The White Lady of Sutton House
Sutton House was built in 1535 by courtier and diplomat Sir Ralph Sadler and is a rare surviving Tudor house in east London. Across the centuries it served as a school, clerical…
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2034 articlesThe Woman at the Window of Bruce Castle
Bruce Castle, a former Tottenham manor house now used as a museum, is linked to a legend of Lady Constantia Lucy, said to have leapt from a balcony after cruelty by her husband.…
The Tulip Stairs Ghost Photograph
In 1966 Canadian clergyman Ralph Hardy photographed the spiral Tulip Stairs at the Queen's House and found translucent figures apparently ascending in the developed image. Kodak…
Room 333 and the Ghosts of the Langham
Room 333 is central to the Langham Hotel's ghost folklore, with guests said—especially in October—to see a Victorian gentleman in evening dress who slowly disappears. Other…
Sybil Penn, Hampton Court's Grey Lady
Sybil Penn served as nurse to the future Edward VI and, according to tradition, died of smallpox in 1562 after caring for an ill Elizabeth I at Hampton Court. When her nearby tomb…
The Tower's Phantom Bear
In January 1816 a sentry near the Tower's Jewel House supposedly saw a huge bear, charged with his bayonet and found the weapon pass through the figure; a later version adds that…
The Bleeding Heart of Holborn
The name Bleeding Heart Yard is documented on old maps, but its origin generated several incompatible legends. The most Gothic claims that Lady Elizabeth Hatton danced with the…
Voices in the Old Operating Theatre
The Old Operating Theatre occupies a church attic above the former women's ward of St Thomas' Hospital. Before anaesthesia and antisepsis, surgeons worked quickly, students…
John Dee's Black Mirror
The obsidian mirror associated with John Dee was made in Aztec Mexico and reached Europe after the Spanish conquest. In Elizabethan England Dee and his mediums used such objects…
John Dee's Mortlake House and the Language of Angels
From the 1580s John Dee's Mortlake home hosted “spiritual conferences” in which the medium Edward Kelley gazed into a crystal or stone while Dee carefully recorded angelic…
The Witch of Edmonton
Elizabeth Sawyer of Edmonton was a poor older woman accused by neighbours of cursing, witchcraft and causing deaths among people and animals. Tried at the Old Bailey in 1621, she…
Joan Peterson and London's Witch Hunt
Joan Peterson, branded the “Witch of Wapping,” earned money as a healer and fortune-teller before becoming the centre of a sensational 1652 case. She was accused of using magic to…
