Spooks On The Tube: Ghosts Of London Underground

[Dick Turpin]

It is not a coincidence, and for a fuller explanation I recommend City of Vice.

The relatively wealthy mid-18th century area attracted pickpockets who were based in the nearby St/ Giles Rookery.
So John Fielding set up a prototype police force to deal with this.

Disparagingly called The Bow Street Runners.

An interesting part of London that Vic. Very historical too.

My mum’s side of the family originally came from seven dials. I have memories of being taken there to visit my Nan and Grandad. And until very recently my Aunt still lived in the area. Not a part of London that people associate with being residential, but what with Covent garden market being so close by, local people were needed etc.

I shall check out City of Vice, so thanks for that.

 

[SimonBurchell]

An interesting part of London that Vic. Very historical too.

My mum’s side of the family originally came from seven dials. I have memories of being taken there to visit my Nan and Grandad. And until very recently my Aunt still lived in the area. Not a part of London that people associate with being residential, but what with Covent garden market being so close by, local people were needed etc.

I shall check out City of Vice, so thanks for that.

My dad grew up in the area behind the original Tate gallery (now Tate Britain), Westminster, which was terraces and bomb sites as he used to describe it. I rather suspect it is somewhat gentrified now. He was estranged from his family so I never visited, if they were still there in the 70s. I vaguely remember visiting his grandmother though, in a flat in Plaistow. Apparently she used to have a beautiful cottage but was forced to move so it could be bulldozed. I was in Plaistow a few years ago (had to find a hotel at short notice for visiting friends - the Lord Mayor's Show was on, so nowhere else was available), didn't realise that was where she had her flat and didn't recognise the area at all, it was only when I got back home that my mum told me that's where we used to go when I was a small child (I do remember, just about, the interior of her flat).

 

[Dick Turpin]

My dad grew up in the area behind the original Tate gallery (now Tate Britain), Westminster, which was terraces and bomb sites as he used to describe it. I rather suspect it is somewhat gentrified now. He was estranged from his family so I never visited, if they were still there in the 70s. I vaguely remember visiting his grandmother though, in a flat in Plaistow. Apparently she used to have a beautiful cottage but was forced to move so it could be bulldozed. I was in Plaistow a few years ago (had to find a hotel at short notice for visiting friends - the Lord Mayor's Show was on, so nowhere else was available), didn't realise that was where she had her flat and didn't recognise the area at all, it was only when I got back home that my mum told me that's where we used to go when I was a small child (I do remember, just about, the interior of her flat).

Interesting Simon. I lived in Plaistow (well Upton park) for a few years. I haven’t been back in ages though, and if Google street maps is anything to go by the area has changed considerably since the early 1990’s when I lived there, especially since West Ham moved over the Stratford.

Even the famous Cassettari’s café has gone. The family moved to Colchester apparently. Shame, it had been in the Plaistow area for over 100 years. I have very happy memories of a great big fry up helping to cure my hangovers on Saturday mornings lol.

 

[Spookdaddy]

I’ve got an odd memory of Covent Garden that doesn’t seem to add up. I remember an antique market in a large building that had high up domed windows. Which could be what’s now the transport museum. But the thing is I was only 3 in 1980. Maybe it’s just me misremembering.

I think, post the fruit and veg era and since redevelopment, the Apple Market has - or used to have - a weekly antiques day. Could it have been that you're thinking of?

 

[MorningAngel]

I think, post the fruit and veg era and since redevelopment, the Apple Market has - or used to have - a weekly antiques day. Could it have been that you're thinking of?

It wasn’t like the bit they have today that they call the apple market. It was larger, although I was smaller.

 

[MorningAngel]

This is interesting. I’m not sure if it’s real as it’s the first I’ve heard of it.

https://www.british-paranormal.co.uk/mystery-of-the-circle-line-london/

 

[maximus otter]

This is interesting. I’m not sure if it’s real as it’s the first I’ve heard of it.

https://www.british-paranormal.co.uk/mystery-of-the-circle-line-london/

From the above link:

“Academics at the museum were able to confirm that the area between Baker Street and Edgware Road was the suspected site of a very large medieval plague pit, thought to have been the final resting place of up to 20,000 anonymous souls.”

