MY FIRST Trick or Treaters: Pictures today are from my decorations and my visitors—at least the ones I took are.
Quotes are as noted.
Today is Halloween, my favorite holiday and so we’ll spend some time in my favorite city and meet some of its lesser known residents…that while still around can not be counted among the living.
Oh and I’ll scare up a bit of Outlander at the end to meet the needs of us in withdrawl programs.
“‘Dear God’ the very houses seem asleep, and all the mighty heart is lying still.” Wadsworth
What better place to meet up with ghosts than London, a city of reputed violence and all manner of life and death since the Roman Legions marked this earth.
Of course my choice of most likely to find a ghost or more would be the tower. The original buildings here were built by the Normans after their obviously successful invasion in 1066–and the tower has remained and grown…used by Royals to both live and to meet their demise–often by less than gentle means….There are the 2 princes who were last seen here and never seen again….were they murdered by their uncle Richard III or by Henry VII who took the throne as his own…. and had a son who did more for the tower’s reputation than anyone before or since–Henry VIII.
Two of Henry’s wives were executed within the tower walls while several more victims of his proof of absolute power’s corruption–some related and some who just got in his way or pissed him off met their end just a short distance from the main entrance to the tower at a scaffold on Tower Hill. Ann Boleyn has been seen here….she watched her own brother and several men who were personal friends die here and she followed soon after. Her most common appearances are on the green where she was beheaded and within the White Tower Chapel…Interestingly enough she is seen by some with her head and others without. The second wife Katherine Howard prefers Hampton Court where it is said she still runs out into a hall way (as she reportedly did when she was a live, hundreds of years ago) to throw herself on Henry’s mercy—fat chance lady
“But one pale woman all alone.
The daylight kissing her wan hair
Loitered beneath the gas lamps flare
With lips of flame and hearts of stone.”
Oscar Wilde
Another Royal that received Henry’s justice was Margaret Pole, she was an heir of Plantagenet blood and had a better claim to the throne than Henry and his children. She was the Countess of Salisbury and 70 years old when she was brought to the scaffold to be beheaded. But she had other ideas and refused to quietly present her neck for the deed. She ran about trying to get away while the startled headman hacked at her with the axe that he had suppose he would use for a few strokes to severe her head from neck. According to legend it was a bloody affair before she was finally felled and he was able to finish the job correctly. Is it any wonder that anyone that wanted to live so much is still seem moving about the tower rather than resting peacefully.
Another ghost — this one a commoner–is Anne Askew, a reformer during the reign of guess who, it is said that you can hear her scream from the tower where she was illegally racked before her execution.
Not all the ghosts here are human however—in the 19th century a sentry saw an immense bear. Since the tower for years held the royal menagerie this isn’t a big surprise—but this particular bear wasn’t a current resident but a shade of one who had resided here before.
“…It is this stick which is thought to be the original source of the mysterious tapping noises heard about the history-laden rooms of Ham House. At dead of night the noise would be heard—tap, tap, tap–just as the old Duchess used to hobble about in her latter years.” This Hawunted Isle—Peter Underwood
The churches of London are old and full of the dead–St. Martin-in-the-Field which is just off Trafalgar Square now and no where near any greenery was re-built in the 1500s by that same Henry who did so much for population control in the city.
It’s crypt–the dead buried here include one of Charles II’s many mistresses–this one being the popular Nell Gwynn; as well as the wife and child of Christopher Wren–the architect responsible for many of the churches and other buildings in the city that were built following the destruction of the Great Fire in 1666, is now modernized The church now days is known for it’s Crypt Restaurant (they still hold church services upstairs) which is complete with tombstone paving the floor–the cemetery was done away with many years ago. (check previous blogs of mine for the hows and whys).
In 1859 the crypt here was full of wall to wall crumbling and broken coffins. Eventually most of these were taken elsewhere—most to unmarked graves to sites no long known. So it’s no wander a few spirits were left behind. The most famous may actually be the Silver Ghosts–a seven man swing assemble that was playing here this October….But it still gets a nod from me for creepy tombstone lined dining.
I’m sick of fog and yellow gloom
Of faces strange, and alien
Your London is a vault, a tomb
Dorothy Frances McCrae
Another weird church is St. Olaf’s. Built in 1450 it survived the Great Fire (1666) and the Blitz (WWII). If you’re in London it’s near the Tower Hill Underground Station. The gate here bears five skulls which could indicate a lot of things….including of note the fact that many of the non-royals beheaded at Tower Hill were brought here to repose or rest much longer if the family were leery of picking up someone really out of favor. Mary Ramsey who is credited–on a plaque here at the church–with bringing the plague to London is buried here as is Mother Goose.
And I mentioned the Tube Station above which brings me to the fact that even London’s Tube is reputedly haunted or as some legends go populated by cannibalistic mutants–no wonder it took so long for London to open up late night tube schedules.
Take Beacontree station for instance which since the 1990’s has had multiple reports of a strange female that is seen here. She has long blonde hair but no face—just a smooth acre of skin where her features should be.
“….of night and London what is it comes near?
Felt like a blind man’s touch along the wall.
Questing and strange like fear.”
Lawrence Benyon
As to the most haunted place in London–some say
50 Berkley Square
which has been a home to a Bookseller for many years now, but according to all manner of accounts it also house a creature or some type of being with a raw head and bloody bones, which has caused at least two deaths over the years. While not so deadly recently the house still has accounts of screams, and sounds of something–perhaps a body–being dragged about.
The house’s reputedly is where a Mr. Du Pre locked a crazy, not to mention violent brother. He eventually died but many claim he haunts the house. It is claimed that the place is so psychically charged that you can feel shocks just by touching the external brickwork of the buildings.
Across a world of sudden fear and fire light
Her rusted ribs like railings round her heart
O mother of wounds.
JAMIE/SAM GOES HALLOWEENING…Is she a Trick or a Treat?
And OUTLANDER INSPRIED COSTUMES
But nobody does it better.
Happy Halloween from Crag Na Dun
London is so clumsy and so brutal and has gathered together the darkest side of life. She is like a mighty orgess who devours human flesh.
Henry James
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The Fire had burnt out.
The Plague Pit had closed
And gone into literature.
W.S. Graham
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“There exhales from this oozy mass so fatal a vapor no animal can endure it. The black water bears a greenish–brown floating scum, which for ever bubbles from the putrid mud of the bottom”
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Christmas Apron $10.00
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