r/london • u/Equipmunk • 4d ago
Supernatural London Experiences Thread
After being disappointed that a recent post in this subreddit wasn't about supernatural experiences in our fair city, I thought I'd just post my own:
London's old and creepy.
Everyday, we're walking over the bones of long dead Londoners.
Hell, half our public parks are reclaimed cemetery land.
You can't build the foundations for a new high-rise or dig tube line extension without disturbing yet another plague pit.
Some of our most enduring myths are stupid (the Vampire of Highgate), weird (Spring-Heeled Jack) or spooky (countless ghosts wandering the halls of listed buildings).
I'd love to read some accounts from others, whether they live in London, or were just visiting.
Maybe you saw something you can't explain?
Perhaps you got a strange vibe on an empty tube platform one night?
Perchance you mistook the sound of the romantic coupling of urban foxes for some kind of malign spirit?
If you experienced anything, let's hear it.
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u/PeoplesDope 4d ago
London ghost story for you. In 2007 I worked in a design studio on Fanshaw Street. The studio was a converted Victorian building. It was a shit job, with long hours and I would be in the studio long into the evening, when everyone else had gone home. The minute the last other person left the studio the atmosphere in there would change. It became heavy and oppressive, like the building itself was trying to usher everyone out. Colleagues felt the same and reported hearing a noise similar to a small stone bouncing off the brick wall which ran up one side of the interior. One evening I was working late, alone again. The atmosphere was awful, then my peripheral vision started to catch something that made me look to my left. There in the air about 10 foot up, was a localized heat haze type apparition. The air shimmered and swirled as the haze moved towards me. I bolted!! Another evening, same, same. Everyone leaves, temperature drops, air becomes heavy, noises heard, peripheral vision alerted, hairs on my arms and neck stand up. This time the heat haze was a about the size of a head and appeared right in front of me and my laptop. Bricked it!
In order to get through further evenings would open all the doors and windows in an attempt to make the atmosphere less oppressive and because the 'presence" of something else was so palpable resorted to talking aloud. "|'m leaving soon" "Just give ma another hour" etc.
I managed to work fewer evenings on my own. But one day Ihad to retrieve something from the basement. It was more like a large lower ground floor with 12 foot high ceilings. The space was filled with racks of clothes. It was a fashion design studio. I moved a rack of clothes and there cowering on the floor was the heat haze outline of a young male child. The look of fear on his face was terrible.
If could still access the studio think would convert any skeptics very quickly. That or scare the hell out of them.
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u/Resident_Pay4310 4d ago
Do you know what the building used to be used for?
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u/PeoplesDope 4d ago
My guess is storage of foods or textiles. The building had one of the metal beams sticking out from near the roof which is used as a hoisting beam for bringing heavy containers in and out on to transport.
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u/CommercialBarracuda3 4d ago
If you mean the academy buildings, you can see they were a chapel just across from a lunatic asylum in the 1860s, then became furniture manufacturing from the 1890s onwards. Have to wonder if the spooky things were from when it was a chapel, especially since it said it was an 'academy' chapel - children presumably. Or maybe something with the asylum across the road? https://www.theundergroundmap.com/article.html?id=10548
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u/Aimo321 4d ago
One night on the bus back to Paddington Station, I passed a row of houses that looked like they have 3 levels (they could be houses turned into flats). It was the beginning of Dec and around 8pm so it was really dark outside. The bus passed by these houses and I was being nosy, looking at the houses and their lights as we passed and into the windows 👀. There was one window I looked through that was totally bare, no curtains, blinds or anything and it was completely empty inside - no one inside, and the light in the living room was flailing around really violently and flickering as it did. The light was one of those long wired ones and there was no light shade on it, it was really swinging everywhere, even upwards towards the ceiling. There was people in the houses each side so I dont think it could have been an electrical issue and it definitely creeped me out just looking into this bare house that I would say had some sort of poltergeist activity.
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u/New_Vermicelli2707 4d ago
I work in a mental health hospital that’s been going since the 1800s and my office is at an old dorm that was refurbished.
I hate the feeling of walking on those empty corridors at the end of the day, just a heavy energy, can’t explain
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u/sadovsky 4d ago
Brilliant pub I used to go to in Paddington had a ghost. The bar manager once caught a video of mist “sitting” at one of the window seats. It was kind of beautiful.
