Hampton Court and Richmond

After wandering about at Hampton Court one afternoon I went on the terrace and rested there. It was a very hot day of brilliant sunshine, and as I watched the crowd pass to and fro along the pathway in front of me, I saw a wounded soldier in a hospital suit of blue coming along on crutches. I was gazing at him compassionately, when my attention was diverted to a woman approaching who was wearing an unusual old-fashioned dress with a picturesque cap of unwonted design. Concluding she was some foreigner in national costume, or else a nurse in some peculiar uniform, I was watching her idly, when, to my utter astonishment, I saw her overtake and pass like an unsubstantial mist right through the crippled soldier, who meanwhile remained unconscious of what was happening.

Dumbfounded at what I had seen, I sprang up and, scarcely knowing what I did, rushed up to a policeman who was near, exclaiming: 'Constable - I have seen a ghost!'

'Well, ma'am,' was the stolid reply, 'we often sees odd things hereabouts. What was she like?'

I explained - thankful that the man did not think me a lunatic; but he listened to my description sympathetically. 'Oh, we often sees her,' he said at the conclusion, 'they say she was nurse to Edward VI.'

In 1907 another policeman reported a different haunting. His story was told in Charles Harper's Haunted Houses:

'On this particular night,' he said, 'I went on duty at the east front of the Palace at ten o'clock, and had to remain there until six o'clock next morning. I was quite alone, and was standing close to the main gates, looking towards the Home Park, when suddenly I became conscious of a group of figures moving towards me along what is known as the Ditton Walk. It is a most unusual thing to see anyone in the gardens at that time of night, but I thought it probable that some of the residents in the Palace had been to a party at Ditton and were returning on foot. The party consisted of two gentlemen in evening dress and seven or nine ladies. There were no sounds except what resembled the rustling of dresses. When they reached a point about a dozen yards from me I turned round and opened the gates to let them in. The party, however, altered their course, and headed in the direction of the Flower Pot Gates, to the north of the gardens. At the same time there was a sudden movement amongst the group; they fell into processional order, two deep, with the gentlemen at the head. Then, to my utter amazement, the whole crowd of them vanished; melted, as it seemed to me, into the air. All this happened within nine yards of where I was standing, in the centre of the broad gravel walk in front of the Palace. I rushed to the spot, looked up and down, but could see nothing or hear nothing to explain the mystery.'

Few policemen go on record as having seen a supernatural occurrence (though they are better placed than most to experience one) so that this report seems to have a special authenticity.

Henry VIII's daughter, Queen Elizabeth, died in the old Palace of Richmond at three in the morning of 24 March 1603. For days she had lain motionless on her deathbed, in a deep coma. Yet during this time servants and noblemen swore that they came across her walking vigorously through other rooms and passages in the palace, even as she lay dying upstairs.

Ham House stands just outside the boundaries of Richmond Park. This beautiful Jacobean mansion was haunted by the ghost of the wicked Duchess of Lauderdale. The story is that a little girl, six years old, woke up in the middle of the night to see an old woman scratching at the wall with her fingernails close to the fireplace. When the child sat up in bed the woman turned to look at her, and so horrible was the look on her face that the child screamed and hid beneath the bedclothes. People ran in to the room, and the girl emerged once she had been reassured that the old woman had gone. She told her story and the wall was closely examined at the place where she had seen the crone's fingers scratching. Beneath the plaster was a hollow space in which were hidden papers which proved that Elizabeth, Countess of Dysart, had murdered her husband in that room in order to marry the Duke of Lauderdale, favourite of Charles II and scourge of the Scots.