The Paranormal Database

Boy with Cat

Location: SE13 - Private property along Roxley Road, Lewisham
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: March 2009
Further Comments: The London Ghost Hunters group investigated this property after the owners reported strange knocking and phantom footsteps. A little boy with a cat was also spotted by one witness.

Smasher

Location: SE15 - Flat, Peckham Park Road
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: Circa June 1960 - 20 October 1960
Further Comments: A family blamed their interest in spiritualism for the poltergeist outbreak that temporarily drove them from this flat. A lamp and clock were smashed, and a heavy mirror leapt off the wall. The family's fourteen-year-old son seemed to be the target of the entity, with banging and thumping following the child. A degree of calmness returned after a visit from a medium.

Boudica's Grave

Location: SE15 - Peckham Rye Park & Common, meadow by Strakerr's Road
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Still present
Further Comments: John Chaple has written that Boudica's final battle took place here, rather than a more northern site, and that she is buried close to where she fell.

Fire Starter

Location: SE15 - Private residence, Trafalgar Avenue
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: Circa 1960s, normally around Easter
Further Comments: Graham and Vera Stringer claimed their home attracted spontaneous fires around the Easter period, with the 1962 outbreaks destroying their bed and a carpet. A medium blamed Vera's brother, who had died twenty years previous, aged eighteen months.

Blitz Victims

Location: SE15 - The King's Arms, Peckham Rye (demolished during 1990s, replaced by flats)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Between Second World War and 1990s
Further Comments: Hit by a bomb during the war, around a dozen people died in the pub, which was rebuilt soon after. The ghosts of those dead were reported to occasionally return to prop up the bar or sing wartime songs in the dead of night.

Elizabeth the Faceless Nun

Location: SE15 - The Nun's Head public house, Peckham
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This woman, her ghost showing no facial features, was executed in 1534 of treason after denouncing Henry VIII.

Floater

Location: SE15 - Tower Cinema, Peckham (now demolished, a car park built on top)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1950s
Further Comments: Several staff and workers at the cinema encountered a ghostly figure which walked 3.3 metres off the ground. Research showed that a chapel had once stood on the site, its floor 3.3 metres higher than the cinema's. It is said that during the demolition process, several workmen fled the area after encountering figures passing through walls.

Two Ladies

Location: SE15 - Unnamed residence, Queen's Road, Peckham
Type: Other
Date / Time: Circa 1905
Further Comments: After a rumour started that two ghostly white women had been seen in an empty house, people started to gather here after dark in the hope of spotting a spook. The police came to disperse the crowd. It was later said that the affair was a hoax created by two young girls.

A Murder Repeating?

Location: SE16 - New Kent Road, small park by bus stop with a subway nearby, Southwark
Type: Post-Mortem Manifestation
Date / Time: 28 October 1998, 04:30h
Further Comments: The witness to this spooky event reported hearing a man running and calling out for help along the road. Though it had been a very windy night, the gusts resided, and the rest of the road fell strangely silent except for the voice shouting for assistance. A few moments later, the witness heard a second disembodied voice say that no one could help the runner, quickly followed by the sounds of a person being tackled and a man's terrifying scream. The police were called and on the scene within 30 minutes but found no one, nor any evidence of violence. The witness was told that a murder had occurred at the park two years prior to the re-enactment.

Father Moore

Location: SE16 - St George's Cathedral, Southwark
Type: Post-Mortem Manifestation
Date / Time: 1893, 3 December 1908
Further Comments: Seen by his friend Father Wilderspin, Father Moore appeared post-mortem in 1893 shortly after his death, standing by a window. Father Wilderspin offered several Masses for Moore's soul, and the ghost was not seen again. A few years later, in 1908, Canon Cooksey saw the ghost of a man he did not recognise, though he later identified him from a photograph as a Father Ford. The Canon also found out that Ford had died at the same time as being seen.

Sad Old Lady

Location: SE16 - The Bishop's House, Southwark
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: Now exorcised, this lonely old woman would only appear in a certain room.

Reflection

Location: SE17 - Bakerloo line, Elephant & Castle and other stations along the line
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: It is reported that occasionally, while travelling northbound, some passengers can see the reflection of someone sitting next to them, even though there is no one in the seat.