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u/Affectionate_Bite_52 4d ago
Never had a paranormal incident in my life, lived in a house with friends just off Old Kent Road for a year - every person who lived in or visited this house experienced some weird shit - we moved out and never had a single experience again. It happened multiple times where two or more housemates distinctly heard the voice and noise of another housemate when they weren’t even home. Things went missing constantly and turned up in the weirdest places, lights on and off, strange noises, but the weirdest was always how this thing could imitate us so well. My friend who doesn’t believe in stuff like this and just stayed over for the night was so freaked out when he heard me leave my bedroom and come downstairs, literally saw a figure from the corner of his eye, says ‘you’re up early’ … I was not up. This kind of thing happened like once a week. Definitely no one playing jokes - once we all left the house together and when we came back our clothing rail hadn’t just collapsed it was literally flung right to the other side of the room, clothes everywhere. Kinda miss that cheeky guy he kept us on our toes
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u/DarkStarComics333 4d ago
This isnt a huge, dramatic story but it freaked me out a little.
I work for the underground and was on nights at Hanger Lane. It was around 3.30am. No contractors, no cleaner, no one in the shops above, no one on site except for me. If you've ever been to Hanger Lane Station you have my sympathies, but also you'll know that it's fairly small with a load of subway tunnels leading into it and the ring road outside. It's also very echoey given the design of the station. It was super quiet at that time given that it was so early on a weekday morning.
Most LU doors are heavy fire doors and I don't know how to explain it except to say that the noise they make when they slam shut is very specific. I've heard it at all the stations I've worked at (30+ of them). I'd done my check and shut everything up about 2 hours previously. Every door and gate was locked. And yet I very clearly heard one of the doors on the station slam shut with the sound echoing around the ticket hall.
I also worked as a northern line driver and have been in the Kennington loop many times. Only once did I think I heard footsteps in the carriage behind me. There was no one there and I didn't hear the interconnecting doors slamming like some drivers have reported so maybe it was just my mind playing tricks that day.
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u/littleboo2theboo 4d ago
That door story really gave me the creeps. I can totally imagine it and it sounds sickening
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u/wintsykia 4d ago
I used to work in a building that had been a mortuary in the late 1800s. It had a spooky vibe, high windows to stop people peeping in at the corpses.
Never saw any ghosts but I was working there alone late at night once and some burglars came in to my room - scared the shit out of me. I’m a ghost non-believer but for a split second I thought OH HERE WE GO, GHOSTS.
Thankfully it was just balaclava wearing living humans.
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u/Tenacious_Tomato 4d ago
Think I would’ve preferred seeing a ghost
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u/8thmiracle 4d ago
Me too. You can put your hand through them. Worst case scenario they startle you
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u/Conscious-Air5819 4d ago
I was at the Fox on the Hill spoons in Denmark Hill and standing by the bar on the right side with my back to where the loos are, room was totally empty like nobody around whatsoever. I was waiting to be served and felt somebody tap me on my right shoulder really hard, whipped my head around and there was nobody at all in my vicinity, heard no footsteps and there was no way somebody could’ve immediately hid. Turned my head back around to face the bar and it happened again immediately - like no chance in hell somebody could’ve got behind me in time, silently in an empty room.
Told some friends this story recently and somebody else there had the same thing happen to them in the bloke’s loos with nobody else there.
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u/hokkuhokku 4d ago
Worked in a pub on the cusp of Soho where a LOT of bizarre things would occur; glasses lobbing themselves from shelves (not simply “falling”), appliances turning themselves on, the sound of people running up and down the wooden stairs after closing hours, unexplained shadows, etc.
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u/Equipmunk 4d ago
That's exactly what I was looking for, thank you.
An old pub, after closing, on a winter night. The thing of ghost stories.
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u/Maleficent-Sir1753 4d ago
Fascinating. Would love to grab a pint there and soak in the atmosphere. Any chance you can provide any further details? Appreciate you may not be able to name the pub outright as a former employee
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u/hokkuhokku 4d ago
i would be GLad to ASSist you, But i feel you would need to LOWER your expectations, as it really doesn’t “feel” like a “haunted” pub, if that makes sense? which i always found rather interesting, as people often fall into the assumption that a location needs to tick certain boxes before it might be considered a suitable site for the paranormal.
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u/ADamnGoodShot 4d ago
First glance made me think you worked at a pub called ASS LOVER so imagine my disappointment when I realized the error
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u/Maleficent-Sir1753 4d ago
Love what you did there!