My five minutes of Googling reveals:

a) London’s population in the 14th century was only 50,000, so a death toll of 20,000 seems unrealistically high.

b) An examination of Historic UK’s interactive map of London plague pits shows none between Baker St. and Edgware Rd. Tube stations:

(Note lack of large skull symbols between the stations (Edgware left lower centre; Baker right upper centre.)

I’m going to say “No” to this one.

maximus otter

 

[Spookdaddy]

This is interesting. I’m not sure if it’s real as it’s the first I’ve heard of it.

https://www.british-paranormal.co.uk/mystery-of-the-circle-line-london/

I'm kind of intrigued, but also a little circumspect - I've spent a fair bit of time hunting down Underground based tales and, for something with specific witness statements and supposed official involvement, I find it a little bit odd that I haven't come across anything relating to those elements in other sources. (And I have to say that the idea that 'all' workers have been requested 'to behave respectfully and avoid swearing / blasphemy in the area' seems to me to have an unavoidable ring of overegged theatricality.)

Also the name A L Cuin rang a bell. I then remembered that they were a source for the The Gurning Man, Glasgow, thread. The sources for his story were deemed highly suspicious by at least one user (now gone, but a fragment of whose comments are preserved in a quote in post #16 of that thread). If I recall correctly - when I was looking into the story, virtually every thread of the tale I could find traced back to the same A L Cuin.

For now, I'm going to ca'canny on that tale.

 

[maximus otter]

I'm kind of intrigued, but also a little circumspect - I've spent a fair bit of time hunting down Underground based tales and, for something with specific witness statements and supposed official involvement, I find it a little bit odd that I haven't come across anything relating to those elements in other sources.

Also the name A L Cuin rang a bell. I then remembered that they were a source for the The Gurning Man, Glasgow, thread. The sources for his story were deemed highly suspicious by at least one user (now gone, but a fragment of whose comments are preserved in a quote in post #16 of that thread). If I recall correctly - when I was looking into the story, virtually every thread of the tale I could find traced back to the same A L Cuin.

For now, I'm going to ca'canny on that tale.

Even the name is deeply sus: A L Cuin?

See here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcuin

At least he didn’t try V E Nerablebede…

maximus otter

 

[Spookdaddy]

Even the name is deeply sus: A L Cuin?...

Yes. It's an obvious pun. To be fair though, I'm not sure that a pseudonym is, in and of itself, that suspicious. It's the rest of it that worries me.

 

[Spookdaddy]

One of the elements that I often wonder about in Underground related tales is the occasional inference that tunnels actually pass through things like the sites of crypts and graveyards etc. Clearly the old cut and cover method would always involve disruption to such places - and it may well be that some shallower lines do occupy the same space (especially if you factor in historical changes to ground level) but I've seen references to tunnels passing through such areas when the relevant tunnel is clearly well below the level at which the site would have been.

There are, of course, big differences in the depths of tunnels (and less than half the current system is actually underground anyway).

In trying to find some sort of reference with which to explore the above idea, I came across Daniel Silva's Down Underground project - it's not spook related, but I'm pretty sure it will be of interest to at least a few. (Pretty generously, I thought - the plans are available for download as PDF's. There's a link a little way down.)

 

[Victory]

Following on from @maximus otter post above.

I cannot find any reference to a Marylebone plague pit.

London in the mid 17th century had 350,000 residents, so it is possible the plague referred to could have been the 1665 Great Plague?

The area between the stations is not so much liminal as a meeting point and rapid change of different areas, so certainly interesting from a psychogeography point of view.

The grandeur of Regent's Park and it's Nash Terraces.

The commercial "Gateway to the West End" Baker Street itself.

The congested and slightly non-approachable Marylebone Road.

The small neighbourhood North of it which I term "North Marylebone", notable for the original Lords Cricket Ground of Dorset Square and Marylebone Station.
Expensive, but not quite the hint of glamour of Marylebone to the South of Baker Street station, or the villagey feel just to the South and to the West of it.
Though it pushes it in places: the Upper East Side aspiring Berkeley Court and the Art Deco panache of Dorset Court.

Then the near-void of where the Westway crosses the Edgware Road, harsh but culturally significant with the Joe Strummer Subway, Cato Street is a short walk to the South and 93 Bell Street (where Steve Jones and Paul Cook of the Pistols lived) to the North - with a tight section of mansion blocks, prostitutes, junkies and some of the Lebanese and Egyptian community living cheek by jowl.