Tube Traveller

Location: SE17 - Elephant & Castle Underground Station, Bakerloo line
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Woman seen late twentieth century, photograph taken in 1980s
Further Comments: Seen by both staff and commuters, this young woman enters the train's carriages, but is never seen leaving. Some also allocate the blame on the same entity when invisible footfalls create loud echoing around the station after hours.

Victorian Nurse

Location: SE18 - 33 Wollich Common (house no longer standing)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Pre-1971
Further Comments: A former owner of the property said that she had seen a ghostly woman bending over her young daughter.

White Haired Man

Location: SE18 - Council flat in Barnfield Gardens
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1970s?
Further Comments: This white haired old man with a goatee was also blamed for playing with the lights in this flat. During one sighting, the phantom was mistaken for a burglar until it walked through a wall.

Pacing

Location: SE18 - Fort Tavern, Sandy Hill Road, Woolwich
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: Footsteps have been heard many times in this drinking establishment, and the occasional strange fleeting shadow seen.

Thuds and Bangs

Location: SE18 - Presbytery and church, Plumstead
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: 1918
Further Comments: These buildings were home to a poltergeist which created footfalls around the living quarters at the dead of night and made sounds as if someone were trying to break into the church (both day and night).

White Lady

Location: SE18 - Shooter's Hill, Blackheath
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: This ghost is believed to be that of a woman who died of head trauma - a skull found in the 1830s near the site possessed a large hole caused by a blunt object. Shooter's Hill also made the news in 1963, as it was combed by police and soldiers looking for a puma-like creature that had been seen by members of the public.

Philip Rungate

Location: SE18 - Veremont House, Shooter's Hill (house name may be false)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Pre-1911
Further Comments: This house was haunted by a woman wearing a dark purple dress with an evil white face, black hair and large dark eyes. The entity was thought to be Bertha Rungate, who may have killed Philip Rungate (the nephew of her late father) after he rejected her advances over those of Bertha's governess. The haunting stopped once the body of Philip Rungate was discovered in the basement and removed from the building.

Bricked Up Train

Location: SE19 - Area below Crystal Palace Park
Type: Legend
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A local urban legend states that there is a train bricked up under the park, complete with dead passengers and crew - sometimes the hands of the dead reach up from the ground and try to grab the living. It is said that the story is based on the fact that an experimental railway was constructed here that worked by compressed air but was abandoned after failure.

Billy Callender

Location: SE19 - Crystal Palace Football Ground (Selhurst Park)
Type: Curse
Date / Time: Twentieth century
Further Comments: Callender, a goalkeeper, hanged himself in the Old Stand in 1932, after his fiance died of a disease. His form is said to linger on. The ground was also subject to a curse in the 1970s from a psychic originally called in to lay the ghost of Callender.

Daniel Philpot

Location: SE19 - Grecian Villa, Beulah Hill, Upper Norwood
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1964
Further Comments: Philpot was a stablehand who hanged himself in the villa after mounting up large gambling debts in 1846. His ghost is said to have been seen reflected in a large mirror over the mantelpiece, although he has not been seen for almost fifty years.

Young Woman

Location: SE19 - Private flat, St Valery, Beulah Hill
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1985-1988
Further Comments: Pilar Howard reported in the local paper that she had seen the ghost of a young woman while living in a flat here, and that the figure had woken her up when a fire broke out in the kitchen.

Grey Lady

Location: SE19 - Private house along Beulah Hill
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1975-1978
Further Comments: A resident of this house reported crockery rattling on the old dresser, the smell of roast beef in the cellars, the distinctive smell of carbolic soap in the annex and flowers waving in the hall as if someone were passing by. Later he learnt that several years previously that an exorcism had been conducted by the Bishop of Southwark to rid the property of a Grey Lady.

Black 'Panther' Attack

Location: SE19 - Sydenham neighbourhood
Type: ABC
Date / Time: 21 March 2005
Further Comments: Local resident Anthony Holder reported being attacked by a 1.8 metre long black cat in his back garden. The creature bit his fingers and left a large gash on his cheek before escaping. Police marksmen called to the scene found nothing.