Ghosts on the Underground:
London's most haunted stations.
London, the nineteenth century.
The most populous city on the planet.
A hive of industry and progress
but with all the overcrowding and poverty
that blights this rapid growth.
The over-stretched railways couldn't meet the
huge demand of moving so many people around
a dense city.
The monumental solution was an industrial and
cultural phenomenon which is familiar
to all of us today:
The London Underground.
Of course, to scratch below the surface of London
is to uncover a deep and often dark history.
What ghosts were disturbed in the building of this
labyrinth of railway tunnels that cut through
the countless hidden graves?
What haunts the increasingly ancient and forgotten
places that have been witness to
so much life and its loss?
Further, London is today a metropolis seething with
people where more recent events and tragedies related
to those who built and used the lines seem to have left a
mysterious and indelibly eerie mark.
We take a look in this documentary.
Ghosts on the Underground:
London's most haunted stations.
Oval and Stockwell Stations
Recounting a story from 1984, an underground
trainee manager described an occasion he had to
'walk the line' between Oval and Stockwell stations -
in order to understand maintenance procedures.
Having travelled halfway he came upon an elderly man
in an opening know as 'South Island Place'.
The man was working and, strangely, appeared to be
holding an old miners' lamp as he did so.
The trainee spoke to the man briefly and commented
that he thought such lamps had been made obsolete
many years ago,
only for the man to comment that he preferred them.
The trainee continued his walk to Stockwell,
reported to the line controller and, in doing so,
mentioned his brief meeting with a maintenance worker
at South Island Place.
He was shocked to be told that no line workers
were supposed to be there that night
and was asked to return to South Island Place
where he would meet the line controller so that
they could both re-check if the man was there -
for safety reasons.
Of course, as you might expect, there was no such man,
despite the trainee being adamant he had seen him.
The trainee was later asked if he had heard the
ghost stories surrounding South Island Place.
He learned that in the 1950s a maintenance man
working on a noisy compressor there had been
hit by an approaching train
that he had been unable to hear.
It follows that the ghost of the worker
haunts that location.
But, do you believe it is possible that the trainee could
have had such a conversation?
Nevertheless, reports of ghosts connected with
maintenance workers who lost their lives
are not uncommon.
Embankment Station
Within a maintenance tunnel names Page's Walk
staff have recounted an eerie cold feeling,
coldness, lights flickering and strange noises.
Doors slam open and shut, but perhaps this is a factor
of cold drafts blowing along the tunnel that emanate
from the ebb and flow of trains at these depths;
and the coldness may merely add to
the sense that one is not alone.
Whatever the truth, this is not a place to be left alone
for you would be constantly looking over your shoulder
to see if someone or something
really does come through the doors.
King's Cross Station
On 18 November 1987 the station was the scene of a
devastating fire where thirty-one people lost their lives.
The cause was attributed to a lit match falling into
and setting fire to an escalator machine room.
Combined with the then unknown fire phenomenon
of the trench effect -
which caused the fire to explode into the station.
As a result wooden steps on escalators were
replaced with metal ones.
In the entrance tunnel, the apparition of a
distressed woman crying has been seen.
She is clothed in modern jeans.
As such, the most likely event to have caused such a
spirit to manifest, would have been
the fire in the underground station in 1987.
Bank Station
Bank, one of the oldest and busiest stations on the
underground network opened in 1884.
In 1811 Philip Whitehead, a young clerk in the
cashier's office at the Bank of England
was causing concern for the bank's directors
due to his care free manner.
They feared his debts would reflect badly on the bank,
but wanted to help install a
sense of responsibility with money.
Whitehead, offended, gave up his job and gambled
heavily on the Stock Exchange -
running up huge debts.
He tried to clear himself by presenting a
forged bill at the bank.
Arrested and convicted, he was subsequently executed
at Newgate Prison.
His sister Sarah was only a young girl at the time,
so ex-work colleagues, friends and family sheltered her
from what had happened to her beloved older brother.
One day an indiscreet clerk let slip
what had actually happened,
and when she discovered the whole truth,
the poor girl went out of her mind.
Every day for the next twenty-five years
Sarah dressed from head to foot in black,
hooded with a cape and shawl asking at the bank;
'Is my brother here today?'
She would chat for a while then, as she was leaving, say
'Give my love to him when he returns,
I will call tomorrow'.
Known variously as 'The Black Nun' and 'The Bank Nun',
she was most well-known as
'The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street'.
A nickname which passed to
the Bank itself after she passed away.
She was later buried in the old churchyard
that later became the Bank's garden,
and her ghost has been seen
on many occasions in the past.
On 11 January 1941 during the Second World War
blitz bombing, 111 people lost their lives when a
German bomb hit the booking hall.
With the blast travelling down the stairs and
escalators to the platforms.
The huge crater, thirty-seven by thirty metres
causing the station itself to close for two months.
There is also a story that describes a worker
closing down lifts at the end of the night.
He had checked an old wooden-door lift
that hadn't been used that day,
only to walk away and hear knocking
emanating from it.
He was certain it wasn't the wind rattling the doors
and so kept walking.
