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Spooks On The Tube: Ghosts Of London Underground

A potential long standing reason why Bank tube station is not pleasant is that the main ticket office was constructed by building into and destroying the crypt/ancient graveyard of the Hawksmoor church St Mary Woolnoth (the church above remains, of course). The site itself probably goes way back to before Roman occupation, so there could be all sorts of entities that are continually interrupted by commuters and not too pleased...
 
lemonpie3 said:
Is there any reason why Bank should be affected and Bethnal Green not (for example)?
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No reason at all...except that I know Bank but not Bethnal Green!
 
Interesting DeeDeeTee, However I didn't and I doubt too many people know about this, I find it very interesting and exciting to think that possibly hundreds if not thousands of people are picking up on bank's previous status, prehaps it shows some people are more peceptive than they think.
 
Although it currently resides on a shelf in my front room, I've never got around to reading Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. I have, however, been reading the comic adaptation which has a great take on London's Underground, or rather Underground London including the tube network.
 
Its a nice and easy read, Neverwhere, I liked it. Extra frisson as I work close to alot of the locations in the book, which helps to add a bit of psychic background to the descriptions.

As for the menacing nature of certain tube stations, and for the moment let us throw out occums razor and assume it is a 'ghostie' issue, it suddenly occurred to me that it is perhaps the exit that is the problem. For example, even though I've almost lived in London for a decade I can still get utterly confused when walking out of Oxford Circus tube station into the box junction above ground, and have on many occasions strode off down one street thinking it was another. Bank tube station also comes out onto a nasty junction - the Bank of England/Mansion house 7-road junction (well at least some of the exits do, just to make it even worse) and can easily bamboozle the casual user.

So a bit like the idea that they used to hang criminals at crossroads so that the spirit if it came back it would be so confused about directions it couldn't come back and avenge the death, perhaps any wandering spirits get 'caught' in the bank/monument station system and can't easily get out. Hardly a nice place to be, hence they become resentful and negative, which then gets picked up by the living. Sort of an accidental spirit trap.

DDT
 
pixibelle said:
My hubby works for LU - I will ask him if he has any spooky tales.
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Lu is UL backwards. Coincidence? I think not....
 
Look I know this is slightly off topic, but it is London based and this thread seems to be occupied by either Londoners or Ex Londoners, so please stick with it.

I am an Aussie and lived in London for a total of 6 years 1995-97 and 1999 - 2003. I love London and consider it to be my true home. Anyway being a fortean I used to work around London and spot famous sites of hauntings, murders and mysteries. It helped that I lived betweeb Barbican and Spitalfields for much of this time, and that area really has the Vybe !!!

Anyway I used to walk a lot a round the City/Clerkenwell/Holborn area(yes I used the tube, love the tube, know the map off by heart and also grumble about the tube). Now the point of my posting is this. Over near Smithfield just around the corner from St Barts hospital ( Newgate prison) near Pie corner ( where the great fire stopped), is Cock Lane, which is famous for the Cock Lane Ghost, which was the first heavily covered poltergiest case in history. I would walk past that house every couple of weeks and marvel that I was in touch with such a famously Fortean building. Fortean Times even did an article on the house and had a photograph on the house as it was today in comparison with an 18th century engraving done at the tim eof the haunting.

Now just before I left London in early 2003 I took a walk down Cock lane to say good bye, not knowing when I would again return to my beloved London and the lane. I was shocked to find that the house had been demolished . I called the Fortean Times to alert them to the situation, I was assured that it would be looked into and promptly left London to say good-bye to old mates up north .

I have never missed an edition of FT in over 11 years and no one has mentioned it destruction in the FT or anywhere else that I have looked.

What I want to know is did I imagine this ? Did I walk down CockLane in some timeslip that threw me way way into the future and that it is still there ? Do the FT staff think I was Hoaxing them or perhaps that I am mad.

Can someone please take a look down Cock lane for me and see if I imagined this or if I am sadly correct. I hope Iam mistaken, as I would hate to think that people would destroy an 18th century house in the centre of London especially one with such an historic slant to it.

For more on the Cock Lane Ghust and responses to this query see:
https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...ane-ghost-scratching-fanny-london-1762.27728/

Btw my top ten list of creepy Tube stations in no particular order are:

Baker Street (too much history)

Pimlico (always empty when I went through)

Gloucester Rd (never could put my finger on it)

Farrington ( its the area)

Hamstead (plauge pits, deep tunnels)
Chalk farm ( smell of damp, and a hellish northern line wind)
Camden (see chalk farm)
Kingscross (obvious really)
[/b]
Holland Park (not sure why, there is something about the lift to me and the platform

Goodge Street (never been able to put my finger on it

runners up
Aldgate East (always gave me the willies)

Whitechapel ( goes for the whole area)

[/list]
 
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Next Tuesday, Halloween, 11pm, Ch 5: Ghosts Of The London Underground! :D
 
Cool!

Ghosts on The Underground (Documentary)

Time - 23:00 - 00:00 (1 hour long)
When - Tuesday 31st October on five

Documentary about unexplained phenomena experienced by staff and passengers on the London Underground network. One billion people a year descend 150 feet below London, to the tunnels and stations of the tube, without a second thought for the thousands of graves, church crypts, and plague pits that the tube has disrupted over its 100 years. Featuring previously unheard accounts from people who work on the network, drivers, station staff and workers.
(Stereo, Subtitles)
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I'm deffo looking forward to this - wasn't it supposed to be shown ages ago?
 
