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Haunted Bishop's Stortford

The History Press

WINDHILL, HIGH STREET AND THE POLICE STATION

A regular place for fairs and bonfire parties, 'Wyndhell' is first noted in chronicles dating from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The houses that now line this grand and attractive road are mostly nineteenth century.

St Mary's Catholic School is situated on a sharp bend halfway down Windhill. The old building is allegedly haunted by the Grey Lady, believed to be a nun who threw herself off the top of the building after she 'disgraced' herself.

A little further down towards the town on Windhill you will find the Royal British Legion Club. Here employees have reported an impression of a phantom flitting past them, but when they turn in that direction, there is no one to be seen, while a disembodied male voice has said 'Hello' to those working in the building when it is closed to members. The shade of a little boy has also been seen at the top of the cellar stairs. If you walk towards him, he vanishes.

Others have reported experiencing the strong impression of a hostile man who resents particular staff members and makes them feel unwelcome in the building. One manager who lived on the floor above the bar once heard footsteps and banging doors coming from the bar area. Another night she and her sister were alone in the bar when they heard someone running around in the flat upstairs.

Further down Windhill the road continues into High Street. At the Boar's Head (c.1420), a huge wooden beam that spans the fireplace is said to come from St Michel's church, directly opposite, when all articles associated with the Catholic faith were removed from churches in the reign of Elizabeth I.

In Haunted Hertfordshire: A Ghostly Gazetteer, Ruth Stratton and Nick Connell indicate that the pub has been exorcised three times in the past due to its many malevolent entities. The Grey Lady, who once floated through a bar full of people, is said to have answered questions during one Ouija board session. She said that her name was Sarah, and that she had been raped and murdered by the squire's son on Saturday, 23 December, centuries ago. The date of the séance was Saturday, 23 December – in the 1970s! She implored the sitters to pray for her so that she could be at rest. However, her spirit still wanders the town.

Poltergeist activity has been experienced here, and a former barmaid told me that the waste bins at the rear of the pub would shake and rattle of their own volition. Chairs would be dragged across the floor by unseen hands, and weird sounds would emanate from within the building. Optics over the bar have been known to shake like crazy, bottles have flown through the air, and loud bangs are heard near a heavy wooden door, but there is no one around to cause such disturbances. In addition, a previous landlord's dog refused to go down into the cellar area, and a local newspaper reported that a builder residing at the inn claimed to have seen a grey misty vaporous image at the end of his bed.

Authors Ruth Stratton and David Lee give talks on the 'Ghosts of Bishop's Stortford' at the Rhodes Centre each year on a date near Halloween. They inform the audience that at one séance the sitters claimed there were three ghosts. One, with a patch over his eye, was known as 'Captain'. Could this be Captain Winter, the former owner of Windhill House? Or could he be one of Cromwell's yeomanry, who stayed at the Boar's Head and St Michael's church? The other two ghosts were a woman who sits in the bar and appears to be upset, and a man who haunts the cellar, possibly a previous employee of the inn.

Opposite the Boar's Head is St Michael's church. The building was used as a barracks by Cromwell's men and after they departed the church had to be fumigated! Money was paid for 'sweeting the benches where the soldiers had sat'.

At the time of writing two researchers claim that King Harold II, killed at the Battle of Hastings, is buried under the floor of St Michael's church, although historians say he is buried at Waltham Abbey. They believe that his remains were brought to Stortford by his mistress, Edith the Fair, who lived on Windhill. There are historical records dating back to Tudor times that indicate Edith is buried at the church, and research may take place in the future to determine these claims.

It is said that a large mysterious figure swathed in black lurches amongst the gravestones in St Michael's churchyard at night. Although the last reported sighting was in 1983, you may still witness this phenomenon as time is nothing to a ghost, and there is no telling when it may suddenly reappear.

A woman reported seeing a female ghost wearing a long dress in St Michael's churchyard in the early hours of one morning who suddenly vanished when observed.

At the rear of the Old Monastery and St Joseph's Catholic church, once known as Windhill House and now business offices, there are large grounds. Captain Winter, the owner of Windhill House, agreed around 1800, just before the Napoleonic Wars, to the yeomanry camping here. Accidentally shot by one of his own men, it is said that his ghost haunts the area, together with a phantom army in full regalia, who silently assemble before their endless march.

Back across the road on the corner of Basbow Lane, situated between the Boar's Head and The George, is an ancient half-timbered building, fourteenth century in parts, and formerly occupied by gentlemen's outfitters Tissiman & Sons, which is unfortunately closed at present after trading for around 300 years. The Grey Lady, or another spirit thought to be a nun, has been seen and felt on numerous occasions by a variety of people here. Mr Tissiman himself saw her many times whilst in the building late at night. There was also the unexplainable smell of woodsmoke, although no fires were in use.

