If this post seems a bit inconsistent, with the theme of my blog, then yes it is, but I do love a good ghost story and Luckily I live in one if the most haunted city's in the UK!
So if you're out and about in Brighton this Halloween, make sure you keep your eyes open for some of the city's resident spooks.
If you're in The Lanes;
Look out for one if the many ghosts that are seen walking around the Meeting House Lane area.
Numerous people have seen ghostly Nuns and Monks wandering the lanes before vanishing into walls.
Nile Street is the former site of St Bartholomew Chapel and is now supposedly haunted a hooded figure, thought to be that of a monk from the chapel. Another mediaeval ghostly monk, who had an affair with a local girl and paid the ultimate price for it is also said to walk around the area.
The most famous ghost of The Lanes is The Blue Nun, regularly seen in the area between Middle Street and Black Lion Street, when seen she has been described as looking distressed. She gets her name due to her asphyxiated look, some people have also reported her to have a blue glow around her. This poor soul is thought to be that of a young Nun who was bricked up alive into one if the walls in Meeting House Lane as punishment for a love affair with a local fisherman.
And when you go into the shops;
Plenty of shops in the Lanes have similar tales of ghostly Nuns and Monks but more mysterious are the reports of phantom children in the basements of some shops in North Street.
However it is Angry Mick also known as Black Belly, who is said to haunt Churchill Square and the surrounding area. Rarely reported and never reportedly seen in the by the shoppers or in public areas of the shopping centre. Thought to originate from one of the old Georgian houses that used to stand in the area, he is described as being bald and has a shirt that is open at the bottom showing a bruised and bloated stomach.
Many sightings are just a side view of him, if you see him face on he it is said he begins to wail before running forwards and vanishing. As I said not many people have reported seeing him but one credible and most recent sighting was that by a telecom engineers who was so terrified he called the police, who watched CCTV footage all that could be seen was the terrified witness and his reaction to something invisible to the cameras.
St Nicholas Church yard;
If you find yourself walking on Dyke Road, past this great old church keep your eyes peeled for the spirit of Earle De Warrene.
The most famous story from St Nicholas is that of Earle De Warrene, his son and his future daughter and father in law.
His son, Manfred was returning from a pilgrimage on the ship 'The Saint Nicholas Galley'. The Earl, Eldona his sons betrothed and her father gathered in the church yard to watch the ships return to Shoreham, but just outside the port the ship suddenly sunk taking all the men down. Eldona who was watching from the town fell to the ground and died. (The other version of this says that the church was built on the hill after Eldona's death, paid for by her father and the Earl and there is the remains of a cross on the floor marks the spot where she fell).
It is said that you can still see the Earl in his armour, lurking near the door of the church on moonlit nights, and some say that he is the knight that rides across the church yard and out down the road on his horse, and that some times you can still see the ship out at sea re-enacting
its last fateful journey and it can been seen from the beach on May 17th, the anniversary of its sinking.
The Old Steine;
Walking across the Old Steine do your best to avoid the entity that made a police officer sick!
John Robinson was an adventure who had his eyes burnt out after a disastrous trip to Persia. He was helped back to his home town of Brighton by a merchant where he died on the Old Steine. His phantom corpse has been seen in the road by a police officer who stopped to investigate the body in the road and was sick at the sight of John's burnt out eyes while another witness had to spend the night in hospital suffering shock after an encounter with the horrifying entity.
And if you do find yourself face to face with one of Brighton's ghostly residents maybe don't run into the nearest pub for a drink to calm your nerves as there are so many haunted pubs across the city,
including The Mash Tun, reportedly haunted by a former landlady from the First World War, The Pump house where a woman in black has been seen at the bar before she fades away, unexplained footsteps and voices heard in the cellar, and the Druids Head where you may see the ghost of a smuggler, who died on the staircase to the basement, out of the corner of your eye.
Happy Halloween!!!!
