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Dunstable
Contents -- Click Site Name to view details |
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General
Benedictine Monastery Bison Hill The Black Horse Boscombe Road The Brewery House Buttercup Lane Buttertons Church Walk The Downs Garage Edward Street Friary Field Half Moon Inn Kinsgbury Court Manchester Place Middle Row Moon Wolf Nationwide The Norman King Packhorse Inn Priory Priory Church Private House Slaughterhouse The Sugar Loaf Telephone Exchange The Victoria The White Horse The White Swan |
A brief note about the area
An archaeologist frightened by a phantom monk A strange conical shaped mass beside the road A ghost that made cleaning the bar a waste of time A worker continuing his job even after death A flat so scary that the occupants fled A legless, armless, three metre tall floating figure The sound of phantom footsteps on the stairs An unseen peril that frightened a German Shepherd Something that frightened a guard dog A ghost in black that haunted a flat A place with a depressing atmosphere A former public house haunted by Dick Turpin A ghost that visits the toilet A dart playing ghost Lots of poltergeist activity A flirtatious ghost named ‘George' The White Lady A lot of poltergeist activity The ghost of a dead cricketer Sally the Witch who came back from the dead A canon who still walks the route he walked in life Odd happenings connected to stolen gravestones A slaughterman who was himself slaughtered The ghost of a suicide victim The ghost of a worker killed in an accident The ghost of an injured stable boy A ghost that follows you home A ghost seen on CCTV but not recorded |
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Dunstable grew up as a small settlement named Durocobrivis, where the Roman roads of Icknield Way and Watling Street met. In Saxon times the Romans abandoned the settlement and Dunstable was established by Henry I as a new market town. Henry granted the town to the Augustinian priory that he had established there in 1131.
There were once two monasteries in Dunstable. The first lay to the south of the present Priory Church and a second was discovered opposite the gates to Priory Gardens, near the area now occupied by Ashton Square. An archaeological excavation was undertaken which was overseen by a County Archaeologist from Bedford who stayed in a caravan on the site.
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If you leave Dunstable heading along the Tring Road (B489) you will eventually come to an island with Eaton Bray to your right and Dagnall and Whipsnade to your left. If you turn left (on to the B4506) you will reach a turning on your left for Whipsnade. This is the B4540. This road stays fairly level for nearly three hundred metres then rises rapidly as it climbed Bison Hill. It is at the point where the climb starts that Mr E. Bennett and his fifteen year old daughter Mandy experienced something they would find it hard to forget. They were heading home to Hill Grove in Whipsnade and were nearing the bottom of Bison Hill when a conical shaped mass rose out of the grass verge twenty metres in front of them. It grew until it was 1.8 metres high then it seemed to vanish through the hedge beside the road. When they reached the vanishing point they found there was no gap in the hedgerow for anything to have gone through.
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The Black Horse public house stood on the north side of West Street, but it has now gone. When it was open, things had a habit of moving themselves from the place where you left them. In the cellar, if you put something down, the lights would go off, and by the time they came back on the object had moved. Tidying up the bar at night became somewhat of a waste of time, because by the morning everything would be found in disarray.
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At one time a large office block in Boscombe Road Dunstable was used as the administrative side of the Chrysler truck division. The upper floor of the building was used by the Production Control Department with the southeast part being assigned to Parts Control Analysis, a department tasked with getting the goods from outside manufacturers into the plant, those responsible being called Chasers. On night Reg Dunn was working alone in the department when he sensed a presence at the top of the stairs. He was so terrified that he locked himself in a small office and telephoned the security staff to come and help him get out of the building. From then on several strange things happened in the building. This included the sound of typing heard by a security guard coming from the empty office block. The guard was eventually found collapsed in a doorway by one of his colleagues and from then on he refused to go alone into the building. On another occasion a new security guard met a man descending the stairs and tried to talk to him but he got no response. When he saw the Duty Chaser he remarked how miserable the other chaser was to be told that there was no one else in as the other Chaser was in the Midlands. Another Dunn, this time David, was alone in the building at 02:00 when the temperature suddenly dropped and he watched as the office swing door open and closed by itself followed a few seconds later by another further away doing the same as if someone had walked through them.
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The Brewery House at one time was, as the name suggests, a brewery, conveniently placed directly opposite a Methodist Chapel. Later it became flats until it was demolished in 1974 and a public house built on the site. This was initially named the Chiltern then the Priory and is now empty and boarded up awaiting another incarnation. When it was flats it came with a ghost.
