GHOSTS of KENT
On November 9th Dennis Chambers gave an interesting talk on Kentish Ghosts. He started by saying that he believed in ghosts and left it to the audience to form their own opinion.
Near Sittingbourne the new owner was renovating a house that had been used by the army during the war. He found a shoe in a wall. He discovered that a lady had fallen down the stairs and died whilst looking for it. A number of soldiers had reported seeing a lady, dressed in blue walking about at night looking for something. She has not been seen since the shoe was discovered.
Number 19 Stour Sreet, Canterbury needed work done on it and when his family moved in, George, the handyman, was given a small room to occupy. One day, Mrs Oliver, the owner, made him a drink. When he went back to his job his tools were missing. They were found in another room. He also saw a person disappearing through a door, curtains billowing out although the windows were closed.
In a nook in Leeds Castle a lady was sitting doing some needlework. Suddenly a black dog appeared! She put down her work and went to follow the dog out. There was a rumble and the tower, where she had been sitting, crashed down and into the moat! How and from whence did the dog appear? It was obviously unknown to her.
More recently, and much nearer to the Medway Towns, ghosts have appeared on Bluebell Hill. In 1965 a Cortina and Jaguar car collided. One of the four women in the Cortina survived and was kindly given a lift to Maidstone. By the time they had arrived at County Hall she had disappeared. Since the accident a number of reports have been received from drivers seeing people crossing over the road and even drivers thinking they had run over someone but there was no body found.
The main site for seeing ghosts in Kent is, of course, Pluckley. These are well known from the media and as there seems to be about twelve of them, none are chosen to be described in detail here. They do include ‘Screaming Woods’, ‘A Watercress Lady’, and ‘A Hanging Schoolmaster’ being cut down from a tree, ‘A Highwayman’ and a ‘Coach and Horses’ being driven through the village.
The speaker has written a book on ‘The Ghosts of Pluckley’; details of these appearances can be found in it.
Regardless of its reputation Pluckley is not a horrid village and none of its ghosts have been seen recently! As a non-believer I say “Thank goodness for that” and hope I never have to change my mind!
(As reported by Marie Richardson)