The program was pretty good, I thought. A couple of the stories had been mentioned on this thread, but most of it was new to me.
I really liked the visuals of the empty tube tunnels and corridors, very nice.
 
Enjoyed it too. VERY spooky place when no one is about. Can you imagine having the job of "tunnel walking" ? Walking down those tunnels between stations alone... shudders lol
 
Aye, not a job for the faint-hearted.

Especially if you bump into a spook with a tilley lamp....

:shock:
 
i watched it and enjoyed it very much. i certainly wouldnt want the job of a line walker! the infasound info was very interesting, cant infasound also cause mild visual anomalies? the electric chair in the window was a bit silly, spoiled the rest of the show imho, it was some advert/poster/whatever, maybe for heavy metal album? or movie? overall VERY good!
 
I watched it, but it wasn't scary enough for my liking as it was almost on par with "Most Haunted".

And that guy measuring "infra-sound" :wtf:
 
I liked the program, and I will keep my eyes peeled more when on my daily underground jaunt.

Funny that they didn't mention Aldwych :?:
 
Not bad, quite interesting, but was it directed and produced by a bunch of aspiring art students? I ask this because of the over-use of exceedingly irritating background music and 'arty farty' visuals.

Why can't they just let such programmes 'speak for themselves' - ie conduct interviews with no unusual camera angles, interviewee placements, etc and what's wrong with just listening to the normal sounds (if any) of an empty tube station or tunnel? That would be FAR more real and hence more creepy and involving than some added on soundtrack.
 
good point, i found myself watching the backgrounds instead of the person interviewed, i half expected a CGI ghost to appear (i didnt see anytihng btw).
 
I thought this whole infra-sound gubbins was a bit far-fetched too - what the hell was that all about? I presumed they had to add a scientific or skeptical element to the programme but that was just a bit daft. Surely though, he would pick up on the vibrations of trains, rather than the electromagnetic fields? Or maybe I missed something somewhere!
 
Another strange point:- There were a few references to CCTV operators seeing phantoms on the platforms etc, why wasn't this footage aired?
 
Something the better half pointed out was that all the interviewees worked on the Underground - there were no average joes lending their stories. Now fair enough, these people work there for a living and are more susceptible to see or hear something - especially at night when stations are shut - but I would have expected some members of the general public to have lended their experiences too.

Although on the whole I did enjoy the programme.
 
Assuming, of course, that ordinary Joe realises he's seen something unusual.
The reason that most of these encounters were so strange was that no-one else should have been around, that was what made them stand out.
Personally, on the tube, I'm in a little world of my own, as are plenty of other people - not many people make eye contact, listening to I-pods etc, all manner of bizarre stuff could be going on around and it wouldn't be noticed!!
 
I used to work in London during the 80s.
That picture of the guy in the electric chair rang a bell. I'm sure I've seen it as a poster before because at the time I thought the sparks looked a bit too photoshoppy. I don't know why they stopped at mme Tussaud's in the investigation, there are loads of attractions that could have used that kind of imagery.

Any updates on this?
 
jimv1 said:
I used to work in London during the 80s.
That picture of the guy in the electric chair rang a bell. I'm sure I've seen it as a poster before because at the time I thought the sparks looked a bit too photoshoppy. I don't know why they stopped at mme Tussaud's in the investigation, there are loads of attractions that could have used that kind of imagery.
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As i recall, they proved the chair was from Tussauds, but the photo with the "poster" on had electricity coming from the chair arms, so i think that points to poster (i doubt ghosts airbrush electricity in lol). The movie "shocker" comes to mind, as do many 80s heavy metal albums. the prob with movie posters, is they change, so the poster if diff to the vid rental release, diff for the sell-thru, diff for the dvd etc etc.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098320/ << shocker, very diff poster to the one in the documentry, but i bet a movie like this.
 
I seem to remember it being for some tourist attraction...maybe the ghost train at Brighton Pier or something like that.
 
I've just read the entirety of this thread for the first time and found it very interesting, especially as I am going to the UK next week - a bit morbid I guess, I am terrified of the tube at the best of times. But that stems from a moderate dose of claustrophobia.

The only wierd thing that has happened to me on the tube (and really only half the story happened to me) was that three years ago my partner and I were in London, meeting up with my (Aussie) friend in London for drinks. Unfortunately, on the way home we were delayed three hours at Liverpool St. Station, because someone had thrown themselves on the tracks (fatally). Now my partner went back to London last year (without me - I had to study). And he met up with the same friend in London for drinks. You can guess what's coming. Another person had thrown themselves on the tracks, and no trains were running from Liverpool St. to Southend. The bf had to pay 120 pounds for a cab fare home (Iwas livid). I guess it is no big coincidence given the number of train related suicides, but we have a running joke that we had better not meet the above-mentioned friend in London for drinks anymore!
 
I'm interested to hear about this electric chair ghost people have mentioned. Could someone please post a link to it?

It was on a tv program back in the 90s (schofield's quest) and it was shown along with the 'log cabin'-'open door' photo. I'd like to see it again.
 
~I was just about to post that the Electric Chair pic was on the excellent Schofield's Quest. Essential Sunday evening viewing in the mid-90s!

Taken from one of the links earlier in the thread...anyone know anything more of this story...

CRYSTAL PALACE - a ridiculous story involving a teenage girl, walking in a park, falling down a shaft. She apparently landed in the car from the 1864 pneumatic tube railway, which contained the skeletons of dead passengers.
 
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