Some time ago part of the building was a cafe. An old lady told me that years ago, when Tissimans had a ladies section, her daughter was employed as a charge hand making alterations to women's clothes. One day she had a backache and felt very unwell. She suddenly felt a hot hand on her back and the pain went away. Other workers in the room were nowhere near her. She was sure it was a spirit that had touched her. They would often smell cooking, and when they smelled this, the Grey Lady would somehow make her presence felt. The cafe was not in existence then. Members of a family who owned the cafe all heard the apparition but did not mention it to one another until after they had moved out. They heard unexplained noises at night, and the latch on the kitchen door being opened together with the sound of footsteps going into the kitchen, but on inspection, as usual, the place was empty.

Furthermore, in recent times when the premises was owned by Tissimans, there was one pair of shoes to which the entity had taken a disliking. When staff arrived for work in the morning the shoes were often missing. They were found in various hiding places on numerous occasions.

The following accounts of paranormal activity at the police station, situated on the corner of High Street and Basbow Lane, were told to me by a retired police officer who was stationed at Bishop's Stortford for twenty-eight years.

Originally the police station was in Church Street, and when the building was being renovated a priceless set of police records were found dating back to 1888 (the year of the Whitechapel murders). It is one of the most comprehensive and detailed records in the county. It shows the daily life of a policeman in the vicinity, recording everything from stray cows to a lost hatbox that should be returned to Buckingham Palace.

The new police station and magistrates' court was opened in Basbow Lane in 1940, and it is here that supernatural activity has been reported.

In the hot summer of 1976 two officers were sitting in the station next to the cell blocks. The time was around 3 a.m. and they were the only officers on duty. At the start of their nightshift they had been informed by the late shift that there were no prisoners. Due to the high temperatures, the night was very sticky, with no wind or draughts whatsoever. Suddenly they both heard the almighty bang of a door being slammed in the male cell area. They rushed into the cell corridor – the sergeant grabbing the male cell keys as they went. On arrival they found cell door no. 2 vibrating where it had been slammed. A search of the cell and surrounding area produced nothing.

A few weeks later there were three officers on the nightshift. One new constable was manning the front office while the other two went to an alarm in Water Lane. Whilst they were there, the new officer radioed them to return immediately as he thought he had intruders at the station. The officer had gone into the toilets when he heard a loud crashing and banging noise from the courtroom above him. He immediately went up to the courtroom where, through the round windows of the court doors, in the half-light, he saw the tables and chairs had been overturned. The doors themselves were locked. He then checked the rear door to the court, which was also locked. The two other policemen had returned by this time and made a thorough search of the station, to find nothing untoward.

Over the years other police officers confirmed that locked doors regularly opened and closed in the corridors surrounding the courtrooms. This information was always passed on the QT, for fear of ridicule.

Around this same time a female police constable spent her last few months before going on maternity leave manning the front desk. During the early hours of the morning she would hear footsteps coming down the corridor from the bar/snooker room area yet no one appeared. She thought it might be male officers playing around, and she sometimes hid behind doors to try to catch them out. However, this was never the case and the footsteps would disappear as they reached the front office.

Two policemen were playing snooker during their nightshift break when they became aware of the heavy tread of footfall coming down the back stairs towards where they were. They stopped playing to see who was there, but as before the sound petered out and no one entered the room.

In the late '90s, major work was carried out in the police station. The main purpose was to make entire use of the old courts and offices. This included new changing rooms, toilets, offices, and a TV/rest room. Towards the end of this refurbishment, one night a sergeant and constable arrived back in the station yard and noticed lights were on in both the ladies' and the men's toilets. They had not been on earlier and no access could be obtained as the doors were locked. As it was the weekend, the workmen were not spoken to until Monday morning. However, on being told about the lights the labourers showed the police bare light wires in both lavatories, which had not yet been connected to the power.

About the same time, work was underway to alter the property cupboards in the basement. One afternoon a workman asked if the station was haunted. He said that whilst working downstairs some of his tools had been moved and on a number of occasions he felt someone was standing behind him.

The local paper printed an article on these ghostly happenings, which was picked up by a Sunday tabloid and the station was referred to as the most haunted police station in England.

Bishop's Stortford Police Station was erected on the site of slum property. Perhaps the manifestations are the residue of sufferings experienced by the inhabitants of the unwholesome area – poverty, ill health, unsanitary and verminous conditions leading to feelings of frustration and despair, resulting in unquiet spirits in the new police building.

