The Paranormal Database

Lord Buckhurst

Location: SW11 - Old Swan public house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: The ghost of Lord Buckhurst has not really been seen since the site was rebuilt in the 1960s.

Flashing Light

Location: SW11 - Sky above Clapham Junction (also Wimbledon)
Type: UFO
Date / Time: 1981
Further Comments: A pilot waiting for a train at Clapham Junction observed a flashing light which would periodically disappear and reappear elsewhere in the sky in an instant. The object was still visible when the pilot reached his home in Wimbledon. Now a retired training captain, the man has never been able to explain the object.

James Gully

Location: SW12 - Bedford public house
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: This building is reputed to be haunted by one Doctor James Gully, convicted when the Bedford was a courthouse in Victorian England.

Grey Haired Man

Location: SW12 - Cathles Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Early Twentieth Century
Further Comments: A grey haired old man haunted a house along the road; the ghost created so much noise that the tenant fled and was subsequently taken to court over failure to pay the rent.

Poirot

Location: SW12 - Private residence
Type: Unknown Ghost Type
Date / Time: 1970s
Further Comments: While his parents were being shown around his aunt's house, a boy spotted a man resembling Hercule Poirot standing by the front door. The man looked at the boy before ascending the staircase. The boy assumed that the man was a lodger, but many years later discovered his aunt never had tenants and no one else in the house had seen the man.

An old postcard of Barnes Common, London.

Prisoner

Location: SW13 - Barnes Common
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Prisoner and nun possibly nineteenth century, Jack in September 1837
Further Comments: Seen silently walking across the common after dusk, this man wears the classic prisoner clothing; grey with many black arrows covering it. A phantom nun was said to perform a similar act, gliding in a zig-zag fashion. The common was also the site of two Spring-Healed Jack encounters, on sequential nights; Jack first appeared to a businessman who ran away, and the second night assaulted a girl later found unconscious (her two friends ran away during the attack).

Young Soldier

Location: SW13 - Mill Hill Barracks
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late twentieth century
Further Comments: Phantom footfalls belonging to a soldier who committed suicide could be heard echoing around the accommodation block.

White Lady

Location: SW14 - Old Ranelagh and Lower Richmond Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Sobbing for the loss of her lover, this white figure is seen moving across the grounds of Ranelagh and disappearing when she reaches the road.

Figure in White

Location: SW15 - Putney Bridge
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Summer 1895
Further Comments: Newspapers reported that people were walking the bridge until the early hours of the morning attempting to see the phantom white figure which was said to have taken up residence in the area.

Ruth Ellis

Location: SW16 - Caesar's Nightclub, Streatham Hill
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1990s
Further Comments: Ruth has been named as the shady female form which gives many staff cold shivers while working alone. Echoing footsteps have also been heard down empty corridors.

Talking Nun

Location: SW16 - Coventry Hall, Hopton Road, Streatham
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Circa 1950s
Further Comments: Two nuns, walking together, would appear to haunt this building. One acting alone has appeared a couple of times standing over people's bed, blessing the occupier before vanishing. During the building work, workmen reported missing and moving tools, and strange shadows.

Knocking

Location: SW16 - Flat opposite Coventry Hall, Streatham
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: September 1962
Further Comments: Mild poltergeist activity disturbed the occupants of this flat, with knocking, the fridge opening unaided, and a hairbrush dragged over a dusty surface. One occupant blamed the haunted building across the road.

Alfred Frederick Janes

Location: SW16 - Odeon cinema (was the Streatham Astoria)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Late twentieth century
Further Comments: Alfred once owned a large house which was demolished to make way for the development of a large theatre. He died shortly after completion of the playhouse, and since then his ghost has been spotted moving around, and once was heard shouting 'I won't sell!'.

Black & White Dog

Location: SW18 - 523 Wandsworth Road
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1960s
Further Comments: The ghost of a dog killed on the road outside was seen to run though the building several times over a four month period, always vanishing through the locked back door.

Guide

Location: SW18 - Between Wandsworth Common and Victoria Station
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1890s
Further Comments: A man taking a shortcut across the common en route to Victoria station became lost. He stumbled across a fellow traveller who said he was also going to Victoria; the stranger then guided the man across the common to the station, where they both entered the same carriage. A conversation then ensured about the stranger who said that he had been robbed and stabbed in a train between London and Brighton; he promptly vanished, leaving a very startled witness behind.

Bearded Old Man

Location: SW18 - Council flat along Earlsfield Road
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: 1974
Further Comments: A family moved out after the mother saw the head and shoulders of an old man emerge from the wall in her bedroom. Prior to this, she had reported a presence which had pushed by her in the hallway and whipped off bedcovers.

Annie

Location: SW18 - Wandsworth Prison
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: Dressed in grey, Annie is sometimes seen by prisoners and staff alike drifting around the corridors of the building.

Little Girl

Location: SW19 - Hillside, Wimbledon
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 23:00h-00:00h (reoccurring)
Further Comments: This girl, thought to be pre-teens, walks across the gardens along the road, slowly fading from view before she reaches any apparent destination.

William Friday

Location: SW19 - Merton Hall
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A female guest staying at the hall reported having a quick waltz with a man dressed in blue clothing; this figure was later identified as Friday, who had died years previously.

Bob

Location: SW19 - William Hill turf accountants, Wimbledon Chase
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 1999 onwards
Further Comments: Bob once lived above the bookmarkers, and after he died, his footfalls could still be heard moving around the building at night. The lights on Bob's favourite fruit machine went out at the moment of his death.

Great Darkness

Location: SW19 - Wimbledon
Type: Other
Date / Time: 17 April 1909
Further Comments: The darkness that covered Wimbledon for ten minutes scared people into staying in their homes.

Jeremiah Abershaw

Location: SW19 - Wimbledon Common
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: late nineteenth / early twentieth century
Further Comments: No wombles here, only a ghostly padfoot looking for victims after being hanged for his crimes two hundred years ago. On two occasions the ghostly entity has been seen wearing convicts clothing. Abershaw is sometimes heard on horseback, hooves heard thumping on the ground, yet the animal never appears.

JB Mulholland

Location: SW19 - Wimbledon Theatre, Wimbledon Broadway
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Unknown
Further Comments: A former manager, Mulholland has been seen whilst sitting in the boxes, watching rehearsals. Another classic theatre ghost, a grey lady, also haunts the building, sometimes laughing to herself as she drifts through closed doors.

Woman in a Long Dress

Location: SW1A - 10 Downing Street
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: Early 1960s (male ghost)
Further Comments: The residence of the Prime Minister is home to at least four ghosts. The pillared drawing room is haunted by a woman wearing a long dress and a fabulous set of pearls, while workmen encountered a phantom male figure dressed in Regency style clothing during renovations carried out in the late 1950s and early 1960s. A ghostly little girl takes the hand of some people as they walk in the basement, and finally a man in a top hat is said to walk through the front door while it is closed!

Script Swiper

Location: SW1W - Private residence, Eaton Square
Type: Poltergeist
Date / Time: 1990s
Further Comments: Andrew Lloyd Webber claimed his former home to be haunted by a poltergeist which moved theatre scripts to different rooms. A blessing removed the entity.