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Authors: Peter Underwood
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waitresses approached him for his order. The restaurant used to be frequented by medical students from nearby University College Hospital but the immediate and quite inexplicable disappearance of the figure, which always occupied the same table, seems to invalidate the popular explanation that medical students were playing practical jokes. It seems more likely that it was the same ghost that haunted a boarding house in Gower Street a few years earlier.
The trouble began when a young lady lodger was awakened one night by a loud noise and starting up in bed she was terrified to see the head and shoulders of a man, swathed in bandages. The form, which seemed to have a luminosity of its own, appeared in an alcove of the room usually occupied by a bookcase, which had been torn from its fastenings and lay broken on the floor — a probable cause of the noise that had awakened the terrified girl.
A few days later, loud knocks were reported by several people in the house and the following week the figure with bandaged head was seen again. Later, more rappings were heard and thereafter the disturbances seemed to cease. No explanation was ever discovered for either the distinct rappings or the singular apparition.
KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN
An old house in King Street, Covent Garden, has long been regarded as haunted and may be the one in which ‘a handsome woman, but common’ saw her ‘friend’, the son of Lord Mohun, after he had been killed. John Aubrey records that in the seventeenth century the gallant young son and heir of Lord Mohun had a quarrel with a Prince Griffin and it was arranged that a duel should be fought on Chelsea Fields, on horseback, with swords.
On his way to the rendezvous Mohun was stopped by a party of men who picked a quarrel with him and shot him dead. It was commonly believed that the whole thing was organized by Prince Griffin who knew Mohun to be a better horseman than himself.
The murder took place at ten o’clock in the morning and on the same day and at the same time this ‘handsome but common’ lady-friend in King Street saw the figure of young Mohun at her bedside. He drew the curtains aside, looked in on her and then disappeared. She called out to him and then to her maid, who did not see the figure, but the door of the room was locked and the maid had the key in her pocket. Aubrey arranged for a friend to question both the mistress and her servant and was satisfied that the account was a true one.
The same house has so affected some people that nothing would induce them to spend a night there by themselves. A surveyor, during the course of making some specifications of the building, stumbled down some very worn steps in the basement and found himself in a deep cellar. He knew that a lot of these old houses were built on the site of the old Convent Gardens of Westminster (St Peter’s) Abbey and thought he would see how far the cellar extended, it having been suggested that some of the cellars connect with one another.
King Street, Covent Garden, where the ghost of the son of Lord Mohun appeared at the precise time of his murder in Chelsea.
The surveyor noticed that the cellar was full of coal and, seeing a shovel close by, he set about moving some of the coal so that he could explore further, but as fast as he moved the coal, it slid or rolled back to where it had been previously. After a while, the surveyor gave up and returned upstairs where he talked to the housekeeper about the cellar and the steps and was surprised to learn that the old man seemed to have no knowledge of the stock of coal or of the worn stone steps.
Some time later, the surveyor had occasion to return to the house to check some measurements and, descending to the basement, he was amazed to find neither steps nor coal down there. A burly manservant in the house at the time rarely ventured down into the basement because, he said, he had seen a shadowy appearance of evil down there and he knew others who felt a
The trouble began when a young lady lodger was awakened one night by a loud noise and starting up in bed she was terrified to see the head and shoulders of a man, swathed in bandages. The form, which seemed to have a luminosity of its own, appeared in an alcove of the room usually occupied by a bookcase, which had been torn from its fastenings and lay broken on the floor — a probable cause of the noise that had awakened the terrified girl.
A few days later, loud knocks were reported by several people in the house and the following week the figure with bandaged head was seen again. Later, more rappings were heard and thereafter the disturbances seemed to cease. No explanation was ever discovered for either the distinct rappings or the singular apparition.
KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN
An old house in King Street, Covent Garden, has long been regarded as haunted and may be the one in which ‘a handsome woman, but common’ saw her ‘friend’, the son of Lord Mohun, after he had been killed. John Aubrey records that in the seventeenth century the gallant young son and heir of Lord Mohun had a quarrel with a Prince Griffin and it was arranged that a duel should be fought on Chelsea Fields, on horseback, with swords.
On his way to the rendezvous Mohun was stopped by a party of men who picked a quarrel with him and shot him dead. It was commonly believed that the whole thing was organized by Prince Griffin who knew Mohun to be a better horseman than himself.
The murder took place at ten o’clock in the morning and on the same day and at the same time this ‘handsome but common’ lady-friend in King Street saw the figure of young Mohun at her bedside. He drew the curtains aside, looked in on her and then disappeared. She called out to him and then to her maid, who did not see the figure, but the door of the room was locked and the maid had the key in her pocket. Aubrey arranged for a friend to question both the mistress and her servant and was satisfied that the account was a true one.
The same house has so affected some people that nothing would induce them to spend a night there by themselves. A surveyor, during the course of making some specifications of the building, stumbled down some very worn steps in the basement and found himself in a deep cellar. He knew that a lot of these old houses were built on the site of the old Convent Gardens of Westminster (St Peter’s) Abbey and thought he would see how far the cellar extended, it having been suggested that some of the cellars connect with one another.
King Street, Covent Garden, where the ghost of the son of Lord Mohun appeared at the precise time of his murder in Chelsea.
The surveyor noticed that the cellar was full of coal and, seeing a shovel close by, he set about moving some of the coal so that he could explore further, but as fast as he moved the coal, it slid or rolled back to where it had been previously. After a while, the surveyor gave up and returned upstairs where he talked to the housekeeper about the cellar and the steps and was surprised to learn that the old man seemed to have no knowledge of the stock of coal or of the worn stone steps.
Some time later, the surveyor had occasion to return to the house to check some measurements and, descending to the basement, he was amazed to find neither steps nor coal down there. A burly manservant in the house at the time rarely ventured down into the basement because, he said, he had seen a shadowy appearance of evil down there and he knew others who felt a
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