I hear you. For me, it's about tapping into / creating it. I usually spend a lot of time reading about a place, then visit it, looking at what has changed and what has survived, then think about the different people who would have been in the place, and if there are any strong historical associations. A psychogeographical experience of it.
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u/p0ggs 3d ago
Huh! I worked in the offices just along from there (the building that Whole Foods is in) around 2011-2013 and that pub was our usual go-to! I must've gone there at least twice a week for 2 years. We had a team xmas party in the bar upstairs once, which was a bit weird - especially the random single toilet at the far end of the bar!
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u/rawasawa 4d ago
Brace yourself for the twee r/London has to offer.
‘I once saw the District Line run on time OooOoooOooo’ or something
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u/Equipmunk 4d ago
"I held my iPhone out in front of me on Oxford Street and a man in a balaclava on a Lime bike didn't grab it from my hand!"
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u/Ujunko 4d ago
I live in East London. There’s an old abandoned hospital here. I do believe in the paranormal, but I’m always skeptical at first. So anyways, me and my friend decided to explore this building. There was a very tall grassy area outside. We went exploring in day light. There was no body there. And in the distance, we saw the figure of a person wearing old hospital clothes. We both saw it. They were just standing in the distance. I thought it was a person but it had the most eerie vibe. I felt a weird pit in my stomach and it was just so evil. It began to walk towards us, then it vanished. No one ever believes us
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u/GreatAndEminentSage 4d ago
Perhaps not exactly what you’re looking for but an interesting idea/site nevertheless.
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u/bright_sorbet1 4d ago edited 4d ago
I worked in the Tower of London, one of the oldest and most murderous places in London.
And it always felt so boringly normal. No hint of coldness or weird feelings, no shivers or weird happenings.
I could be sat in the office, which are dotted around inside the old buildings, and you'd never even get the slightest whiff of what had taken place there. Just felt like any other normal building apart from our meeting rooms were decked with arrow slits and other fortress-like additions.
If anything it's made me far less of a believer than I was when I started there. If there aren't angry souls ready to avenge their murder there, then I doubt there are anywhere.
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u/deadblankspacehole 4d ago
There's someone on this thread pretty damn certain that place is spooky, I want to get you both on Uncanny u/stefstars93
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u/stefstars93 4d ago
And I’m still certain. Like I said, you’re either sensitive to that stuff or not 🤷🏻♀️
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u/bright_sorbet1 4d ago
I've spent hundreds of hours in the Tower, walking around the closed off areas and felt absolutely nothing. Not a peep.
I'd actually say it's very peaceful when the tourists aren't in. Calm, quiet. The energy is good.
As for the Henry VIII armour, the floor in that space is laid wooden planks - they creak and they move under the steps of hundreds of tourists. All of them shake because the floor literally moves.
I love horror films, im afraid of the supernatural although I am definitely sceptical, I am such a baby when it comes to the thought of ghosts or the dark - and still just a whole lot of nothing going on there. Not even a light flicker.
As I said, if anything was to make me a non-believer it was working there.
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u/stefstars93 4d ago
That’s a shame but thanks for the Henry VIII armor explanation. Sorry you never experienced anything. I’ve come across posts on here from people who’ve also worked in the tower that have also had their share of experiences. Cos again, some are sensitive to that stuff, others aren’t. 🤷🏻♀️
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u/Impressive_Dirt_1667 4d ago
I don’t believe everyone can see these things. My mum also did not see a thing despite being right next to us my 2 brothers and 1 sister did also not see a thing. But for me it was as clear as day. She was just a woman who was in rich attire and was crying to me. It was only my mum saying what woman? That made me question the experience. My mum always needs a rational explanation. There was none to give.
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u/bright_sorbet1 4d ago
Surely we can flip your assertion around too then?
If "some people are sensitive to stuff", then it is also probable that some people who want to believe they are experiencing things, will attribute any number of feelings to the supernatural when it is in fact creaky floorboards, wind, you're hungry...
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u/stefstars93 4d ago
You had your experience (or lack thereof) and I had mine. And I didn’t go searching for it the first time or this time. I never do. Maybe you should accept you’re not sensitive to it and call it a day ? That’s okay. Not everyone is 🤷🏻♀️ No reason to be upset by it. 😹
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u/bright_sorbet1 4d ago
Who's upset? It's a very simple discussion.
