Essex Ghosts

Our Spirits
are in
another
Dimension

Spirits
from the passed
life

Paranormal
Research

THE GHOSTLORE OF ESSEX.
Student Parapsychology Society.

It is quite normal for us to hear stories of ghosts haunting ancient churches, stately homes and dark eerie woods. How much more frightening however when the spirits of the unquiet dead manifest in our day to day workplaces and modern well-lit homes? Essex is a county which contains much that is ancient and much that is modern; sometimes the line between the past and present blurs as these stories show.

Basildon is one of the country's newest towns and among its ordered estates of neat and ultra-modern housing, its shopping malls and fast-food restaurants we are unlikely to think of shades of the dead. Yet this does not prevent them from thinking of us, for Basildon hosts not one but two ghosts. For many years the youth of Basildon would make the 'Ambassador Bowling Club a social rendezvous. There they could chat, relax and play ten pin bowling, passing away their evenings in carefree amusements.

The 'Ambassador' however had one attraction which was probably unique amongst all bowling venues in Britain, for this modern building of polished wood and shining metal was most certainly haunted!!!

Bowling venues are of course arranged into alleys, down which a heavy ball is flung to knock over pins (like skittles) at the far end. At least that's the idea. This requires considerable skill and a certain strength, yet one evening in the late sixties an employee at the centre was startled to hear the rolling of a ball down Alley number 17, which he knew to be not in use. He turned round, and immediately saw there was no-one at all at the end of the room. Before his startled gaze the ball smashed into the pins, sending them tumbling. A fine score... by a ghost?

No one would take the idea of the haunting seriously, however until one evening some time later. The customers had all left some two hours before, and all the power had been disconnected for an equal length of time, when suddenly the pin setting equipment which replaces them ready for the next barrage of bowls started up of its own accord, setting up alley number... 17. Sure now something strange was occurring; it came as no great surprise shortly afterwards when staff and customers alike began to see a ghostly figure dressed in blue workman's overalls staring down the haunted alley.

The reader may find it hard to believe in a haunted bowling alley, but the history of this site is interesting. Long before developers dreamt up how Basildon would look an isolated country farm stood on this site, and it was at this farm that a terrible double murder occurred before the first world war. Some might say that the spot was cursed, for in 1940 a young man hanged himself here at the farm. It is interesting to speculate as to whether either case adequately explains the haunting or whether there is something mysterious about the very location.

Basildon's other ghost is far more traditional in his habitat. The Church of the Holy Cross is the oldest building in the town, dating from the fourteenth century. The graveyard is said to be the haunt of a monk in burgundy robes, who walks across the road and vanishes. This spectre has been seen many time by locals but no one really knows who he was in life, although one story suggests he was murdered near the Church in the sixteenth century. More eerie was the experience of George, an employee of the Mobil Oil Corporation's Refinery at Coryton, near Southend-on-Sea. It was a cold December night and George was still working at 8pm long after his colleagues had left. The great metal oil tanks and pipelines lend the complex a modern, almost science-fiction feel and ghosts were the last thing on his mind when he climbed into the cab of an oil tanker lorry to get out of the cold wind. He had just settled himself when he heard footsteps coming down the road towards him. Knowing he was supposed to be alone in the plant, but relieved at the prospect of some company to dispel the boredom, he leant out of the cab and bellowed a cheerful "Hullo". The footsteps continued, yet there was no reply. In the dark night he made out the mysterious intruder who was walking towards him, just over twenty feet away. The man was not tall but was quite heft and for the first time George felt a thrill of fear. Who was the stranger and why did he not reply to his greeting? "Who is it?" he tried, but the man, who he now saw to be dressed in blue coveralls and white steel safety helmet continued to advance. George was a brave man and knew he had to challenge the trespasser. He ran towards the man, shouting and as he approached him... he was gone. Vanished without a trace. A very shaken George called up security and also wrote a report for his boss, but they knew the story already the site was haunted they patiently explained.

The story is that in the 1950s when the site was owned by Cory Brothers (a firm of fuel distributors) one of the night-watchmen had slipped and fallen into a separator tank, a machine which cleans the oil from the effluent. There he drowned in the disgusting oil dregs; his body being found far too late. Ever since that time he has been glimpsed by workers at the plant.

Essex is best known as witch country but it has many other ghost stories, and many are almost as modern as the oil plants. Clacton-on-Sea is still a popular holiday resort and for many years was the home to a large Butlins Holiday Camp, now sadly gone as the fashion has changed and cut-price holidays abroad have made the site unprofitable. The camp's grand Ballroom at the site still however remains and so quite possibly does the ghost of a soldier killed in an off-duty drunken brawl here many years ago.

As can be seen, the onset of modern technology and electric lighting has not quite dispelled all the shadows which haunt our forefathers. Some however have succumbed. For many years the charming village of Hatfield Peverel (near Chelmsford) was haunted by the apparition of a great black dog, perhaps the 'Old Shuck' or 'Galleytrot' of East Anglian legend. This particular demonic dog was however harmless, content to pad its way from one gate of 'Crix House' to the other, frightening small children and hapless tourists. One day a local lad driving back from the market decided to liven the old beast up and try to rouse it to the supernatural ire of its Suffolk and Norfolk cousins. He did this by giving the poor beast a firm slap across its hindquarters with a riding crop. The ghost dog just turned and glared at him with a hurt expression on his face, to his amusement and that of the onlookers. But they laughed too soon, for at that moment a lightening bolt shot down from the sky and fried the Carter, burning him to a crisp.

After the villagers wisely decided that it was best to leave the ghost hound to its own devices and so he continued padding away until a fateful day early this century. A new invention, the motor car, had found its way onto the quiet lanes of rural Essex and many villagers turned out to see the wonder. In the distance the roar of the engine was heard, growing louder and everyone peered merrily into the distance for the first glimpse of the machine. Everyone apart from the ghost dog, who placed his tail firmly between his legs and partially covered his eyes with his big shaggy paws. Nearer and nearer it came, until suddenly the roaring car hurtled into the village street. It was too much for the spook hound and his eyes widened in amazement as the fiendish mechanical monster bounced unsteadily down the road towards him. Just as it drew level the ghost dog let out a piteous wail and exploded into a mass of flames.

Perhaps the site of the car drove him back to Hell from whence he surely came, or perhaps he still hides in this sleepy village, occasionally petitioning his MP for pedestrianisation of the High Street or a new bypass. Whatever the cause, no one has seen him from that day to this.