Hampton Court Palace
Hampton Court Palace
Ghost Investigation at Hampton Court Palace
A brave report by Jason, following a rather hair-razing Ghost Investigation by Lisa and Jason at the very haunted Hampton Court.
Back in November 2005 ,Lisa and I visited my brother and his wife in Guildford for a few days shopping before Christmas. As an early Christmas present they gave us two tickets to the Hampton court palace “GHOST WALK !!”.
It was a cold and frosty Thursday evening when we arrived at HCP, and we were quite surprised to see about forty other people gathered outside the main gates waiting to experience any spooky goings on that night. The walk kicked off at eight o’clock and when our three guides turned up we set off.
First we passed through the grand entrance and into the main courtyard, which during the day is quite spectacular but at night it takes on an eerie magnificence with the darkened passages leading into the massive structure of the palace.
We turned left and up some stairs to what is called “The grace and favour apartments”where faithful servants of Queen and Country reside . Many of these elderly residents have had ghostly incidents,from things moving about to strange noises and even full apparitions, the apartment we stopped we were told that the old lady resident would often see a kneeling woman in the corner,who seemed to be praying,it turned out to be one of Henry VIII’s many wives apparently awaiting execution.
From there we moved to the Great hall where King Henry sat in court session and entertained visitors and guests with feasting and banquets,a truly amazing place but so spooky when they turned out the lights and we were plunged into a twilight world much like it may have been when royalty lived there five hundred years ago.It was also incredibly quiet, and although there were forty of us in the palace it was so large it didn’t feel like half as many which was great!.
We crossed the hall and went behind into King Henry’s private apartments,or to be more precise the waiting room outside His private rooms are of limits to the public at present. We took a short break here and sat on benches while the guides told some of the history of the King and the goings on in this particular area where his personal bodyguards lived and slept ready to do the Kings bidding even to the extent of sleeping in his bed to protect him from would be assassins(paranoid or what?).
It was while we were sat there that I thought I saw a ghostly shape over by the Kings bedroom door,it was as if someone was standing up which was weird because we were all sat down at the time!!,unfortunately no one else saw this so It could just be me going mad.
From the Kings apartment we set off in groups of two and three to go along the haunted gallery where the ghost of Anne Boelyn is supposed to run screaming up and down,it was made all the more atmospheric by the inclusion of flickering lanterns along the floor . Unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it we didn’t see or hear anything so we crossed the gallery followed the stairs down and passed into the ornamental gardens,which at night with a sharp frost and rising mist illuminated by a full moon was beautiful and eerie.
Out here the guides told us of an on duty policeman whose job it was to guard the rear entrance,who one night saw a group of what he thought to be late night party goers coming home across the lawns dressed in how he described as old fashioned clothes.
The mixture of men and women strangley made no sound as they crossed the gravel path,the only noise was the gentle whisk of the ladies skirts,turning to open the doors he was surprised when he turned back that all the people had mysteriously vanished.He was so disturbed that he retired his position.
After a break in the palace kitchens which included coffee and cake and a look at one of HCP’s most famous ghosts(the cctv image of possibly Henry VIII’s ghost opening a set of doors).
We continued the tour through various parts of the building all of which seemed to have strange going’s on from pictures being thrown from walls to bodies being dug up during restoration work, which seemed to be an explanation for a particular set of ghost stories.
If you want to hear more about Hampton court palaces resident ghosts I can really recommend the tour.It lasts about two hours and We thought it was excellent value for money.
To write any more may spoil your experience so I’ll finish by saying that the photo you can see on the website of the strange mist was taken at the end of the tour,everyone but Lisa,my brother,his wife and myself had gone home. Lisa was standing alone when she took the picture,the rest of us were still talking to the guides.
We couldn’t re-create the image by breathing across the camera and Lisa doesn’t smoke so we’ll leave it up to you to decide what it is.
If you have any thoughts drop the website a line .Thanks for taking the time to read this,if you want to tell us about your experiences don’t forget to fill in the form on the site .
But we couldnt just leave it there – now could we ?
😉
We asked for a professional opinion..
JASON KARL
Having studied the hauntings at Hampton Court for many years and hearing tales of more than a few ghostly goings on I am not surprised that you appear to have caught something unexplained on film.
Of course it is impossible to discount that this may be nothing more than mist or smoke but if none of these conditions were around at the time of the capture then you may indeed have caught something of real interest.