28th November 2003

Our November event featured a trip to both Minsden Chapel and the Lilley Arms and despite fears over the weather a large turn out of members donned wellies and torches for a night time trek across muddy farmers fields in the wilderness near Stevenage. The chapel is haunted by a phantom monk, which was photographed in 1907. The monk is traditionally said to appear at midnight on all Hallows Eve to the Northeast of the chapel. Some witnesses have heard faint music from the chapel, Peter Underwood the once president of a Ghost Club spent a vigil here and heard the sound of distant music, he also witnesses a white glowing cross on one of the walls, which disappeared and then reappeared. The ruin is remote, very atmospheric and was well worth a visit, although it is in a dangerous condition and we had to be aware of falling masonry.

The chapel, now a ruin is made of flint nodules and dates back to the 14th Century, when it was a stop off point on the pilgrim route to St Albans Abbey. By the 17th Century the chapel was a picturesque ruin, which was still used by those of a more romantic disposition for weddings. By 1725 the bells had been robbed from the chapel and the danger of falling masonry had put an end to the open-air marriages.

In the early part of the twentieth century the chapel became linked with Reginald Hine a local historian who researched into the chapel extensively. It was during one of his visits in 1907 that his companion photographed a phantom monk coming out of the ruins. Reginald committed suicide in strange circumstances at Hitchin railway station in 1949. He calmly stepped in front of a train while in the midst of a conversation with one of his friends.

Although expectation was high on our ghost hunt nothing was caught on film at this site unlike the Lilley Arms pub in Lilley which was the next investigation to take place on the same night and where the landlady took members on a ghost tour of the premises. Here member’s cameras recorded some orbs near a doorway and a strange mist appeared on film in the barn unseen by the human eye. To add to a great evening of ghost hunting the society also made two new members on the night.