NORTH STREET

THE George Hotel on the corner of High Street and North Street is Bishop's Stortford's oldest inn and the third oldest in Hertfordshire, dating back further than 1417. Today the Grade II listed building has partly succumbed to the recession, the ground floor having been taken over by Prezzo, the Italian restaurant chain. The side and rear of the building is still a hotel. Originally a fifteenth-century coaching inn where travellers en route from London to Cambridge could change horses or stay, a daily coach ran from here to The Bull in Aldgate, London. Charles I dined here on his way to the Newmarket Races, and Charles II also frequented The George on his way from London to Suffolk. In Victorian times, the exterior of the building was extensively modernised, incorporating five cottages that were heightened to three stories with four gables.

Room 27 at the George Hotel is rumoured to be haunted. It has a small cupboard set into the wall with an old oak door, which has not been opened for decades. The handle is 200 years old, and because the building is Grade II listed, the previous publican was wary of forcing it. So no one knows what lies behind it. Some people believe it opens up on to a balcony. Legend has it that a woman was murdered there – that the balcony hid a waiting thief and when she stepped on to it he fatally stabbed her.

The ubiquitous Grey Lady in room 27 manifests as a swirling grey mist. The temperature of the room becomes icy cold and the atmosphere hostile; guests feel as if they are being watched. On one occasion she materialised fully, appearing bending over the bed with her arms raised, as if in despair. She vanished when the bed's occupant (understandably) screamed.

An army officer occupying the room was found the next morning sleeping in his vehicle in the car park, such was the oppressive atmosphere of the room.

Apparently Americans like booking into room 27, though it is not unusual for visitors to vacate the room in the middle of the night. Guests are not told that the room is haunted when they book in, only when they leave.

In the cellar beer taps, water taps and lights turn themselves on and off, often on busy nights. This has been attributed to the Grey Lady, although a lady who worked at the George Hotel for thirty years told me that the ghost of a man haunts the cellar. Before Prezzo took over, when the front of the building was a public house, the cellar man used to talk to this ghost and tell him not to fiddle with the beer taps. A man came to service the ice maker machine, which was situated in the cellar with the freezers. He opened the door and saw the spectre. Not realising he had seen a ghost, he told a member of staff that someone had been locked in the room. Staff told him there was no one there. Part of the cellar now houses Prezzo's toilets, and a few people have reported the gloomy, menacing atmosphere down there.

In 1998, during refurbishment of thirty rooms at The George, plumbers found two more rooms that staff did not know existed. These are now bathrooms.

A cage where felons were incarcerated awaiting trial stood outside The George in 1630 before being moved to a site opposite the White Horse, now Pizza Express, where it remained until the early nineteenth century. The only lavatorial equipment was a bucket.

The Oxfam shop next to The George is another place where unearthly incidents purportedly take place. The ladies in the shop often experience strange goings-on in the basement, such as stock being moved and items thrown around. Disembodied footsteps are heard in empty rooms. A dark menacing figure has been seen loitering on the stairs. One lady volunteer at Oxfam described how one day when working alone she felt a distinct tap on her shoulder, yet on turning round there was, of course, no one there.

At NatWest Bank there are a series of underground passageways leading to around twelve small recessed square rooms, with no doors or gates, on two levels. On the upper level there are rusty metal pens, with hooks and holes through the brickwork. These tunnels were longer but have now been bricked up. I spoke to a veteran bank employee at the branch about the tunnels, and she informed me that the underground area is locked and no one goes down there. So if there is any ghostly activity, the spirits can wander around in secrecy and solitude to their hearts' content.

A lady who sold handbags in the old Pearsons store at Nos 15/17 North Street told me that the Grey Lady haunted the underground stockroom, where a grey misty figure had been encountered. The sales assistant was not afraid, however, as she felt that the spirit was benign. This is the first time that I have heard of the Grey Lady having a genial presence. Perhaps it was another female spirit? At the time of writing Pearsons has closed. Let's hope the new proprietors do not awaken old spirits during the refurbishment.

The aptly named clothing shop Spirit reputedly has a poltergeist. Items fly off shelves, and stones are thrown at members of staff. Where the stones themselves come from is unknown. Staff say they have a feeling of being watched, especially in the basement.

One day a female employee thought the manager was standing behind her, but on turning around to speak to him there was no one there; he was actually in another part of the shop.

On another morning workers arrived to find a handbag in the middle of the floor in the basement. There was no way it could have fallen as the bags were not hung on a rail, and were well tucked into a shelf. Fearing intruders, they played back the CCTV, and at about 10 p.m. the previous night it clearly showed the bag levitate from the shelf and land on the floor. Apparently the owner of the business is a levelheaded man but that really freaked him out. The manager told me that when he is locking up for the night, and turning the lights off in the basement, it feels eerie and is always cold.

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Excerpted from Haunted Bishop's Stortford by Jenni Kemp. Copyright © 2015 Jenni Kemp. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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