Ghosts of the Tower of London (5 page)

So don’t think that supernatural happenings occur only at night, to guards and warders. Once you are in the grounds of the Tower, at any time of the day, you are just as likely to sense a touch on the shoulder, half see a shape rounding the corner, perhaps hear the echoes of a stifled scream …

After all, why should
you
be exempt?

In December 1994 Shannon John, an attractive young American student, was one of a school group who came to this country to study Tudor history. In London they indulged in the inevitable round of sight-seeing, visiting such national institutions as the National Portrait Gallery, St Paul’s Cathedral, the Bank of England and then like so many others, they came to the Tower of London. But when the list had earlier been compiled of places the group just had to see, little did Shannon and her family imagine in their wildest dreams that this was going to be an experience they had never expected – for only yards from the office blocks and speeding traffic of modern London, there, among the crowds of tourists on Tower Wharf, someone from a bygone age was very, very close to Shannon!

I first became involved in the story when my colleague Yeoman Warder Brian Harrison, knowing of my research and subsequent books on the Tower’s ghosts, forwarded a letter to me from Shannon’s father, Mr Arthur D John of Redlands, California in which he enclosed a photograph of Traitors’ Gate taken by his daughter and enquired whether we could account for the gloved hand which mysteriously appeared in the picture.

To say that I was intrigued is putting it mildly, for while I had on record many cases in which spectres had apparently appeared to people, ghostly sounds heard and even inexplicable odours, incense etc., smelled, this was the first occasion of which I was aware, of such a manifestation being reportedly captured on film! Caution of course was necessary that it was not a hoax, a technical malfunction, a double exposure or the like, and on discussing it by phone with Mr John I was reassured that it was indeed a bona fide request for enlightenment and not a stunt for publicity (if it were, it would have appeared in American newspapers and not queried at all with the Tower authorities, who would have simply dismissed it as such). A print of the picture providing few clues as to whether it was genuine or not, Mr John offered to send the original roll of film, as the negative concerned and those immediately adjoining it were of course essential for evaluation.

The ghostly hand at Traitors’ Gate

On its receipt, I accepted the risk of being greeted with ribald scepticism and invited not only military photo-interpretation experts for an assessment, but later also the manufacturers of the film, they having the specialist equipment necessary to investigate the authenticity or otherwise of the negative. This they did thoroughly, over a lengthy period, and although they were necessarily wary of attributing the hand as being of supernatural origin, their conclusions can be summed up as follows;

1. ‘The hand was not the result of a double exposure’. Comment: this was also confirmed by study of the other negatives on the roll.

2. ‘Despite enlarging, then darkening the picture to varying degrees, the hand was still visible, surrounded by a strange glowing halo, especially round the thumb, this resembling the electro-fluorescent photographs interpreted by some as the ‘aura’ which surrounds us all, its colour signifying our mood e.g. blue for sadness, orange for happiness.’ Also, as will be seen by the illustration, while the railings are out of focus, the end of the sleeve itself, the wrinkles in the material and the outline of the fingers are clearly delineated, yet both are the same distance from the lens.
Comment: point taken.

3. ‘The image of the hand was present in the scene when the photo was taken and had not been subsequently superimposed by computer or any other method.’
Comment: obviously an undisputed technical conclusion. Mr John also stressed that Shannon did not have the technical knowledge required to fake a picture in that way.

5. ‘A hand could have intruded and been captured by the flash to give that luminescent effect, a known but rare phenomenon.’
Comment: Shannon said that there were only herself and a friend in the immediate area and she did not use the flash on her ‘point and press’ camera. Nor is the lacy Tudor or Stuart style cuff worn by the ‘hand’ the usual fashion adopted by touring students! Even had someone obtained a sleeve as a joke, the wearer would have instinctively curled their fingers round the railings in the picture. Close examination shows that this is not the case. If the hand is of an era long since gone, the fingers could not have curled round the railings anyway, because they weren’t there, having only installed about a century ago to prevent people falling into the water below.