 

[Spookdaddy]

...The area between the stations is not so much liminal as a meeting point and rapid change of different areas, so certainly interesting from a psychogeography point of view.

The grandeur of Regent's Park and it's Nash Terraces.

The commercial "Gateway to the West End" Baker Street itself.

The congested and slightly non-approachable Marylebone Road.

The small neighbourhood North of it which I term "North Marylebone", notable for the original Lords Cricket Ground of Dorset Square and Marylebone Station.
Expensive, but not quite the hint of glamour of Marylebone to the South of Baker Street station, or the villagey feel just to the South and to the West of it.
Though it pushes it in places: the Upper East Side aspiring Berkeley Court and the Art Deco panache of Dorset Court.

Then the near-void of where the Westway crosses the Edgware Road, harsh but culturally significant with the Joe Strummer Subway, Cato Street a short walk to the South and 93 Bell Street (where Steve Jones and Paul cook of the Pistols lived) to the North - with a tight section of mansion blocks, prostitutes, junkies and some of the Lebanese and Egyptian community living cheek by jowl.

Yes. I really quite like that area - possibly because of all the contrasts. (Also there's a decent greasy spoon opposite Marylebone Station and a good chippy round the corner on Lisson Grove (the Sea Shell, I think) - so most essentials are covered.

Even Marylebone south - although clearly an area of great wealth - feels less oppressively wealthy than other very well heeled areas of London. (And it contains Daunt Books - so unavoidable for me. Also a couple of decent pubs.)

Dorset Square was the site of my odd (and probably mistaken...although it was 2020, and all kinds of odd shit was going down) Out of Place Animal sighting (@#1007). And there's something quite magical about Regent's Park early on a misty weekend morning, before the crowds are out and when your only companions are the odd runner and the cyclists doing their circuits.

 

[Victory]

Yes. I really quite like that area - possibly because of all the contrasts. (Also there's a decent greasy spoon opposite Marylebone Station and a good chippy round the corner on Lisson Grove (the Sea Shell, I think) - so most essentials are covered.

Even Marylebone south - although clearly an area of great wealth - feels less oppressively wealthy than other very well heeled areas of London. (And it contains Daunt Books - so unavoidable for me. Also a couple of decent pubs.)

Dorset Square was the site of my odd (and probably mistaken...although it was 2020, and all kinds of odd shit was going down) Out of Place Animal sighting (@#1007). And there's something quite magical about Regent's Park early on a misty weekend morning, before the crowds are out and when your only companions are the odd runner and the cyclists doing their circuits.

Yes, The Sea Shell.
They say Princess Diana used to order take away from there when she lived in Kensington Palace.

The South part of Marylebone ("Marylebone proper" as I regard it) is just as you say, wealthy but understated.
Some really nice Georgian and Neo Classical Houses, rumoured to have original timbers that were taken from the broken up HMS Victory.

The High Street is classy and does not have the tourist masses of Oxford Street just a ten minute walk away.

And the area has a distinct Medical identity to it's Eastern edge with Harley Street and Devonshire Place.

Paddington Street Gardens is a nice bit of greenery, and The Wallace Collection a chance to see a stately home within London for free, or pop into if one needs the loo!

The graceful Manchester Square where this record cover was photographed, though sadly the building no longer exists.

 

[maximus otter]

London in the mid 17th century had 350,000 residents, so it is possible the plague referred to could have been the 1665 Great Plague?

lt does specify ”mediaeval”.

maximus otter

 

[Victory]

lt does specify ”mediaeval”.

maximus otter

But the "medieval plague pit" as cause of the electrical disturbances is just conjecture.

Has an analysis been done on the bones and teeth found?
Do we know causes of death?

None of us can find anything that points to a medieval plague pit in the area.

There was a medieval plague pit in Smithfield...have similar disturbances been noted around Farringdon Station?

 

[Spookdaddy]

Pasting this directly from a post I've just made on another thread (apologies, but it's relevant in both places):

In one of those coincidences that now never actually amazes me at all, while spending far too long yesterday flicking through back copy's of FT in response to the challenge presented by the thread, Looking For A Photo Of An Uncanny Old Man Seen In Fortean Times, I came across the following story - which I thought I should put up on the Underground ghosts thread, but which now seems relevant here as well:

From FT 176 - November 2003