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The Nameless Thing Of Berkeley Square

GNC said:
if you like to watch Robert Morley being silly.
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I gather Morley was content to be just very silly, as long as the shoot was within reach of his fine-dining holes.

Those cuisine-related rôles were custom-built! My poodles! :willy:
 
GNC said:
It's like Joe Dante says, just put a content warning on everything made before 2020.
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Ironic, considering how toxic 2020 has been!
 
JamesWhitehead said:
I gather Morley was content to be just very silly, as long as the shoot was within reach of his fine-dining holes.

Those cuisine-related rôles were custom-built! My poodles! :willy:
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I remember seeing a clip of him exercising his expert knowledge of puddings and desserts. These days he'd be hounded by his GP.
 
IbisNibs said:
Ironic, considering how toxic 2020 has been!
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You can either choose to be offended all the time, or you can say, que sera, sera, and save the outrage for the stuff that deserves it. But we're getting off topic - maybe the Ghost of Berkeley Square was narked at something it saw on Twitter?
 
I was looking for stories of Eagles carrying away children for another thread and dug out Strange Victoriana (Tale of the Curious, the Weird and the Uncanny from our Victorian ancestors) by Jan Bondeson (2016). The book devoted nine pages to the Ghost of Berkeley Square, sensationalised in Mayfair Magazine in 1879. A quick skim through: housemaid staying at no.50 went mad with fright, a gentleman who didn't believe in ghosts stayed in same room and found dead etc. Notes & Queries, a weekly magazine devoted to antiquarian pursuits, picked up the story and claimed the house's haunted reputation was already established by 1872. Elliott O'Donnell, celebrated ghost hunter, then wrote a book in 1923 Ghosts Helpful and Harmful where he introduced the story of two cockney sailors Bert and Charlie entering the house and getting a scare. Bert shinned down the drain-pipe, Charlie was found the next wandering around Berkeley Square in a state of insanity (it was Bert who related the tale). In O'Donnells book Ghosts of London (1933), the sailors Bert and Charlie were now Bill and Mick - Mick jumped headlong out of the window after encountering the ghastly horror and broke his neck whilst Bill ran away and found a policeman. This changed again in O'Donnell's re-telling of the story in Phantoms of the Night (1956).
In 1907, the ghost hunter Charles Harper introduced the idea that the secret of the house was a deranged lunatic shut up in one of the rooms by his brother, a Major Du Pre. In 1928 a correspondent to the Daily Mirror helpfully corroborated the story and Harry Price, ghost hunter,
discussed the Electric Horror of Berkeley Square at length and offered to investigate any troublesome poltergeists for Maggs Bros, the Antiquarian booksellers on the site from 1938-2015. Maggs Bros reported no ghostly activity during their tenure - in fact no resident had ever reported any kerfuffle during their period of occupancy. The list of additions to the story of the Nameless Horror covered another 4 pages of Jan Bondeson 's book. Unbelievable though it may sound, contributions from the internet really didn't clear the waters.
As to the origins of the story; according to an account in Notes & Queries, an anthology of spooky tales called Twilight Stories by Lady Rhoda Broughton had been published. One story 'The Truth , the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth' published in Temple Bar magazine 1868 was virtually identical to the Berkeley Square ghost story. When asked if she had based her story on the Berkeley Square haunting she replied that she had in fact heard it from informants in the country. I'm sure the legend won't go away just yet.
 
Bad Bungle said:
As to the origins of the story; according to an account in Notes & Queries, an anthology of spooky tales called Twilight Stories by Lady Rhoda Broughton had been published. One story 'The Truth , the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth' published in Temple Bar magazine 1868 was virtually identical to the Berkeley Square ghost story. When asked if she had based her story on the Berkeley Square haunting she replied that she had in fact heard it from informants in the country. I'm sure the legend won't go away just yet.
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This story is reproduced in a 20th century anthology Victorian Ghost Stories by Eminent Women Writers, edited by Richard Dalby and published by Carroll & Graf. One of my favorite ghost story anthologies.
 
MercuryCrest said:
Nice little write-up of the "history" of the Berkeley Horror: https://realhorrordiaries.blogspot.com/2023/01/horrific-hauntings-haunting-of-berkley.html
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Enjoyable write up although I disagree with this part.
However, the descriptions of the nocturnal attacker detailed in the accounts of the survivors are remarkably similar despite their encounters occurring many years apart. This factor cannot be logically reasoned thus, making this theory inconclusive. Also, the fact that people from different levels of the social hierarchy were involved in the incidents, questions the possibility of collusion or deceit
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Many of the protagonists sleep in Berkeley Square specifically in order to get themselves haunted in this famous house. Hierarchy doesn't enter into it. Everyone knows "The Haunted House".
 
I wonder if part of this is due to gas leakage from a lighting system. It would only take two people to be affected before the stories would start and from there it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,
 
Just pointing out to anyone interested in the Berkeley Square thing, according to next week's Radio Times, BBC Radio 4 is broadcasting a new 45 minute drama based on/inspired by the case. Its title is "50 Berkeley Square" and it's on Thursday 8th February at 2.15 pm, and presumably will be available on BBC Sounds. It's by Sami Ibrahim adapted from his own play which apparently premiered at Shakespeare's Globe in 2020 (who knew?). I've no idea what it is like or what approach it takes, but the Radio Times blurb reads as follows :

"London's most haunted house gives up its supernatural secrets about sweet revenge"

As far as I know, Danny Robins isn't involved lol.

RT's additional mini-review says Ibrahim's writing is "an absolute treat" and describes the play as "an early contender for best Radio drama of the year".
 
