Ghosts and Myths of Radford House & Hooe Lake

GHOSTS AND MYTHS OF RADFORD HOUSE

There are several ghosts associated with Radford which considering its age and history is not so surprising.

Take the ghost of a monk in full habit who was seen on many occasions to be at the Radford lodge gates but no one ever saw his face! Servants at the house heard the industrious sound of something chopping wood and drawing water beneath their windows and they were convinced it was the monk (who appeared to be very restless).

There is also the account of a strange animal with saucer eyes which scared the Radford House servants. The occupier at that time, Major Anstis, forebade servants to take anything, (even food), from the house because this apparently aggravated the animal apparition.

Towards the end of its days the house seemed to protest at being abandoned because when it was unoccupied, in the mid 1930s, bells, long disconnected in the servants quarters, could be heard ringing at night and dogs whimpered on passing by.

However, there is no doubt that the most popular ghost is that of the White Lady of Radford. No one seems to know her origin but word has it that she was one of several girls living at Radford in the 18th century. It is said that she made friends with a local boy from nearby Oreston, but her parents forbade her to see him because of his lowly rank. However, she left the house (with the help of a maid servant) intent on disregarding her parent’s wishes. As was her habit, she always wore white in the summer and so it was on this particular day when she met the young man. They took the boat across the lake which capsized drowning both of them.

Some say she has been seen sitting beside the lake and others have seen her in the grounds looking for her lost love. Many sightings have been made; a railwayman cycling home through Radford dip in the early morning had seen her and a reporter from the local paper driving past also saw her.

In the heyday of this tale, servant girls at the house dressed a broom as the White Lady, placed it at the foot of the butlers bed who, when awakened, was convinced the White Lady Ghost had come to visit him.

Neill P. G. Mitchell (son of the last owner of Radford) recalls that Bertrand Gale, chauffeur to both his father and grandfather, used to take conducted tours through the deserted corridors of Radford prior to its demolition. He was a good storyteller and used to put the fear of God into his charges with tales of ghosts and Raleigh yarns and then, when all was hushed, he would drop a heavy hammer causing much panic!  Many locals have claimed to have seen her, and she is so much ingrained in local folklore, that there is a road just outside the park that is named after her.

Even today strange apparitions are still being seen. In 2005, a photographer and a local filmmaker visited the boathouse to take photographs of the location in preparation for a scene of a movie (which was never made in the end). The photo’s were taken on 35mm black and white film and the negatives are in the possession of Stuart Wyatt one of the subscribers to this website.  In one of the frames, there appears to be a semi-opaque image of an old lady in one of the archways of the house. and this shot was taken as a test for lighting, as the film maker wanted to use the location for a scene.

“We noticed a strange blob on frame 29, and when we scanned in the original print, it looked very strange. When we zoomed in on the scan, we could see what appeared to be an image of a person.”  Other images taken at the same time and angle don’t show a figure?

The only people at the location was the film maker, and the hired photographer – It was a quiet weekday, and from where the photographer and the film maker stood, it would have been very difficult for someone to walk into the location and the shot without being noticed by both of them. Nobody remembers seeing anyone in the area that day, and because there was a lot of thick vegetation back then (the council was lazy in keeping it tidy that summer), any person walking through the undergrowth would have made a sound.

The full set of the boat house negatives can be seen here: A flikr set of all the negatives is at – http://www.flickr.com/photos/23921876@N08/sets/72157616770306444/

Does any body else have strange stories or images that we can add to this website?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

The White Lady & Haunted Monk stories are from the book  ‘The History of Radford’ by Brian D. R. Steele. A copy of which I will make available shortly on this website. Thanks to Stuart Wyatt for the more recent ghost story.

Category: History