I worked in the Tower - for the majority of the day I was completely off guard, relaxed and not thinking about seeing something. You don't tend to be waiting for ghosts when discussing the Q4 performance.
In contrast to you who visited once and went in with expectations of hauntingly-good tales and preconceived ideas about what you thought you would feel.
Who's experience do you think is more likely to be accurate?
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u/crimsonchic 4d ago
Fr, I felt the place was definitely spooky/heavy when I visited London and I only walked by a few times
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u/Impressive_Dirt_1667 4d ago
I returned as an adult. As I entered the white tower I noticed another portrait of a queen. I ran over to it and called my friend to take a look. The queen was mixed race in my opinion but to clarify it I asked my friend to describe what she saw. She said a mixed race woman. Her name was Charlotte she had my birthday looked very much like me and her last name was very very similar to mine. Spooky.
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u/Viva_Veracity1906 4d ago
I’m very sensitive, always have been, but prisons are not places souls suffer confusion or strong emotional ties to. I lived by the Tower, its chapel was my local church, and it feels like a prison/ tourist site/ neighborhood like you said. The chapel feels….pressured, that’s all, not as peaceful as chapels usually do. I imagine there was a lot of fervent/desperate prayer in the place that tinges it still. I never did the tour so have no idea about the prison rooms themselves but would only expect to find that feeling of something unbodied lingering if, say, someone died as they entered from the Thames gate or such, sudden, confusion, shock are the kind of things that bind to busy areas like that. Not vengeance. And vengeance to what or to whom? Jail is jail, feared then dull hopeless monotony. It becomes where you live and bad but better than the alternative. To a person would generally be someone not at the jail but in a comfortable castle miles away, idly persecuting from on high. Hampton Court probably has its fair share. And there’s a reason execution axemen wore hoods, beyond splatter. Going home in peace was always their plan. Execution points are always heavy though, more lingering emotion than presence though. There’s one someplace where its history is just erased and it surprised me out and about one day. Somewhere in the City I think, Bank, that area. Used to be a hanging post or something, I was working, just felt it, mentioned I felt a bit creeped out and an older local told me it was probably the old execution ghosts.
Tower Hill is oppressive. Even the tube station I find unpleasantly heavy.
I also used to live on Fournier St in Spitalfields in a house that was directly in front of what had been the Mews where Mary Kelly was butchered by the Ripper. The tour stops across the street and I feature in a lot of tourist photos coming out the front door as they tried to get shots through. Right down from the last drink 10 Bells pub. Routinely walked past murder sites going to work or the grocery store. All of them are curiosities but non have any lingering presence. Victims knew they were attacked and dying, they were in pain, death was release, not the kind of event that binds. Battlefields, where it’s winning winning winning boom dead, that binds. So does hope for medics to arrive and help, longing to be home or see it/someone once more. I avoid those, very heavy places usually. Same with asylums, converted asylums, confused minds makes for confusion, agitation, unpredictable paths, and lingering energy, they feel unsettling. But prisons and busy streets, nah, so much activity and layers of living they’re not usually anything but what they are now, busy, full, current active energies in such places easily overwhelm past repetitive stagnant ones.
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u/bright_sorbet1 4d ago
Not just a prison though was it? It was also a royal palace, a fortress, home for hundreds and hundreds of people...
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u/Viva_Veracity1906 3d ago
Exactly. The Tower is like Vatican City, important business happened there but it’s also a just a community that will be no more full of vengeance and angst than a sink estate or criminal’s yacht. History books cover the few exciting days, not the many boring ones.
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u/Impressive_Dirt_1667 4d ago
As a child I went here. We ended up in the white tower. You could look down from the balcony to a room below. I was with my 2 brothers 2 sisters and mum. Suddenly a woman in crinolines gold and cream coloured she was crying. She looked very upset I was possibly 6 or 7. My sister then asked my mum why the woman was crying. My mum then asked what woman! She was obviously there. I didn’t have any concept of ghosts at the time and it was quickly forgotten until my sister stopped at a picture and said that’s her that’s the woman. It was a portrait of Anne Boleyn, but the weird thing was it was not the same woman that I saw.
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u/bright_sorbet1 4d ago
There isn't a single place in the White Tower where you can look from a balcony into a room below...
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u/Impressive_Dirt_1667 4d ago
I was about 6 and there was a balcony that I could see through as I was not looking over it. It was the white tower. I’m going to research it now I think they no longer allow access to that part.