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Dunstable's strangest ghost story must come from Buttercup Lane. In March 1999 two men, Martin Leach and Richard Wright, were walking along a narrow footpath (the Icknield Way) that leads from Canesworde Road on to the Dunstable Downs. They suddenly saw something which Martin later described. “It was white at first, then it turned black, it had a big hat, like a trilby, and glided about eighteen inches off the ground, it didn't have features like a person, it was about eight to ten feet tall and very broad.” Robert added his own comments. “It didn't have any arms or legs but was wearing a large hat and it floated rather than moved.”
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Buttertons, formerly in Middle Row on High Street South, is like a lot of shops in that area, in that it occupies an old building which has two entrances, one on the High Street and the second in Ashton Square. Like a lot of old buildings this one has a resident ghost which has not been seen but has been heard. The ghost is heard walking up and down the stairs; though, from the sound, it is felt that there could be more than one ghost.
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Church Walk is a narrow footpath that runs from the High Street towards the Priory Church. It was once known as Corpse Walk, as it was the route by which coffins would be taken to the Priory Church. Fifty years ago the path, which runs between buildings, was very dark, only being lit by a couple of feeble gas lamps, and most people would avoid using it if they could.
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At the foot of the Dunstable Downs, not seventy-five metres from the Whipsnade Road, lies the Down Garage. In 1970 Bill Howe, his Wife Ann and George Hammond took over the running of the garage and at first everything seemed normal. The first hint that everything was not right came from Tricia Hambling who was secretary there in 1972. Sometimes Tricia had worked late and when she did she felt as if someone was following her around but there was never anyone there. Nothing else seemed to happen until the early part of 1975 when it became evident that something was not quite right. One night Ann Howe was cleaning out the tea machine in the workshop when she distinctly heard footsteps walking across the floor towards her. She was rather surprised when she looked round and found no one there. At first she thought it was here husband playing tricks on her so she called out for him to stop but she received no reply.
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Number 49 Edward Street was once the site of an old building with a haunted reputation. Now the house has gone and has been replaced by a more modern mid-terraced building containing flats.
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Before part it became covered in houses and the rest turned into a park, Friary Field had a reputation for being haunted but the details seem to have been lost over the centuries. In the early 1900s the area was noted for its depressing and unnerving atmosphere. Archaeological work on the site unearthed two skeletons and evidence that it was once a Roman burial ground. The two skeletons were unusual as they seem not to have been buried but just thrown into a ditch.
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At one time a building on the southwest side of the London Road, as it leaves Dunstable, was used as the Half Moon Inn (conveniently situated almost opposite Half Moon Lane) and remained as such until 1914. Within the building there is a room that was said to have been haunted by Dick Turpin (along with countless other sites across the three counties area). When this haunting originated is no longer known, nor is the time when the ghost was last seen.
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At one time Kingsbury Court was a large house in Church Street, Dunstable. Now it is a doctor's surgery (Kingsbury Court Surgery) and housing. The site was previously a hunting lodge of Henry I. At one time there stood in the garden a well used Georgian lavatory which seems to have been haunted. Late at night a shadowy figure would be seen making its way to the toilet from the house but it was never seen to return.
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At the Dunstable Young People's Centre in Manchester Place members of staff report that sometimes, when they are in the building on their own, they have heard strange noises but when they investigate there is nothing there. Whilst typing they have noticed someone walk passed even though the building was locked and there should have been no one there. One night the building was locked up yet the next morning a dozen darts were found stuck high up in a wall in the Project Office. Six members of the team have keys to the building but none of them returned the previous night and the building is alarmed (all of the doors are lockable including the internal ones). In addition things regularly move. The front door has been heard to open (it is difficult to open without making a noise) followed by footsteps crossing the wooden floor of the hall yet there is no one there. One morning when one of the team members entered his office he found the glass in the emergency key holder had been smashed yet, once more, no one had been in there and no one could have had access to the area. Most of the strange happenings occur in the Project Office as well as in the Hall and the front door area.
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Number 26 Middle Row (High Street South) was at one time occupied by a gift shop known as Inspired. Like other shops in the area this particular one was the site of some strange happenings. Jean, the mother of one of the owners, Samantha, had seen the lights flicker whilst bamboo wind chimes were making noises as if being moved by a strong wind but at the time all the doors were shut. She also heard her name called when no one else was in the building. In addition a statue had been seen to fly through the air and smash itself on the floor.
