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admin sinfulldude · Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 10:42 am Post subject: Bristol Ghosts

(was written and posted by madmart former forum's ADMIN )

Bristol Ghosts

Headless coachmen, Nazi airmen, medieval soldiers - we've got the lot.

Ghosts abound in and around Bristol, as befits an area inhabited for thousands of years.

Some are little more than a chill at the back of the neck - others are rather more solid.

Whether they really exist or are a figment of drink, tiredness, superstition or simple imagination is up to you to decide.

Skid Marks The Spot
A38, Barrow Gurney Reservoir, near Bristol.

The spirit of a departed life has almost caused others to lose theirs when it suddenly walks out in front of them on the A38 south west of Bristol.

Many people have reported exactly the same experience, which is typified by the first witness.

This young man was driving along the road when all of a sudden a lady in a white coat appeared to be crossing the road just in front of him.

He slammed on his brakes and skidded across the road, luckily managing to keep control of the car.

When he came to a halt he realised that there was no-one there, he went to investigate that bit of the road and found that there were lots of skid marks in exactly the same spot.

Indeed several other people have since come forward to say that they encountered the same lady on that stretch of the road.

Duchess of Beaufort
Vassals Park, Fishponds, Bristol

This spirit has been seen by a lot of people over the years as they've gone through the park.

Two teenagers were halfway across the footbridge in the park that leads over the River Frome when they saw the hooded figure dressed in a cloak with its arms outstretched.

They couldn't make out a face or feet and the figure gave the impression that it was floating.

After moving a little way onto the bridge the spirit turned around and vanished into the wall just past the end of the bridge.

Other teenagers from the same youth club went to revisit the spot for the next few nights and saw an inexplicable white light floating near the wall where the figure had disappeared.

A lady went with others to check out the spot and she reported hearing monks chanting.

Achtung!
The ghost of a Luftwaffe officer has been seen at Hengrove Park, the former site of Whitchurch airport. Could be he's trying to get a ticket to the multi-screen cinema.

The Girl on the Roof
Sally was a serving girl on a Hanham farm during the Civil War and was killed by Cromwell's troops for refusing to tell them where some Royalists were hiding.

The story goes that she tried to escape through a trap door on to the barn roof because that's where she has been hanging out ever since.

Evil Dwarf Highwayman
Jenkins Protheroe was a dwarf highwayman who begged for money and then held up and robbed passers-by who didn't give enough.

Jenkins was hanged in 1783 at the top of Pembroke Road. He still haunts the area.

The Union Activist
This was a ghostly figure who used to appear in the Spillers animal feed mill at Avonmouth - but only to Transport and General Workers Union members.

The general theory was that he was trying to join the union, although frightening the brothers seemed an odd way of going about it.

"We won't be beaten by a ghost" said their shop steward stoutly. And he added: "As far as I know, it's not a card carrying member."

Everybody out!

The Starving Monk
If the chap who haunts Oldbury Court is who we think he is, it's no wonder he's still wandering around.

Back in the days when there was a stately home on the estate, the story goes that a Catholic monk or priest was secretly celebrating Mass at a time when it was illegal.

When visitors arrived, he was hidden in a priest hole or secret passage and forgotten.

This does sound slightly dubious - would you forget storing a priest in your walls? But he is supposed to have starved to death.

The last recorded sighting was in the '70s when some teenagers saw a cowled figure in a cloak which seemed to float before vanishing into a wall.

The Roundhead
We haven't heard from the local Roundhead ghost recently but he was once a regular in the woods at Stapleton.

This was the area where Cromwell mustered his New Model Army before the attack on Prince Rupert in Bristol.

For some reason, the ghost walks up to walkers as if to speak to them and then walks straight through them. It would be interesting to know if those who saw him were all staunch royalists and were simply being snubbed.

The St George ghost
Air Balloon Road, St George, Bristol

In 1998 Victoria and Steven Cross asked the Bristol Evening Post for help in tracing the ghosts that had haunted her home in St George, Bristol.

Victoria, aged 25, said: "Old coins from the 1930s turned up in the house for no reason we could understand, and a friend said she saw a vision of a man in one of the upstairs rooms.

"We had builders in and they could hear footsteps when they were alone in a room.
"We had a puppy that used to get very distressed at night in certain rooms.

There was definitely something strange going on."
The couple, who have a one-year-old son called Caleb, quickly called in a medium who said there were four ghosts in the Victorian house.

One was a boy called Tom, another was a woman in a black dress with a high collar. The third was a teenager called Peter who died in the house, and the fourth was a man called David.

Victoria: "We haven't had any more trouble since the medium came but I would like an explanation of where the ghosts came from. I'm sure there must be a good reason because I've heard other people in the area say they've had similar hauntings since."

Plenty of witnesses
Over Court - Almondsbury

The problem with most ghost stories is that the spirits usually appear to just one person at a time. So it is always refreshing to hear about something that was seen by many people at once.