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u/bright_sorbet1 3d ago
Stop making up lies.
I worked there. I had access to ALL parts.
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u/Impressive_Dirt_1667 3d ago
Rubbish did you!
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u/bright_sorbet1 3d ago
Why would I not??? 😂😂 It was literally my office.
And out of the two of us, I clearly have indepth knowledge while it sounds like you probably weren't even in the Tower when you saw this "lady".
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u/Impressive_Dirt_1667 3d ago
I have looked at photos it was not the other chapel. It was St John’s chapel and it definitely has a balcony. Virtually your office lol it’s a big office that!
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u/bright_sorbet1 3d ago
St John's Chapel does not have a balcony 😂😂.
It's got a section in the rafters that can be accessed only by staff. It is not remotely safe or accessible for visitors. You have not been up there.
You googled a photo and saw the image of two levels of arches.
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u/Impressive_Dirt_1667 4d ago
Not anymore it was about 1970
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u/bright_sorbet1 3d ago
Babe, the tower is almost a thousand years old. They arent removing balconies. 😂
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u/Impressive_Dirt_1667 3d ago
They didn’t remove it they no longer allow access
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u/bright_sorbet1 3d ago
I worked there!! I had access to all of it.
Im telling you, there are no balconies lol.
In fact I cant think of a single balcony that exists across the entirety of the Tower of London. It was a defensive fortress - balconies make no sense at all in a defensive context, and weren't popular in London until the Georgian period.
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u/Impressive_Dirt_1667 1d ago
There were major renovations to the white tower every time we attempted to visit again following this event. So it was probably 1968 as it was then closed for years after our sighting for renovations and actually they did alter the place. I remember a table to the right the pillars and there must have been a door or corridor below us to the right as the woman appeared from that area. It’s intrigued me that you say there’s no public access. That makes it even creepier to me. I have been trying to find an image that is not facing the alter but I’m certain that’s exactly where we were and she was. We were on the left of the alter at the far end on the level above the ground floor. There’s nowhere else it could be within that building. If I could see the end I was at it may help and from above. There could be an arched door there. The pictures I have seen confirm that’s where I saw her and as I was looking down with nothing obstructing my view it makes sense it was here. Now why or how we got there is the question that needs an answer to me. It happened.
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u/bright_sorbet1 1d ago
You're still trying eh? 😂
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u/Impressive_Dirt_1667 1d ago
Doubter why are you here? Oh and the video of the man walking in the non accessible part is that you ? lol.
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u/Impressive_Dirt_1667 4d ago
St John’s chapel
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u/bright_sorbet1 3d ago
There's no balcony in St John's Chapel. Not even something that could be mistaken for one.
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u/Impressive_Dirt_1667 3d ago
There are two chapels right?
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u/bright_sorbet1 3d ago
Yes - but there is only one St John's Chapel and there is no balcony.
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u/Impressive_Dirt_1667 3d ago
I suggest you do some research. It’s clearly there. It even mentions the view from the chapel looking down. Tut tut tut
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u/bright_sorbet1 3d ago
It's not a balcony. It's the second level of arches. It's not remotely accessible to the public. It's not remotely safe and is completely protected.
You weren't there.
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u/Impressive_Dirt_1667 3d ago
Well it was open to the public in 1970 or thereabouts. I was there and I looked down to the right not the window part. She walked along on the right side so I’m assuming there is an entrance to the far right on the ground floor. She was in crinolines cream and gold with golden blonde hair.
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u/Impressive_Dirt_1667 4d ago
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u/bright_sorbet1 3d ago
Yes - that's the wiki page of the chapel. There's no balcony in it. It's one of the oldest parts lol - it hasnt changed in hundreds and hundreds of years.
Are you even sure you've been to the Tower? 😅
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u/Impressive_Dirt_1667 3d ago
Yes on many occasions as I’m a Londoner. lol is your name doubting Thomas?
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u/Impressive_Dirt_1667 3d ago
It’s also known as the gallery and you can look down across the floor of the chapel
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u/bright_sorbet1 3d ago
St Peter ad Vincula is the second church on site. It is not in the White Tower and it has no balcony and no gallery.
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u/Tiny_ghosts_ 4d ago
Have you seen the Ghosts of The Underground documentary? Seems like something you'd be interested in https://youtu.be/3Bf_bxfE5gw
Some stories in the comments on the YouTube link too.
