From Southend to Basildon: Essex ghost stories of the past

With Halloween lurking around the corner as usual the focus will be on the ghosts and ghouls that are said to creep around Essex.

Our county is rich in material when it comes to ghost sightings and reports of unexplained phenomena, not to mention the haunting history of the poor women (and men) who suffered as a result of the witch trials in the 16th and 17th centuries, in fact more trials and executions for witchcraft took place in Essex than in any other county in the UK.

But there are plenty of interesting scary stories that have gone under the radar.

Halloween as a scare-fest and thrilling night of the year, is of course a relatively new phenomenon. In fact, if you go back in time and scour newspapers of Essex past you’ll find little mention of October 31 as the type of event we know today until the 1930s. Even then there was no trick or treating or fancy dress Halloween parties.

Interestingly, what you will see if you go back to Edwardian times is plenty written about ‘Malloween’ - a beauty cream that women of the age turned to to keep their complexions clear and wrinkles at bay. Nothing scary about that, except perhaps the fact your could order it in the mail for just a few pence and nobody really knew what was in this ‘miracle’ skin cream.

Yet little written about All Hallows Eve, except in a the capacity of what it originally was - a religious celebration to remember the dead.

That doesn’t mean there weren’t some chilling reports of hauntings making the rounds.

In November of 1888 Seymour House in Alexandra Road, Southend, was plagued by the sound of the servant house bells ringing constantly - yet nobody was apparently touching them. The bells- the kind of which you’d see on an episode of Downton Abbey- were operated by pulls and levers and were rung by the master or mistress of the house when a servant was required.

• READ MORE: REVEALED: The ghostly stories behind 6 of south Essex's most haunted buildings

But in this case, the cause of the hellish sounds of the bells just couldn’t be found.

Major Buller, who lived at the home with his family became so fed up with the ominous ringing he tore up the floorboard and began investigating the mechanics of the bells himself - but still he couldn’t find out why the darn things wouldn’t stop.

The terrorising tintinnabulation went on for days and not surprisingly drove everyone mad. Eventually a policeman and an engineer were called out and they investigating the disturbance themselves, but they too were baffled.

So then two clergymen were sent for After yet more investigation it was finally discovered there was no ghost in the wires. The culprit was a mischievous 14-year-old servant girl who eventually owned up to pulling the bell levers with a stick. Her names was Julie Lazell and she was promptly removed to her father’s home in Thudersley as a punishment.

She never admitted why she did it, presumably she thought it was a amusing diversion to her mundane job.

One newspaper believed her motif was revenge - because the master of the house had refused to contribute towards her ‘self denial card’.

Julie was a Salvationist and followers would often take part in self denial, where they would forsake certain foods and drinks and then give the money they’d saved to the Salvation Army church.

They would carry cards and mark off on them on a daily basis what they had forsaken and how much they had saved.

A few years later, in 1910, the ghost of a woman in white kept being seen in Rectory Grove and Eastwood Road in Leigh-on-Sea.

The phantom was witness by many residents, always late at night.

One resident was so sure of the spectre that no amount of persuasion could lead him think it was anything but a ghost.

He said: “Early one morning, about one o’clock, I was walking along Rectory Groves when I was startled to see white figure, that of a woman, approaching me.

“When it got to me I passed an arm through the figure several times, but without effect. Then I bolted for all I was worth.”

On another occasion, this time about midnight, the ghost was again seen in Eastwood Road. One spooked resident described the encounter: “I was returning home when I saw somethings all in white. It was every inch a ghost. It was making its way towards the door one of the houses on the road. I followed, but when got within a few yards the figure it vanished.”

Many theories cropped up about the Leigh ghost ranging from it being a genuine ghost to it being a local woman who was in the habit of visiting her husband’s grave at night with a white sheet draped over her head - for some reason.

By the 1960s and 1970s Halloween had become more of a ‘thing’ and more hauntings were reported.

In 1964 a hooded monk was said to be terrifying workers in Basildon. The case even made the national press.

Women night cleaners who worked at the Ford factory were actually getting too scared to go to work. They claimed to have seen the ghost more than a dozen times as they cycled home at 4 am. past Holy Cross Church in Basildon.

The monk was said to shuffle across Church Road before vanishing into the churchyard. The cleaners got to the poibnt where they only travelled home together. Rita Tobin, aged 21, of Ghyllgrove, said at the time: “The second time I saw the monk I cycled right through him. The air was cold and clammy. I went numb all over and could not speak.”

In October 1970 a ‘Halloween exorcism’ was performed in Chapel Street, Billericay in a bid to oust a hymn-singing child ghost.

The Southend Standard newspaper reported how a “pretty Billericay girl” had sought advice from a practising witch in a bid to try to exercise a ghost she believed was haunting the garden of her home in Chapel Street The 17-year-old girl told the newspaper how she intended to conduct her own exorcism on Halloween at exactly midnight.

Among the rituals, she was intending to carry out included building a pentacle over the haunted spot in her back yard. We have to wonder what her parents thought about all this.

She told the newspaper: “The ritual of exorcism is said to be very dangerous, I have been warned several times about it.

“I have advice and absent help from a practising witch, I am not allowed to discuss anything he has told me or tell you what I am going to do. All I can say is that it involves prayers and other things.

“I chose Halloween because it’s better then. But it could be done on any Sunday night. I have to wait until midnight, then it will be Sunday.”

The teenager, who worked as a fashion model said she and her mother had seen the ghost of a child in the garden. The eerie entity seemed to come from a tree in the middle of their garden and was combined with the sound of a child’s eerie voice singing the hymn “All Things Bright and Beautiful”.

The family dog, a pet poodle, was also said to be aware of the entity, and refused to go into the garden at night.

It’s not clear what happened after the exorcism as there was no follow-up story in the Standard, but it was suggested the “haunted tree” was eventually cut down.

If you are after a thrill and a chill this Halloween there is no scarcity of ‘haunted hotels’ and pubs in Essex that you can visit. There will also be a plethora of ghost hunts taking place across Essex, including at Colchester Castle and around Southend.

It’s also the ideal month to pick up a dusty old Gothic horror novel, such as Dracula or Frankenstein and explore their connections to Essex.