This is what happened when a hapless group of carol singers went to the Elizabethan manor called Over Court in 1937.

On their way back through the entrance arch the group of singers saw a bright white figure floating above the ground and radiating a bluish glow.

It was in full view for about half a minute and so the group could make out its tall pointed head-dress before the figure moved away in a zig-zag manner and then disappeared.

Who was this mystery figure? Well, it was supposedly the wife of an owner of Over Court who had had an affair with a local man. Upon finding out about her infidelity the husband shot her, but she was able to scramble away from the house and eventually drowned in the fish pond.

Screams of a murdered king
Edward II remains famous for one thing above all others - the grisly manner of his death.

The king, son of Edward I , proved to be something of a disappointment to his father, who conquered Wales for the English and was given a bloody nose by the Scots.

Edward II was a weak king who handed a good deal of his power over to the English noblemen - but even that didn't help him in the end.

He was horribly tortured at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire but only died when a red-hot poker was thrust up his rectum.

It was reported at the time that his screams could be heard as far away as the village of Berkeley and sometimes his screams can still be heard.

The castle - still owned by the same family as it was then - is open to the public and a part of it is preserved in the style of the day as Edward's cell, although it can't be proved that this room is where he met his death.

But Edward II has been made subject of a play - which has also been performed in the Great Hall at Berkeley Castle.

Fire Station Visitor
Fire Brigade Headquarters, Temple Back, Bristol

The Fire Brigade HQ in Temple Back
In 1975 the newly-built headquarters for the fire brigade was visited by a ghost on at least nine occasions.

It would walk through closed doors, lower the temperature of the central heating and then vanish all of a sudden.

A cook called Mrs Iris Rhodes saw it three times and once even chased it down the stairs with a glass of water thinking it was a fireman playing a prank.

She described the ghoul as between thirty and thirty six, with ruddy cheeks and wearing a large mackintosh - but there could be another explanation..

The Temple area of Bristol was once owned by the Knight Templars, an order of warrior monks suppressed in 1308 for heresy - in reality because they had become too powerful for medieval kings and popes to control.

While Mrs Rhodes believed it was wearing a mac, firemen who saw him reckoned it was actually medieval dress. The theory is it was one of the knights keeping an eye on development on the Templars' estate.

A Wizened Old Frightener
Various Bristol newspapers picked up on the story of a haunting in 1846 at the house adjoining All Saints Church in the city.

The ghost of a wizened old man terrified the tenants at the time, Mr and Mrs Jones.

Mrs Jones felt an urge to jump out of the window while Mr Jones was gripped with fear because of a flickering light that appeared on one of the internal walls.

Such was his trembling, so the story goes, that his body doubled up like a ball.

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Levibrawn · Joined: 03 Nov 2006 Posts: 23 Location: Usa;- NY

North west Bristol Ghosts

The Ghosts of Clack Mill
Many years later the area was known for its sheep and the Saye Mills (from which the district of Sea Mills is named) and the haunted part of the river bank (behind Bell Barn Road) became the site of the Clack Mill

(demolished 1937) one of several mills producing Saye cloth, a rough serge.

The Clack Mill boasted two ghosts. The first was a man who hanged himself behind the mill and the second was an old lady in black who appeared one night at the bedside of a boy living at the mill.

When unable to persuade him to follow her she disappeared through the wall where a door had once been.

The White Horse
A wooded uninhabitated region lay between Stoke Bishop and Shirehampton where the River Trym flowed from Henbury through Combe Dingle to the Avon.

Flooding was frequent and when a travelling showman allowed his horse to graze on the river bank it became stuck in the mud.

The place was so remote that no help was available and the poor beast died of exposure and starvation.

When mist was hanging over the valley the ghost of a white horse was said to appear.

Shenkins Ghost
This story of imported pigs being driven across the Downs would seem to date from Georgian times, as the footpad Shenkin Protheroe was hung in 1783 at Gallows Acre Lane (now Pembroke Road) for killing Evan Daniel, a pig drover, although the murder site is not recorded.

Shenkin was a deformed dwarf with very long arms. He was both a grotesque and a pitiful sight.

Clifton Down was his territory and it was here that he accosted lone travellers. He begged for money and robbed his victims if they were unsympathetic.

He was the last man to be hanged at Gallows Acre and after his death his body was left to rot away, as was the custom, hanging in an iron cage as a warning to other criminals.

The lane leading to Gallows Acre (otherwise Clifton Down) Gate became a no go area as people claimed Shenkin's ghost climbed down after dark to roam the Downs.

Parrys Ghost
Stoke Bishop and Combe Dingle seems to have been especially haunted in Victorian times.

Parry's Lane is named from a well once standing near the top of a hill approaching the Downs.

The ghost of a man named Parry was said to sit beside the well, where he cut his throat.

He also haunted Parry's Lane, where, as a suicide, he had been buried at the crossroads near Cross Elm Cottage.

The name Parry's Well alternated with Paddy's Well, for Irish drovers were said to water pigs there.