England
is a country often associated with ghosts and haunted mansions and castles.
Borley Rectory makes the claim of being "the most haunted
house in England." And there's quite a bit of anecdotal evidence to
support that claim. The rectory was built in 1863 next to Borley Church
as a home for Reverend Henry Bull. Over the years it was the site of intense
poltergeist activity, including spontaneous displacement of objects, strange
odors, cold spots, the sound of galloping horses and ghostly apparitions.
Even after the rectory was destroyed by fire in 1939, photos taken around
the ruins of the building and the adjacent church continued to contain unexplained
elements. One of the last residents of the house, Capt. W. H. Gregson, reported
that the spirit of a nun had been seen wandering the grounds on several
occasions. After the nun was seen peering out of a window a few times, the
window was bricked up. "The disastrous fire at the Rectory may have
had some disturbing influence," Gregson wrote, "because during
the night of the fire, several people report having seen me, accompanied
by two 'strangers,' one, a 'lady, dressed in a grey cloak,' the other, 'a
gentleman with a sort of bald head, dressed in a long black gown.'"
Some of the most chilling experiences took place around Marianne, the wife
of Reverend Lionel Foyster who took residence in the house on October 16,
1930. An entity attempted to communicate with Marianne through scrawled
handwriting on the walls - an event documented in photographs. Other mysterious
photos show a floating brick, an unknown floating ribbon-like thing and
other ghostly figures. Anomalous images continue to appear on photos taken
on the rectory grounds up to the present day. Just last July, 2000, a photo
taken behind the church shows a mysterious orb.
The
Tower of London, one of the most famous and well-preserved historical
buildings in the world, may also be one of the most haunted. This is due,
no doubt, to the scores of executions, murders and tortures that have
taken place within its walls over the last 1,000 years. Dozens upon dozens
of ghost sightings have been reported in and around the Tower. On one
winter day in 1957 at 3 a.m., a guard was disturbed by something striking
the top of his guardhouse. When he stepped outside to investigate, he
saw a shapeless white figure on top of the tower. It was then realized
that on that very same date, February 12, Lady Jane Grey was beheaded
in 1554. Perhaps the most well-known ghostly resident of the Tower is
the spirit of Ann Boleyn, one of the wives of Henry VIII, who was also
beheaded in the Tower in 1536. Her ghost has been spotted on many occasions,
sometimes carrying her head, on Tower Green and in the Tower Chapel Royal.
Other ghosts of the Tower include those of Henry VI, Thomas A Becket and
Sir Walter Raleigh. One of the most gruesome ghost stories connected with
the Tower of London describes death of the Countess of Salisbury. According
to one account, "the Countess was sentenced to death in 1541 following
her alleged involvement in criminal activities (although it is now widely
believed that she was probably innocent). After being sent struggling
to the scaffold, she ran from the block and was pursued until she was
hacked to death by the axe man." Her execution ceremony has been
seen re-enacted by spirits on Tower Green.
The
grand old ship The Queen Mary doesn't qualify as a house,
of course, but it is also quite haunted. Once a celebrated luxury ocean
liner, when it ended its sailing days the Queen Mary was purchased by the
city of Long Beach, California in 1967 and transformed into a hotel. The
most haunted area of the ship is the engine room where a 17-year-old sailor
was crushed to death trying to escape a fire. Knocking and banging on the
pipes around the door has been heard and recorded by numerous people. In
what is now the front desk area of the hotel, visitors have seen the ghost
of a "lady in white." Ghosts of children are said to haunt the
ship's pool. The spirit of a young girl, who allegedly broke her neck in
an accident at the pool, has been heard asking for her mother or her doll.
In the hallway of the pool's changing rooms is an area of unexplained activity.
Furniture moves about by itself, people feel the touch of unseen hands and
unknown spirits appear. In the front hull of the ship, a specter can sometimes
be heard screaming - the pained voice, some believe, of a sailor who was
killed when the Queen Mary collided with a smaller ship.