Ghosts of the Tower of London Read Free

warder’s wife who had lived there related to me how she had been pushed out of bed by unseen hands one night, to land unceremoniously on the floor! On telling her husband - for they occupied separate beds - he informed her that the same thing had happened to him on the previous night!
    So physical contact is also a manifestation, and was experienced by a London Tourist Board Guide who, as he left St John’s Chapel in the White Tower, distinctly felt a hand grasp his shoulder and squeeze it twice. Expecting it to be a colleague, he swung round, only to find nobody near him. Similar supernatural mischief has also been practised on such inanimate, 20th century objects as radios and electrical appliances. In the Lanthorn Tower, manned by office staff, kettles and refrigerators were occasionally switched on, or off if already on, resulting in cold kettles and warm fridges! In an effort to thwart the playful spirits, the switches were taped over - but later were still found to have been operated!
    Perhaps the most inexplicable and blood-chilling visitation in the 1970s occurred in the Royal Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, the last resting place of the three executed queens and those decapitated on Tower Hill. As related to the author by the chapel’s organist not long after it had happened, late one evening he was practising in the darkened chapel, the only illumination coming from the small organ light immediately above the music rack. Whilst playing, he suddenly heard the heavy entrance door open and close and, assuming it to be a patrolling yeoman warder who had entered, he turned and looked over the organ screen. No-one was there, but as the last echoes of the organ chords died away, he looked up - to see a face, glowing eerily, about fourteen feet from the floor, against a supporting pillar near the chapel door. For seemingly minutes he stared unbelievingly at the apparition as it floated there, then saw it fade away. Badly shaken, he admitted that although he had frequently practised his music late at night, in future ALL the chapel lights would be on!
    Ghostly occurrences similar to this have been experienced in other places within the castle, not only by residents or staff, but by tourists and passers-by, some of the reports dating back a century or more. Many residents live in the Tower for a considerable number of years yet encounter nothing untoward; others take such happenings in their stride, accepting them as inevitable consequences of the Tower’s bloody history. But when all is said and done, remember - the Tower’s ghosts don’t really care whether YOU belive in them or not!

    © G. Abbott
7 Kent Place
Kendal
Cumbria LA9 4EY
tel; 01539-727339
May 2004

Introduction

    Be it summer or winter, daily the public pour in their thousands to Her Majesty’s Tower of London. Jostling across the causeways over the moat they surge through the archways, their bright clothes contrasting with the grey walls, their incessant chatter penetrating the remotest cells of the prison towers. They bring their own holiday atmosphere with them as they swarm across Tower Green. Here a crowd listens enthralled to a yeoman warder, their ‘Beefeater’ guide, or stands impressed by the impassive sentry. Yonder the babel of many tongues echoes from the Jewel House approaches as the queue ebbs and flows. Coach parties noisily follow their hurrying leaders, children dash in vain to catch the perambulating pigeon – the scene is alive, a whirlpool of colour, of chatter and happy activity.
    Yet when the last tourist is shepherded out beneath the By ward archway and the shadows start to lengthen across Tower Green, it almost seems as if the grey stone buildings shake off the traces of the day’s artificiality.For night is the time for memories, and the Tower of London has indeed a surfeit of those. Happy ones, yes, of banquets and coronations, processions and merrymaking. But when the clouds scud across the moon and the wind sighs through