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Authors: Geoff Abbott
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a’Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, for he it is whose ghost is reputed to have appeared when arch and tower were being built.
In 1240 King Henry III, having filched adjoining land in order to increase the defences of his castle, gave orders for a Watergate to be built, with a low tower above it. Tradition has it that on Saint George’s Day 1240, when the edifice was all but complete, a storm arose and arch and tower collapsed. Work was restarted and proceeded well – until Saint George’s Day 1241, when again the building gave way.
The explanation was given by a priest who claimed that he had witnessed the ghost of St Thomas a’Becket striking the stonework with his cross, whilst exclaiming that the defences were not for the benefit of the kingdom but ‘for the injury and prejudice of the Londoners, my brethren’. Upon which dire condemnation the arch and tower were reduced to rubble.
Henry III, mindful that it was his grandfather who had caused the death of that ‘turbulent priest’ Becket, prudently insured himself against ghostly recriminations by including in the new building a small oratory, and naming the building after the indignant martyr, St Thomas.
Earlier this century the then Keeper of the Jewel House, Maj.-Gen. Sir George Younghusband, KCMG, KCIE, CB, resided in St Thomas’ Tower. He related having been in a room there, the door of which slowly opened – remained so for a few seconds – then just as gently, closed again. This happened more than once, but nothing more was seen. There have been reports of a monk, wearing a brown habit, moving through the shadows, whilst a more recent occupant and his family recounted instances of having heard in 1974 a soft ‘slap slap’, as if of monks’ sandals moving across a wooden floor – disconcerting to say the least, since the residence had wall to wall carpeting!
Wakefield/Lanthorn battlements, Outer Ward
Mint Street, that section of the Outer Ward running north from the Byward Tower, is not exempt from eerie happenings. I myself as a yeoman warder going on duty before dawn one morning heard a sentry approaching along Mint Street. ‘Has anyone passed you?’ the sentry, a Scots Guardsman, asked. I paused, then queried the sentry’s departure from the usual beat. ‘I heard an unearthly shriek,’ he explained. ‘It came from along there.’ He pointed in the direction from which I had come ‘And after the yell I heard the sound of running footsteps!’
He spoke calmly and was obviously not a man given to flights of fancy – yet I had walked alone along the dark, silent street for over two hundred yards, having heard and seen nothing.
Not all the instances have occurred in the open air. Footsteps have been heard ascending the stairs within one of the houses set in the thickness of the outer wall, footsteps sounding when no one but the listening resident was in the house. Later, in an upper room, my wife felt the overwhelming presence of ‘someone else’, a sensation accompanied by a feeling of chilling evil. At last, determined not to panic, she could nevertheless withstand it no longer, and had to retreat hurriedly to find the comfort of neighbours and the everyday bustle of the world.
Traitors’ Gate and St Thomas’s Tower
Other residents have heard the crying of a baby coming from an upper room. Thinking it was their child they investigated. Theirs lay sleeping peacefully in its cot. But the eerie crying continued – from where? from what?
Within the same house a yeoman warder, whilst standing in the hall one evening, suddenly became aware of a man a few feet away, by the front door. No mediaeval figure this; no ruff, no doublet, no foppish Court dress even – yet old fashioned in a way, for he wore a grey suit cut in the utility style of the 1940s. As the yeoman warder turned in surprise, the figure vanished. This happened in 1977.
No records exist of any tragedy in that house – except that only yards away stood until
In 1240 King Henry III, having filched adjoining land in order to increase the defences of his castle, gave orders for a Watergate to be built, with a low tower above it. Tradition has it that on Saint George’s Day 1240, when the edifice was all but complete, a storm arose and arch and tower collapsed. Work was restarted and proceeded well – until Saint George’s Day 1241, when again the building gave way.
The explanation was given by a priest who claimed that he had witnessed the ghost of St Thomas a’Becket striking the stonework with his cross, whilst exclaiming that the defences were not for the benefit of the kingdom but ‘for the injury and prejudice of the Londoners, my brethren’. Upon which dire condemnation the arch and tower were reduced to rubble.
Henry III, mindful that it was his grandfather who had caused the death of that ‘turbulent priest’ Becket, prudently insured himself against ghostly recriminations by including in the new building a small oratory, and naming the building after the indignant martyr, St Thomas.
Earlier this century the then Keeper of the Jewel House, Maj.-Gen. Sir George Younghusband, KCMG, KCIE, CB, resided in St Thomas’ Tower. He related having been in a room there, the door of which slowly opened – remained so for a few seconds – then just as gently, closed again. This happened more than once, but nothing more was seen. There have been reports of a monk, wearing a brown habit, moving through the shadows, whilst a more recent occupant and his family recounted instances of having heard in 1974 a soft ‘slap slap’, as if of monks’ sandals moving across a wooden floor – disconcerting to say the least, since the residence had wall to wall carpeting!
Wakefield/Lanthorn battlements, Outer Ward
Mint Street, that section of the Outer Ward running north from the Byward Tower, is not exempt from eerie happenings. I myself as a yeoman warder going on duty before dawn one morning heard a sentry approaching along Mint Street. ‘Has anyone passed you?’ the sentry, a Scots Guardsman, asked. I paused, then queried the sentry’s departure from the usual beat. ‘I heard an unearthly shriek,’ he explained. ‘It came from along there.’ He pointed in the direction from which I had come ‘And after the yell I heard the sound of running footsteps!’
He spoke calmly and was obviously not a man given to flights of fancy – yet I had walked alone along the dark, silent street for over two hundred yards, having heard and seen nothing.
Not all the instances have occurred in the open air. Footsteps have been heard ascending the stairs within one of the houses set in the thickness of the outer wall, footsteps sounding when no one but the listening resident was in the house. Later, in an upper room, my wife felt the overwhelming presence of ‘someone else’, a sensation accompanied by a feeling of chilling evil. At last, determined not to panic, she could nevertheless withstand it no longer, and had to retreat hurriedly to find the comfort of neighbours and the everyday bustle of the world.
Traitors’ Gate and St Thomas’s Tower
Other residents have heard the crying of a baby coming from an upper room. Thinking it was their child they investigated. Theirs lay sleeping peacefully in its cot. But the eerie crying continued – from where? from what?
Within the same house a yeoman warder, whilst standing in the hall one evening, suddenly became aware of a man a few feet away, by the front door. No mediaeval figure this; no ruff, no doublet, no foppish Court dress even – yet old fashioned in a way, for he wore a grey suit cut in the utility style of the 1940s. As the yeoman warder turned in surprise, the figure vanished. This happened in 1977.
No records exist of any tragedy in that house – except that only yards away stood until
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