With the approach to Halloween very much upon us, and the nights growing darker and colder, it is the time of year when we pull closer to the fireside, or, to be more precise, turn the heating up high, and read or tell ghost stories.
Here at Discovery Tours, although we primarily offer the ever-popular Jack the Ripper Tour, we also offer a weekly ghost walk that departs from Exit three of Bank Underground Station on Saturday nights.
GHOST STORIES ON YOUTUBE
But we also offer a selection of ghost stories on our YouTube channel, and today, I thought I’d get you into the mood for the upcoming Halloween spook fest with a selection of videos from said channel.
THE PLAISTOW GHOST
The story of the Plaistow ghost dates from, 1889, the year after the Jack the Ripper murders, and, is an intriguing example of what can happen – or, perhaps, what could happen – when people, desperate for some evening entertainment, got a little carried away when a rumour got abroad that a ghost was being seen in the East London Cemetery.
THE HAMMERSMITH GHOST
The second story is a case that dates from earlier in the 19th century.
In November and December 1803, people who were dwelling in the parish of Hammersmith, to the west of London, began talking about encounters with a ghostly figure that was haunting the lonely byways of the district by night.
TRAGIC CONSEQUENCES
Things got so bad that a reward was offered to anyone who would venture out and lay the terrifying apparition once and for all.
This encouraged gangs of young men to patrol the lonely lanes of Hammersmith by night.
One night, twenty-nine-year-old Francis Smith, an Excise Officer, headed for Black Lion Lane in Hammersmith armed with a fowling piece and an avowed intent to end the ghosts’ reign of terror once and for all.
Unfortunately, he encountered twenty-two-year-old Thomas Milwood, whom he mistook for the ghost, and whom he shot dead.
THE FULL STORY
In our video, we tell the story of the Hammersmith hauntings, look at the tragic death of Thomas Milwood, and then follow the re-emergence of the Hammersmith Ghost in the 1820s and again in the 1820’s