Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

Struck by the horse traffic jam.

Chris from Haunted Ohio Books a world authority on ghosts (and urban legends, and fairies and…) has written in with an extract from a book entitled Familiar Spirits: Sexual Hauntings Through the Ages, Colin Waters, Robert Hale,1993, (for pdf extract click here) sexual hauntings. CW reviews the evidence but then reveals a new source ‘another nineteenth century […]

San Francisco Opium Den c. 1900.

One of the Notes and Query readers also suggested this as a parallel: a protean entity comes under a door and changes into different shapes or is perceived to do so. But first some background. Sir John Reresby (obit 1689) was a diarist who fought on the right side in the English civil war and […]

It takes about ten seconds for the colours to resolve into people.

The following passage did not take place in London, nor indeed in Britain but it has been offered as a parallel to the Cylinder case. Certainly there are interesting points in common. The author, Owen, had taken the account from the Baron de Guldenstubbé, in Paris, 11 May, 1859. In March of the year 1854, […]

Telly Tubby in the Twelfth Century

This poem appears as part of the Tower Ghost series. It appeared in an Irish paper in 1825 and was an advert for Warren’s shoe Blacking! Beach includes it because it looks very much like an outer ripple from the events of 1816. The problem is the story, which has escaped this careful reader. A […]

Not honestly sure about this one. Mum has found a human being and put hb in her baby backpack with junior?

This letter appeared in The Spectator, the British magazine, 21 August 1897. As it involves a sentinel at the Tower of London becoming ill on sighting a ghost it seems worth putting in this series. Some thirty years ago one of my brothers was quartered at the Tower with a detachment of his regiment, the […]

This is a further source for the Tower monster. It was taken from the Western Gazette, 28 Dec 1888, but the WG in turn had taken and abridged it from the Vanity Fair Christmas Supplement. Can anyone get the original and any letters from the January editions? drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com The introduction makes […]

Love the nun at the front.

This account of the Tower Monster comes from an enthusiast for magnetism, William Gregory and was published in 1851, almost a decade before the Notes and Queries material. At the trial of Queen Caroline, in 1821, the guards at the Tower were doubled, and Col. S., the keeper of the Regalia, was quartered there with […]

The place where the bears fought in London.

The very striking witness description of Swifte can, fortunately, be supplemented by a near contemporary account. This dates from January 1816: either Swifte got January and October confused or two soldiers (not one) died after seeing an apparition. The first possibility is surely more likely? For some weeks past, a family residing in the Tower […]