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The locus from Google Earth.

The blue plaque commemorates George Canning.

maximus otter
 
Coal said:
If it was carbon monoxide not being vented, that would do it.
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This is kind of where I was going. Houses were still lit with gas, and it wasn't the safe kind either. If a gas light was leaking and a room was filling with gas overnight, unless the windows were open, there would be a health risk, surely. And gas wasn't smelly back then, so would anyone have noticed? Opening the door to discover the victim would have meant an inrush of air that stopped those removing the body from being affected (and probably daylight so lights turned off)... Anyone else think this could have been a possibility?
 
catseye said:
This is kind of where I was going. Houses were still lit with gas, and it wasn't the safe kind either. If a gas light was leaking and a room was filling with gas overnight, unless the windows were open, there would be a health risk, surely. And gas wasn't smelly back then, so would anyone have noticed? Opening the door to discover the victim would have meant an inrush of air that stopped those removing the body from being affected (and probably daylight so lights turned off)... Anyone else think this could have been a possibility?
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Yes. I often think that my childhood headaches were caused by a faulty gas- fired back boiler and/or lack of air.
 
Another version of the tale of the two sailors who squatted at 50 Berkley Square (the first version I ever read) had one of the sailors jump in terror from the bedroom window only to be impaled on the railing spikes below. I read that version in about 1980 when Fortean type books could be found more more easily in high street shops but sadly I can't remember the title of the book.

The problem with the sailors anecdote is that they were said to have forced a window to have gained access so to have done that, and assuming that the railings shown in Maximus Otter's streetview picture above were in situ back them, how did they even reach a window? (they broke in from the rear of the building?). If the railing weren't there back then, how could one of the sailors become impaled on one?.
 
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Swifty said:
Another version of the tale of the two sailors who squatted at 50 Berkley Square (the first version I ever read) had one of the sailors jump in terror from the bedroom window only to be impaled on the railing spikes below. I read that version in about 1980 when Fortean type books could be found more more easily in high street shops but sadly I can't remember the title of the book.

The problem with the sailors anecdote is that they were said to have forced a window to have gained access so to have done that, and assuming that the railings shown in Maximus Otter's streetview picture above were in situ back them, how did they even reach a window? (they broke in from the rear of the building?). If the railing weren't there back then, how could one of the sailors become impaled on one?.
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I would assume that once you are inside, it is a lot easier to open windows in order to jump out of them... not that I believe it happened (or at least not as described).
 
Swifty said:
Another version of the tale of the two sailors who squatted at 50 Berkley Square (the first version I ever read) had one of the sailors jump in terror from the bedroom window only to be impaled on the railing spikes below. I read that version in about 1980 when Fortean type books could be found more more easily in high street shops but sadly I can't remember the title of the book.

The problem with the sailors anecdote is that they were said to have forced a window to have gained access so to have done that, and assuming that the railings shown in Maximus Otter's streetview picture above were in situ back them, how did they even reach a window? (they broke in from the rear of the building?). If the railing weren't there back then, how could one of the sailors become impaled on one?.
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The thing is - they both died. So how does anyone know that they 'jumped in terror'? Maybe they realised they were being suffocated and jumped out - in self preservation?

I hardly imagine they were doing interviews from their position dying, impaled on railings.
 
catseye said:
The thing is - they both died. So how does anyone know that they 'jumped in terror'? Maybe they realised they were being suffocated and jumped out - in self preservation?

I hardly imagine they were doing interviews from their position dying, impaled on railings.
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I suppose if, and it's a big if, one of them had ended up impaled on the railings, someone would have alerted the police. Only one of them in the version I read was reported as impaled.
 
I'm going with the first two deaths being genuine deaths in the room. Everything else has been hyperbole and talked up incidents which may or may not have happened (and certainly may not have happened in the house in question).
 
Swifty said:
Another version of the tale of the two sailors who squatted at 50 Berkley Square (the first version I ever read) had one of the sailors jump in terror from the bedroom window only to be impaled on the railing spikes below. I read that version in about 1980 when Fortean type books could be found more more easily in high street shops but sadly I can't remember the title of the book.

The problem with the sailors anecdote is that they were said to have forced a window to have gained access so to have done that, and assuming that the railings shown in Maximus Otter's streetview picture above were in situ back them, how did they even reach a window? (they broke in from the rear of the building?). If the railing weren't there back then, how could one of the sailors become impaled on one?.
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Assuming that the tale is true - ! - many of the UK’s iron railings were sacrificed in the war to kid people into thinking they were helping assist the war effort.

maximus otter
 
Swifty said:
I suppose if, and it's a big if, one of them had ended up impaled on the railings, someone would have alerted the police. Only one of them in the version I read was reported as impaled.
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I'm having flashbacks now to a photo of a kid in (I think New York?) who had a railing impaled through his cheek.
 
Floyd1 said:
I'm having flashbacks now to a photo of a kid in (I think New York?) who had a railing impaled through his cheek.
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Which cheek? Top left, top right, bottom left or bottom right?
 
maximus otter said:
Assuming that the tale is true - ! - many of the UK’s iron railings were sacrificed in the war to kid people into thinking they were helping assist the war effort.

maximus otter
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Might have happened between the wars?
 
A BBC Radio 4 drama on the subject is playing RIGHT NOW! :omg:

50 Berkeley Square

London’s most haunted house prepares to give up its secrets in Sami Ibrahim’s ghost story about sweet revenge.

Inspired by the urban myths surrounding this notorious location, the story twists and turns, starting out in the realms of the supernatural before morphing into something entirely more intriguing.
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