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Number 14 in West Street was, at one time, occupied by a New Age shop called Moon Wolf, and by the ghost of a man named George. It seems that George was carrying on from where he left off in life, as George was a flirtatious ghost. He was definitely attracted to any female visitors to the premises and made himself felt in several ways; he had also been seen on more than one occasion. When the shop was first opened, about five years ago, the female owners became aware of George very soon after they moved in. It seems that he would comb their hair, or pull it, and was even known to sit in their laps.
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The Nationwide Building Society occupies number twenty on High Street North and is the home of the White Lady. She has been seen several times walking around the upper floors, but no one knows who she is or why she haunts that particular building.
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The Norman King looks like it has been around for a long time, which it has,k but not as a public house. Originally it was a barn belonging to Kingsbury Farm (in those days Kingsway, or as it was originally Kings Way, which runs past the pub from Church Street, had not been built and wasn’t until the 1930s). Later the building became stables and was converted into a public house at the same time, 1959, that the farm was converted into the Palace Lodge Hotel.
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In 1970 a taxi driver was on his way to collect a fare and was passing a spot near the Packhorse Inn on the A5 when he received a sudden fright. A tall man, reported to be about one hundred and eighty centimetres tall, wearing white clothes stepped right in front of the cab. “I braked, but was going too fast and went straight through him. I pulled up and spent some time trying to find the man but there was no one in sight.” When the report appeared in the local paper several other motorists came forward to say that they had seen the same figure dressed in white.
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Burials have not been permitted at the Priory Church in Dunstable for some time over concerns of releasing an evil that is buried there. A long time ago a witch call Sally was burnt at the stake along with her cat and broomstick but she returned to haunt the priory which stood on the site where the Priory church now stands. Ghostly hands would box the monks around their ears and the altar candles would burn with an evil green light. If Sally's ghostly fingers touched the prayer books the covers would be singed.
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In the Priory Church there occasionally appears the ghost of a canon or a former prior. The ghost first appears in the southwest corner of the church, as if he has just walked through the wall from where the Prior's house used to stand. Turning to the right, he walks along the south aisle of the church until just before the Lady Chapel. He then turns to the left and walks along the front of the church, stopping to genuflect in the direction where the original altar would have stood. Finally, he turns to the right and walks through the east wall of the church. Originally, the wall divided the public part of the church (the part that still exists) from the chancel which lay to the east, as the church was almost twice the length it is now. The ghost may be seen to pass through the wall but he has never been seen on the other side, in what is now the churchyard. The ghost is said to have done the walk eight times in a day, at each of the daily offices.
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The following strange events were first reported to thisisdunstable, Dunstable's online community.
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The area now occupied by The Freedom Salon in Ashton Square was once the site of a slaughterhouse, complete with ghost. It was believed that the ghost was that of a slaughterman, who was killed by a bull, which had decided to reverse the normal roles.
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It is reported that on 2009 the ghostly figure of a man was seen in the bar area of the Sugar Loaf. It is claimed that the ghost is the unhappy spirit of a man who committed suicide by hanging himself from a rafter in one of the upstairs rooms. It is not known who the man was or why he took his life.
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At one time there was a malthouse in Manchester Place in Dunstable where, so local legend has it, a workman was killed in an accident and soon after the sound of ghostly footsteps was heard. The malthouse was eventually demolished and in 1959 a telephone exchange was built on the site. Despite the building change the haunting has continued. Members of staff working late at night or on their own have reported hearing footsteps when there was no one there to have made them.
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At the Victoria Public House, in West Street, there may be seen the ghost of a stable boy with an injured hand. The stable block stands at the back of the pub and it is this area that he haunts. It appears that he dates from Victorian times, and it is said that he trapped his hand in the stable door. No one knows why he haunts the area, but it may be that the injury prevented him from working, which in those days could have resulted in him starving to death. It is also possible that it was not the injury itself which killed him but complications, like an infection, which in those days could have been lethal.
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This ghost is slightly unusual in that it is said to have originated in the White Horse public house in Dunstable but it later followed someone home and resided with them instead.
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At the White Swan public house, on High Street South, the bar is monitored by security cameras, which are linked to a screen in the living quarters upstairs. On the screen, there has regularly appeared the image of someone walking through the bar, but when you go downstairs there is no one there. Not only is there no one in the bar but, if you play the tape back, you will find that the figure was not recorded, yet he was clearly seen.
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