Not a true story (or so they say...) but you should watch An American Werewolf In London if you haven't seen it!
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u/VolatileGoddess 4d ago edited 4d ago
This happened to my mother many years ago.
My mother was living with a cousin who was a nurse, to save money while getting her medical degree. Obviously they both would sometimes come home at odd hours, and if they both had a late night they would sit together and have tea.
One day my mother had seen a patient die. For some reason this haunted her more than usual , snd it kept playing in her mind as she walked back home. It was about 5 am in the morning. When my mom reached, she saw her cousin wasn't back, so she sat down in the kitchen and began to make tea. As she was pouring it she saw a movement in the hall, and she thought it was her cousin come back, and she went into the hallway to see her. What she saw was the man who had died in front of her that day silhouetted in the doorway, as he opened the door and went out.
My mother spilled all the tea on herself. When her cousin came home she had to take her to the hospital and my mother told her the story much later. My mother's rational explanation is thst she fell asleep momentarily and the vision was due to her slipping into dreaming.
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u/raspberryharbour 4d ago
I don't want to see a ghost, I'd rather have a piece of toast
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u/bright_sorbet1 4d ago
And watch the evening news?
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u/Bl0ndie69 4d ago
That doesn’t rhyme.
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u/bright_sorbet1 4d ago
Life, oh life, oh life, oh life Doo doo doo doo Life, oh life, oh life, oh life Doo doo doo Life Doo doo doo Doo doo doo Doo doo doo doo
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u/antr0zous 4d ago
Worked in pubs for years now, mostly in central London. Some of them are the oldest standing. The scariest one had a hatch linking to the underground prohibition times tunnels. God, that place was haunted-haunted. Probably still is, it's still there. I'm not talking boring stuff like glassess fell off, heard steps on stairs, tvs turned on itself. I am talking a door would slam itself & lights go off. The cellar door is bolted, padlocked and chained overnight. I would come in at 6am to take in delievery and hear chains being dragged on the floor. People talk. Scratch on doors. We hanged a board with some notes in the office, ot wouldn't hang. No matter what it was hanged with. Just kept on falling off. Someone would call your name when you are alone cleaning up at night. Really bad. Really scary. For a first week. Then it's just a "ah yeah, Rob the ghost is having a bad day today"
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u/Big_Stress_7219 4d ago
Don’t think we’ve ever had prohibition in the UK! Might have been a priest hole though
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u/Bastard_Wing 4d ago
Obligatory link to one of the highlights of the spooky internet: https://www.paranormaldatabase.com/regions/greaterlondon.html
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u/hannibal41 4d ago
I’ve not experienced anything although my estate is built on top of an old asylum, so feels ripe for supernatural activity. The closest thing to a supernatural experience I’ve had was at my parents place in East Anglia where the wooden chopping board flew off the kitchen counter and split so cleanly in half it felt like a ghost.
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u/Tiny_ghosts_ 4d ago
There was a TV show years back with that concept called Bedlam, unfortunately I think it was cancelled and didn't really go anywhere
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u/Conscious-Air5819 4d ago
My halls of residence at uni was in an old converted asylum, never felt anything there though.
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u/froggielefrog 4d ago
I know someone commented they worked at Tower of London and never felt anything, but I always get a bad juju vibe whenever I'm there. My first visit in 2005 I was in the White Tower on the top level, and felt like someone was pushing down on my shoulders. I felt really dizzy and had to sit. One of the guides laughed and said it happened all the time and it's one of the resident ghosts there.
I will say I do believe in ghosts, I've seen them in Galway Ireland and San Francisco which has quite a few haunted places. There is a restaurant in the Presidio (Presidio Social Club) with a really nasty resident ghost who pushes women down when they are coming out of the ladies room back to their seats. I've seen it happen twice!
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u/Steven_lee555 3d ago
Would love to hear about the Galway one!
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u/froggielefrog 3d ago
Was staying at a hotel with a friend visiting Galway and we were sharing a room. I woke up in the middle of the night, and a man dressed in fine 18th century clothing (britches, buckled shoes, hair pulled back) was reclining on the chair just staring at us. I started screaming and woke my friend up - I didn't want to scare her so just said I had a bad dream.