After a time there was a sudden slam of the doors
and, if it was a ghost,
it seems it didn't appreciate being ignored.
It may be telling that one of the many entrances to the
station used to house a church crypt.
From where the bodies were removed in 1900
to provide a ticket hall.
Becontree Tube Station
This station is said to be haunted by a faceless woman
with long blonde hair
that several staff members have sighted.
The sounds of doors rattling unexpectedly
that cannot easily be attributed to wind
or trains passing have also been reported.
It is thought that she could be the ghost of a lady
who lost her life in a rail crash at the station
in 1958, when a train missed a signal and collided
into another with the loss of ten lives.
Aldwych Station
Strand Station was built on the site
of the Royal Strand Theatre.
which had closed on 13 May 1905
and been demolished.
It was later named Aldwych following
the renaming of other stations.
Wartime efficiency measures led to the branch
being closed temporarily in 1940,
shortly after the start of The Blitz,
and it was partly fitted out as an air raid shelter.
The branch reopened on 1 July 1946, but use was low,
being a one stop branch from the main Piccadilly Line.
The branch and station finally closed in 1994.
Having been built on the site of the Strand Theatre,
the tracks are said to be haunted
by the ghost of an actress.
Perhaps this is just wishful thinking
given the former use of the site.
What do you think?
Covent Garden Station
Covent Garden Station is located in the heart of
London's West End close to Leicester Square.
It is said that the ghost of actor
William Terriss haunts the station.
He was an English actor who died in 1897 at the hands
of a mentally ill man carrying a knife
at the stage door of the Adelphi Theatre
where he was appearing.
This man, Richard Archer Prince, was sentenced to
Broadmoor Asylum, a penalty considered mild
at the time by the theatrical community.
Perhaps this sense of injustice is why the ghost
of William Terriss continued to haunt the
theatre and The Underground.
The last reported sighting of William Terriss
was in 1972.
Bethnal Green Station
Bethnal Green Station was requisitioned in 1940
at the onset of the first German Blitz bombing.
Heavy air raids began in October and
thousands of people took shelter there,
often remaining overnight.
However, usage of the shelter dwindled in 1941
as the Luftwaffe was redirected away from London
and against the Soviet Union.
Although retaliation raids occurred.
This was the case on 3 March 1943
after British media reported a heavy RAF raid on Berlin
on the night of 1 March.
The air raid civil defence siren sounded at 8:17pm,
triggering a heavy but orderly flow of people down the
blacked out staircase from the street.
A middle-aged woman and a child fell over
three steps up from the base,
and others fell around her.
Tangled in an immovable mass
which grew as they struggled to nearly
three hundred people.
Some managed to get free, but
one hundred and seventy-three, most of them
women and children were crushed and asphyxiated.
Some sixty others were taken to hospital.
News of the disaster was withheld for thirty-six hours
and reporting of what had happended was censored,
giving rise to allegations of a cover-up.
The story which was reported instead was that there
had been a direct hit by a German bomb.
It was not until fifty years after the disaster that
a discreet commemorative plaque
was erected at the site.
The crush at Bethnal Green is thought to have been
the largest single loss of civilian life in the UK
in World War II, and the largest loss of life in a single
incident on the London Underground network.
There have been various reports of ghosts
following this tragic incident.
Particularly when the station is quiet,
which must add to its eeriness.
These hauntings have been experienced as the sound
of women and children screaming.
Would you be prepared to wander the platforms
late at night to be scared by these bodiless screams?
Greenwich Foot Tunnel
The Greenwich Foot Tunnel is a public highway
that crosses for three hundred and seventy metres
beneath the River Thames in East London.
Linking Greenwich on the South Bank with
the Isle of Dogs on the north.
The tunnel opened in 1902 and replaced an unreliable
ferry service for passengers crossing the Thames
to reach the dockyards for work.
It was damaged substantially during the
Second World War, but was repaired and
reopened once more to the public.
Due to its depth beneath the river
it is a cold place throughout the year,
and perhaps this is a fitting location for the
chilling experiences that have been witnessed here.
For it is sometimes told be people who
have crossed through the tunnel,
that they have felt an eerie presence
that has followed them from one side to the other.
Do you think this could merely be the
echoes reverberating from a creepy tunnel?
Or do you believe that there could
really be a presence here?
Perhaps someone who lost their life in the building
of the tunnel, or its bombing
during the Second World War?
The Kennington Loop
The Kennington Loop is part of a track connected
to the Northern Line in South London.
Constructed in 1890, it allows branch line trains heading
south to turn around in the tunnel and return on the
opposite platfrom to head north.
It is a very noisy trip through the Loop,
one which passengers are not allowed to make
and even drivers find quite disconcerting.
Drivers sometimes have to wait in the tunnel,
and have heard sounds of people walking along
through the carriages, and doors slamming shut.
Perhaps this is merely people inadvertently
caught in the train as it makes its journey
through the loop.
Or maybe its something more sinister,
for it is said that the noises are those made by a
passenger who lost his life being dragged into the
tunnel when trying to pass between carriages
on a moving train.
What do you think?
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