Several questions remain unanswered and are probably unanswerable anyway. The posture of the hand itself is unusually awkward, as attempts to curl the fingers in that manner, yet keep the thumb line straight, will demonstrate. Was the owner of the hand a man or a woman? Was he or she wearing a glove? – there appears to be wrinkles on the first finger and no thumb nail is visible. Was it a coincidence that the manifestation occurred where it did, at Traitors’ Gate, the entrance through which the doomed victims were brought, to face lengthy incarceration or even death beneath the axe? It was certainly at the precise spot where, as I recounted in my book
Beefeaters of the Tower of London
, at 7.30a.m. on 11 March 1980 a passer-by witnessed and described in great detail a procession of Tudor-clad men and women, the men bearing pikes, the women resplendent in dresses studded with pearls and diamonds, one carrying a prayer book with a cross on it, the party passing slowly, as if in a barge, under Traitors’ Gate and proceeding into the Tower. Had he seen a phantom re-enactment of the moments when Queen Katherine Howard, accompanied by four ladies and conveyed in a small boat rowed by four men, passed under Traitors’ Gate on 10 February 1542, Katherine dying beneath the axe later on Tower Green? My informant reported that his attention was first attracted by a flickering haze of blue light beneath the archway; could it have been a glow similar to that which surrounded the ‘hand’? So whose hand was it? We will never know. I have only one regret – that Miss Shannon John wasn’t standing back sufficiently far enough to film whoever was on the Other’ end of the sleeve!

Skeleton found near The Lanthorn Tower

It was 3 a.m. on a cold morning in September 1980 and the sentry patrolling along the front of the Waterloo Block suddenly had the feeling that he was being watched. His colleagues were fifty yards or more away, walking their beats, everywhere was in darkness save for a glimmer of light through the arrow slits of the White Tower opposite, the brightest lights of all being those shining out through the large windows in the upper halves of the double doors of the Waterloo Block itself, lights which clearly illuminated the entrance hall beyond. Being a member of a Guards Regiment, he was not given to reacting to unusual circumstances in any other way than that of a highly trained sentry; those on duty in the Tower, whether soldiers or yeoman warders, the latter all being ex-Warrant Officers or Sergeant Majors, could hardly be classed as being susceptible to nerves, and their role was to observe and investigate anything out of the ordinary, especially at night.

Reaching the extremity of his beat at the end of the long building, the soldier turned about, his sixth sense still sending out warning signals. His eyes probing the shadows, he suddenly found himself looking at the Waterloo Block doors - to see through the glass windows a shape outlined by the strong lights behind, a silhouette of a man crouching and watching him! For a moment the soldier froze, his hands gripping his rifle; he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that those doors, indeed all the doors, both internal and external, were securely locked. A thief would hardly stand in a brightly lit hallway, yet how could a member of staff or even a tourist, have been inadvertently locked in? Before he could think up a rational explanation, the shape moved away, and at that the sentry acted in accordance with his instructions; using his radio he called out the guard, and also the Armouries warden responsible for night security. His sergeant and colleagues quickly arrived, together with the warden who unlocked the doors. Not surprisingly the sentry was more than reluctant to enter the building, but within minutes, the possibility of terrorism being an constant threat, the whole building was subjected to a minute and thorough search by the armed soldiers for any unauthorised person on the premises. All security devices were checked, all rooms searched, but nothing untoward was found. The sentry, questioned extensively by the Officer of the Guard, as was the routine, could not be diverted from his story and the incident was entered in the Report Book as inexplicable.

Equally inexplicable were the events which occurred on the upper floor of the Block, where flats occupied by yeoman warders, Jewel House members and their families were situated. Security being the top priority at all times, all the residents were required to lock outer doors behind them on entering or leaving the building at night, yet during 1979 and the following year, two yeoman warders described how, at different times in the night and sometimes as early as 7 a.m., loud knocking was heard at their ‘front’ doors, entrances which opened on to a long corridor. No matter how quickly they reached their front doors, no-one was ever there. That they were the activity of some practical joker was discounted, such childish practices not being indulged in by fellow warders, and anyway, there were only three or four families along that corridor so any miscreant could easily be identified. However, both yeoman warders reported that on several occasions, on opening their doors and looking along the corridor, the swing doors further along were seen to be swinging slightly, as if someone had just passed through them – yet on investigation all the doors beyond were found to be securely locked, as were those in the opposite direction. These incidents continued for some months and then, as mysteriously as they had started, the knocking suddenly ceased.

An even more baffling event occurred on 30 July 1980 involving another yeoman warder who occupied a flat on the second floor at the east end of the Waterloo Block. On leaving his apartment and closing the door, he suddenly heard a voice say “Oh - sorry!” and on turning, saw a man standing by the swing doors situated about six paces away. Next moment the man had moved away, passing through the aperture where one swing door had been propped open. It was mid-day, broad daylight in the corridor and members of staff not immediately recognised did pass through the building, so there was nothing unusual about the incident – why should there be? And then the warder thought again; where was the fellow going? Following the route the man had taken, he found what he had subconsciously expected – that every room leading off the spiral stairs at the end of the corridor, both up and down the stairway, were securely locked, mainy of them barred as well. When questioned, the description he gave was not of a ghostly, be-ruffed Tudor courtier or Cavalier dandy – but of a man who wore an ordinary looking suit and a wartime-type brown pointed trilby hat!