faced military firing squads in the Tower, thereby paying the price for their crimes.

But even violent death came as a merciful release to the many who were tortured within these grim walls; men like the Jesuit priest John Gerard, the Gunpowder Plotter Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators, and Protestant Cuthbert Sympson, were but a few of the many, women too, who suffered on the dreaded rack and by other instruments of inhumane persuasion in the vaults beneath the White Tower.

Is it any wonder then that the intensity of their agonies should imprint itself so strongly on the aura of the ancient castle as to echo down the centuries, the restless spirits seeking to remind us of what they endured in the Tower? And who should be more aware or such eerie visitations than the yeoman warders and their familes who live in the Tower, and the sentries on their nightly patrols? And it was just such one of those soldiers who, on duty at the Main Gate during World War I, saw a small procession approaching him from Tower Hill, the ancient site of the public executions. Two men carrying a hurdle were escorted by others dressed in long black gowns and, heedless of the sentry’s instinctive command that they halt, the macabre group noiselessly proceeded into the Tower, passing so close to the soldier that he could see the corpse which lay prone on the hurdle, the head lying by the side of the body. The guard was turned out, the whole area searched, but nothing untoward found. On subsequent nights the same sentry again witnessed the grim cavalcade, the man eventually having to be rostered to a different shift of duty. Coincidentally, similar sightings were experienced during World War II, the dress of the funereal escorts then being reported as identical to that worn by the Sheriff of London’s men during the Middle Ages.

Betwixt Tower and Thames, the Wharf provides a cobbled roadway lined with ancient cannon and green lawns. Deep beneath the Wharf are other, more modern installations such as drains to carry rainwater into the river. And in 1973 a workman, having descended into the shaft to inspect the area, suddenly heard a deep voice eching along one of the tunnels, Distinct yet distant, the words “Oh dear!” came to his ears and, even as he peered apprehensively into the gloom, a deep and prolonged sigh came from the tunnel which stretched behind him. Frantically he scrambled out, and nothing would induce him to enter that particular shaft again!

Inexplicable voices also alarmed the residents of the Devereux Tower in the 1920s. This tower is situated on the inner ballium wall, a bulwark honeycombed with passages leading to other towers once used for more sinister purposes. It was while the family of an Army NCO was having a late meal when they suddenly heard loud knocking and moaning noises coming from the thickness of the wall beneath their apartment. They checked the cellars, but to no avail, and the matter was reported to the colonel of the regiment. Similar sounds were frequently heard on later occasions but, as so often happens in the Tower of London, such occurrences become part of the way of life there and, unless particularly alarming or distressing, are actually missed when they cease.