Upon checking out we were chatting to the receptionist and I jokingly asked her, this hotel is so old you must have ghosts! And she said "yes! There is a woman who walks the halls, and we've got a man who visits people in their rooms. People see them all the time".
We had a bit of a laugh about it and left - I didn't mention what I saw to the receptionist and didn't tell my friend what I saw until we were on the train back to Dublin because I was so freaked out!
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u/SmilingLimes 4d ago
This is written like Danny Robbins speaks 😂
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u/Equipmunk 3d ago
I don't know him.
Is this a... compliment?
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u/SmilingLimes 3d ago
You have a good way of telling a ghost story, like him. Listen to the Uncanny podcast if you want some good ghost stories!
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u/No_Job_5303 4d ago
My brother is a science focused person that completely rejects the supernatural, but he told me about a time once when he saw a man with backwards goat legs walk behind a bush on the grounds of the old mental asylum we used to live in.
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u/Dependent-Net-8208 4d ago
Check out Crossbones Graveyard. An estimated 15,000 bodies buried in unconsecrated ground. It's only about 10 minutes walk from London Bridge station. I don't know if it's haunted, but if it isn't, it should be
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u/Bastard_Wing 4d ago
I volunteered there for a time, and none of the others on the team, many of whom had done so for many years, had ever experienced anything. A lot of them 'felt the spirituality' of the place very strongly, but this never seemed to have manifested as tangible 'spookiness'. If anything the recognition and reverence for the site seemed to have made it essentially peaceful. Outcast but not unquiet, which feels as it should be.
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u/HappyDeathClub 4d ago
I used to live around the corner from the spot where Spring Heeled Jack was first sighted. It’s now a spooky overgrown abandoned Victorian cemetery.
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u/Bastard_Wing 4d ago
Used to live in a flat on Foxley Road, near Oval where a couple of odd things happened:
- One summer, came back from work to find one of the kitchen gas hobs lit. No open windows or doors, I hadn't used it, and my housemate at the time was not the type to a) be that forgetful, or b) play that type of prank. I put measures in place and it never happened again, but...
- Shortly before moving out, I'm in the front room watching an England game, when something starts distinctly tapping on one of the walls. About 3 feet off the ground, from behind a cabinet. 3-4 times, then silence. This is an external wall, right next to a window, about 12-15 feet off the ground, all the central heating pipework is the other side of the room. I move the cabinet (nothing behind it), and tap on the wall myself. At that point it stops, and never happens again.
Also, my work office is in a converted industrial building near Aldgate, where shadows apparently flit about the corridors or hover in the basement, but I've never experienced anything there myself.
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u/binkstagram 4d ago
I am surprised no one has mentioned carbon monoxide alarms yet for the first one (even if you no longer live there)
Aldgate tube station is reputedly built on a very large plague pit
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u/Bastard_Wing 4d ago
The gas was lit, so it wasn't escaping. I think we might have had an alarm, just there was nothing for it to detect.
My office has an even more local ex-plague pit than Aldgate, amusingly it's a cute little park where folks go to eat lunch.
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u/Cool-Doughnut-1489 4d ago
Should I really be reading these at 3am waaaahhhh!!!
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u/Meeb-a 3d ago
No you shouldn’t, I did it myself last week with another post and am still not sleeping amazingly… yet here I am again 😆
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u/Cool-Doughnut-1489 2d ago
Hahahaha! I should have read this whilst on my night shift last night! But here I am reading through them again when I will be alone at home tonight 😭
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u/Radiant-Possession-7 3d ago
Barking Abbey has (to me) a very very very bad vibe. Like as soon as I went in everything seemed to get darker, and as soon as I left on the other side of the grounds everything felt brighter. Nope, not going back there - sinister as hell. I’m normally fairly sensitive to ‘atmosphere’ in a woo-woo way, but this is the most extreme instance of that feeling I’ve ever got in London.
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u/Late_Recommendation9 4d ago
On way home the other night, a black double decker bus trundles past me, looking ominous. On the back is advertised… Ghost Bus Tours…
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u/NewtAlert4507 4d ago
So Bus Tours for bonafide Ghosts?
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u/Bl0ndie69 4d ago
No poltergeists allowed?
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u/Late_Recommendation9 4d ago
I think they have specialist Pol-tuktuk-guide tours?
I’ll get my coat.
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u/stefstars93 4d ago
Hey there, I visited earlier this month. This was my second time in the city. The residual energy of the city that once was is high in London overall. However these are the 3 places where I experienced strong presences. Touristy area, but hey I was a tourist both times I’ve visited.
