Learn about the Naval & Military Club ghost

Almost every old building in London seems to have a ghost, and the old home of the Naval & Military Club, at 94 Piccadilly, is no different. In the mid-1990s, an apparition was seen by one of the club staff, notable for its swept-back hair and a Second World War ankle-length brown trench coat.


The ghost was identified as Major William Henry Braddell, who had been a member until his death. Legend has it that, on his last visit to the club in May 1940, he had been set to dine with two friends, and left the room fleetingly, to return and find it bombed out, and his friends dead. Around a week later, the Major himself was killed in an air raid. It is thought he came back to haunt the club because he felt so at home there.

According to Steve Roud in London Lore, which your author received for Christmas, when The Sun covered the story in 1994, it reported that the club would not be calling in an exorcist, as Major Braddell was still a member.

For more on the story, see here.

***Edit - A reader more knowledgable than your author points out that the ghost was at the club's former premises (pictured) in Cambridge House, Piccadilly, and the club purchased a new premises at St James's Square in 1996, to which it moved in 1999. The ghost was, therefore, at the club's old premises. Sorry!***


_{^Picture © Herry Lawford used under Creative Commons^}

Locate the notorious Tyburn Tree

At the point where Park Lane and Oxford Street meet, on the corner of Hyde Park, there was once a village called Tyburn, close to where Marble Arch now stands. It took its name from the Tyburn, a tributary of the River Thames.


Whilst the village was known for its water source, Tyburn Springs, and its Manor house, it was better known as the site of the infamous 'Tyburn Tree', a gallows where, between 1571 and the late 1700s, it is estimated that 40,000 and 60,000 people were put to death by hanging.

The Tree stood at the start of the ancient Watling Street, now the A5, which continued all the way to Holyhead. This was an entry point to London for many and the gallows was considered as a warning to travellers.

The hangings, of a range of religious figures, criminals and others, were public spectacles and drew crowds of thousands. So many came that Tyburn villagers erected spectator stands so that as many as possible could see.

For more, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyburn

_{^Picture by J'Roo^}

See 50 Berkeley Square, London's most haunted house

In case you hadn't noticed, it will be All Saints Day tomorrow, which make's this evening All Hallows' Eve, or Halloween, the day when the spirits of the dead walk among us. So, what better day to learn about 50 Berkeley Square, which was known in the 1900s as the most haunted house in London. The house was built in 1740, and formerly occupied by Prime Minister George Canning. However, the house soon developed a reputation for apparitions, screams and noises.


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Haunted London recounts many of the ghost stories, which apparently began when resident Mr Myers was due to be married but was jilted at the altar. Myers subsequently moved into a tiny room at the top of the building where he lived alone, only ever leaving his room at night to walk through the house candlelight.

Stories include that of a maidservant sent to make up a room but found collapsed shortly afterwards, muttering to herself "don't let it touch me". No one knows what she saw as she died in hospital following day. The maidservant's master, Captain Kentfield, then decided he would spend the night in the room and headed upstairs. Thiry minutes later, after terrible screams and a gunshot, he was also found dead on the floor, his face twisted in terror.

Other stories include that two sailors who broke into the empty house and stayed in the haunted room, one was found strangled, and the other jumped from the house and was impaled on a wrought iron fence. Sir Robert Warboys also attempted, with the agreement of the landlord, to spend the night in the haunted room with pistol and a special cord to the landlord so he could alert him if he saw anything. When the bell rang the landlord found Warboys dead, with his smoking gun having made a hole in the opposite wall.

Since 1938, the building has been occupied by firm of Maggs Bros, an antiquarian book dealer. For more information, visit http://www.haunted-london.com/50-berkeley-square

Search for the headless lady of St James' Park

This story has long caught your author's imagination, but he must admit to having been a little patchy on the details. Thank god, therefore, for Richard Jones' London Walking Tours website, which fills in the background.


A headless lady has often been sighted in St James' Park, most notably in January 1804, when the Times reported that two Coldstream Guards were so frightened by her that they were confined to hospital, and also in 1972, when a motorist collided with a lamppost when he swerved to avoid a woman in a red dress who suddenly appeared before him.

Your author remains sceptical, but on both occasions the lady matched the same description and it is said that the Coldstream Guards, based at the nearby Birdcage Walk barracks, were surprised the lady had no head.

It is thought the ghost is that of a the wife of a sergeant who beheaded her in the 1780s, and then buried it in a secret location before throwing her body into the lake. Legend has it that when the lake was later dredged the body was brought to the surface but the head was nowhere to be found.


_{^Picture combination from Flickr courtesy of Zemlinki! and Gaspa^}

Search out Smithfield's pervy pub ghost

The Rising Sun, on Cloth Fair, is another Sam Smiths establishment, and another of London's haunted pubs.


The pub itself is a fairly cosy establishment, and is notable as one of very pubs in Smithfields open on a Sunday. Legend has it that in the 19th Century a gang of body snatchers used to drink here before going on raids of nearby St Bartholemew's Hospital in search of corpses. It is said that when they failed sometimes regulars at the pub would go missing and never be seen again. It is also said that the small area of grass in front of St Bartholomew the Great, opposite, conceals a plague pit and hundreds of victims of the Black Death were speedily buried there.

The ghost here, however, seems devoted to more simple pleasures of the flesh. He is known for his sexually predatory tendencies and two Brazilian barmaids, who worked here in the eighties and lived upstairs, were sometimes woken by a 'presence' who would sit on the end of their bed, and slowly pull the bed clothes off them.

Another story concerns a landlady who was showering when she heard the bathroom door open and close. The shower curtain was promptly pulled aside and an ice-cold hand run down her back. When she turned around, however, there was no one there.

For information visit http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub176.html, or for more information on the ghosts click here