Ghosts roam ancient city

The 12th-century cathedral in Exeter is just one of the city's many locations for ghost spotting.

If local legend is true, there are almost as many ghosts wandering the streets of the ancient English city of Exeter as there are people.

Dating back at least to Roman times more than 2000 years ago, the riverside city in the rural southwestern county of Devon claims to be the most haunted place in England.

"I could talk all night and still not finish telling you all about our ghosts and legends," said city guide David Fantarrow on a tour of Exeter.

From the ghosts of cats and dogs to Elizabethan sailors and star-crossed lovers in a suicide pact, Exeter claims to have it all - in the spectre department at least.

Judge Jeffreys, who in 1685 presided over what became known as the Bloody Assizes in which he condemned more than 200 people to be disembowelled and more than 800 deported after a failed revolt against King Charles II, is among the city's ghouls.

Many of the rebels came from the Devon area, and most of the trials took place around the region.

A year after he passed sentence, parts of the bodies of the executed were still to be found hanging on trees in Exeter's Southern Hay area that doubled as a recreation and execution ground.

"Legend has it he was so hated in the West Country after the trials he was cursed to return as a ghost in the form of a black pig. That animal has been seen in the city," Fantarrow said.

Southern Hay is just next to the city's 12th-century cathedral and is the location of most of the ghost sightings.

On the northern side of the cathedral square is a narrow alley called Martin's Lane. Here stands the Ship Inn public house, which was one of Elizabethan naval hero Francis Drake's favourite drinking establishments.

The landlord's daughter is said to have fallen in love both with Drake and the sea. She accompanied him on his last fateful voyage, on which his ship sank and all aboard drowned.

"Legend has it that on a quiet night you can find the girl's mother waiting for her in the lane," Fantarrow said.

Another of the city's famed Elizabethan sons, the writer and explorer Walter Raleigh, also features in the ghostly tales.

Stories tell of ghostly coughing noises coming occasionally from the top floor of the Royal Clarence Hotel which stands on the site of Raleigh's father's house.

It is not just Elizabethan sailors - although there appear to be plenty of them - who stalk the streets of the city.

There is a story of a Victorian nurse working at a local hospital who would appear at the bedside of people on the brink of death and rearrange their flowers into the form of a cross.

"That was not a particularly sensitive thing to have done," said Fantarrow. "Imagine feeling ill and waking up to that."

One of the more peculiar sightings is of a three-headed apparition that appears stalking across the Cathedral Green - where it is said the Devil once got so cross he cracked the bell in the north tower.

Another tale tells of two thieves trying to steal lead shortly after World War II - a metal in short supply and great demand at the time - from a roof near the Cathedral.

"Suddenly a scream was heard and people saw these two men on the roof with a dark but strangely glowing figure towering over them and pointing," Fantarrow said. "The figure is also said to represent death. The men fled and were never seen again."

Although the ghosts date back in many cases to the dim and distant past, they seem fairly comfortable with their modern surroundings as the booming city rebuilds itself.

One is said to have taken up residence in a sweet shop on the main street and there is talk of another - in this case evil - in the cellars of a local bar.

They are, if nothing else, at home in the city.

Last century a local bishop was called in to exorcise a ghost from a local apartment. His service was successful and the happy occupier reported a ghoul-free zone.

However, within days his neighbour began reporting visitations from the same spirit which, it seems, had simply moved next door.


- REUTERS