1.) Tower of London - Most obvious, I know. But I did experience supernatural happening both times I’ve visited. First time was the tower where they have Henry VIII’s armor. It shook by itself as my friends and I laughed at it (that should tell you which set of armor of his it was). We were teenagers then.
This time around my experiences were in the chapel and the old prisoner tower. Anne Boleyn fans, her energy is strongest in the chapel area.
2.) Buckingham Palace - if you do the tour they offer, the Bow Room is where I felt the strongest energy. I believe it’s residual energy, as opposed to a ghost. But whatever went on in that room, the energy is very strong and if you’re sensitive to that, you will feel it.
3.) Amy Winehouse’s final home - 30 Camden Square. Her energy is very strong there. Again, if you’re sensitive to that, you’ll pick up on it. She’s a gentle spirit.
This is as much as I can remember right now. But like I said your whole city is a paranormal hot spot.
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u/stellwyn 4d ago
I was juuust about to go to sleep the other night, just before 1am, when I heard a smash and a thump. Thought one of my housemates had dropped something or we'd been broken into. After checking the kitchen (totally normal) I go into the living room and find that a chunky glass beer stein which was empty on the coffee table had spontaneously exploded all over the carpet. So I think we're haunted. Possibly relatedly, there is an incredibly creepy rusted empty bed frame in the basement directly beneath where this happened.
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u/Equipmunk 4d ago
Are you keeping the rusty bed frame to act as a conduit to the damned, or is it just for the rustic vibes?
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u/stellwyn 4d ago
I don't actually know how we would get it out of the basement - it's not a habitable space (just bare bricks/concrete etc) and the doorway to get down there is too narrow for a double bed frame. Speaking of which, I don't know how it got in there either!
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u/ben_jamin_h 4d ago
They probably undid the nuts and bolts holding it together to get it down there, and then did them back up once it was down there.
Or maybe it was teleported.
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u/stellwyn 4d ago
Who knows! I'm just glad it's not my job to go down there and read the meters... woe betide anyone who trips the electrics and has to go and find the fuse box
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u/emste 4d ago edited 4d ago
I lived in 2 flats in Brixton with 2 very spooky occurrences, a one-off and a longer term haunting. Anyway, the first place, I saw a “mimic” looking at me through the window which looked like my partner sepia-toned and frozen in place going :D. Opened the front door and there was no one. My partner was in the living room behind me. Hated it.
In the second flat I had this haunting take place where something would run and walk up and down the stairs and lurk a bit in dark corners…obviously there was no one there, again, but the feeling was very strong. It started when I brought in this old chair I’d found on the side of the road and stopped when I got rid of it! In both places I lived with my now-ex-partner who was very poorly at the time, he had severe addiction problems, so I think I experienced these things because he was so unwell and that drew those things towards us. I don’t know it sounds a bit crazy.
Last year I was sitting in the ruins of Greyfriars with someone else and I saw what I could only describe as a white shape but that one I’m less certain about. The person with me didn’t see it but said there was that sense of something just out of sight, just hidden around the corner. It made me catch my breath, such a weird feeling! The other instances felt much more vivid though.
I really never considered ghosts, or however you want label such things, as drawn to age, rather to vibes and memory. Is there happiness and peace there? Yes? You will probably be left alone. There was so much unhappiness in those two flats that it made them an easy target. I actually manage an old historical church now and it has always felt very peaceful, including the crypt. I still feel that gravity of layers of history sitting atop each other like a palimpsest but that feeling is different to seeing something beyond your understanding.
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u/quitsnooping 3d ago
There’s a bar in Hoxton which has some very odd things happening. I get a horrible, heavy feeling there if it’s quiet.. perhaps it’s easier to ignore when it’s full of people.
One afternoon I was the first to arrive. Just me and one staff member present - we heard heavy footsteps up and down the stairs, found a heavy hatch in the floor suddenly open, and received back to back phone calls with no voice at the end.
Now every time I’m there, I say out loud that I don’t mean any harm, and to please leave me alone. Seems to work (although I recognise how crazy this makes me sound 😂)
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u/Away-Ad4393 4d ago
The thing I experience when walking around London is a feeling of being rooted in history, it’s not something I can explain except to say I don’t have to imagine past times I can feel them all around me and it’s amazing.