Ghost of the Broads

[SweetKingfisher1]

I do enjoy reading a good story, especially a ghost story. I was given for christmas a new book " Ghost of the Broads ", well a new book for me, but an old edition   and I have read many a good ghost stories of Norfolk, Kent and what every comes my way  .

 

The first story in my new book is regarding Wroxham Broad and this is the first time I have read or have heard of this story. Maybe one of you have heard of it  .

 

Wroxham Broad in the time and date of Caesar was a Roman Amphitheatre. It seems on Caesar's birthday 21st July is when Wroxham Broad forms into a amphitheatre  . 

 

Yes I know it all sounds hard to believe    and for those of you who do not believe in things like this, it's a total load of rubbish  .

 

We know Norfolk has it's fair amount of tales / stories of it's pass history and at times history will show it's self . 

 

And no I have not been drinking    it is something I do believe in  .

 

Has anyone got a story to tell of the Broads or of the local area?

 

Regards

Marina  

 

 

[BroadAmbition]

Yes a belter at St Benets around '74, one I will never forget

 

Not tonight though

 

 

Griff

[Gracie]

I'm not sure of the full story but at a certain time of the year you are supposed to be able to hear chains rattling on Acle Bridge. A man was hung by chains from there apparently, hopefully someone will come along and enlighten us.

 

Although I do enjoy a good ghost story I have never seen or heard anything ghostly, our dad would tell us scary stories when we were allowed to stay up late fishing on the Broads and he scared me half to death if I'm honest, I'm certain he did it to make us pack up fishing and go to bed, it worked I can tell you Lol

 

Grace

[ranworthbreeze]

Hi Grace,

I would have assumed that would have been the old Acle Bridge?

http://www.dunwurkin.info/interests/broadspostcards/images/acle/acle.htm

Regards

Alan

[LondonRascal]

I am find with these Ghost stories – mainly because so many are so completely amazingly unbelievable, but they suck you in none the less and make for a great read.

 

What however does get me are the ‘every day’ tales people share of things happening to them on boats at various places.

 

I’ve not had anything happen to me myself, although there has been the odd unexplained sounds sometimes which certainly makes one alert and perk the ears up.

 

However my mum reminds me of one which I really don’t know what I would do if happened where you are moored alone on a wild mooring and all is quiet – suddenly without the boat making any movement there is a clear, loud ‘knock knock knock’ on the rear cabin door. 

 

Apparently my dad said to my mum ‘somebody’s at the door’ oblivious to the fact that this is a boat, in the middle of know where so why would someone be knocking on the door...

 

Suffice to say with torch in hand she gingerly (note she - not my dad) went to the back of the boat, opened the door and found nothing, nobody - just stillness and a dark night.

[Mowjo]

Robin! that one is quite common and usually turns out to be a Swan or Goose pecking the algi off the boat, I've had a couple of strange ones, once years ago we were moored at the river end of Thurn Dyke, several times during the night I got woken by someone walking along a gravel path, I just thought fishermen or late back from the pub but it went on right through the night, it was only in the morning while sitting in the rear cockpit have a cuppa I had a good moan to Judi about it, she said she had heard nothing, then pointed out there was no gravel path there only grass, 

Now for my haunted boat! yup! I kid you not I'm convinced it was haunted, but in a nice way, strange things always happened on Blue mist, we would go shopping and come back to cupboard doors open that had locking catches on, things would be in a different place to where we left them, it got to the stage where I'd say to Judi George is about again, but the strangest thing of all was we were based at Wayford at the time and everytime we crossed Barton my boat would cut out at exactly the same spot every time by the Island, If I went around the other side of it it would be fine, we would go out for a week or two and it would never cut out, but on the return trip it would cut out again, as soon as I restarted it, it would be fine, once I waited for it to cut out which it did I restarted it, went around the island agian and it cut out in exactly the same spot, I got in the habit of going around the other side of the Island and it never cut out once, but one day on a race day I had to go on the inside! Yup! you guessed it cut out, we never worked out why it did it at that spot, the boat Came from the Thames straight to me on Broads, perhaps George took a shine to us and our boat and moved in, I never belived in Ghost or Spirits until I got a boat on the Broads, there are just too many strange things that have happened now for me to say they don't exist, the main Broad at Barton spooks me out that much I won't stay there overnight, I always get the feeling I'm being watched and whatever it is dosn't like me, I can't explain as the only thing that scares me is Judi, but there is something about Barton,,

 

Griff! you mention St Benets my Daughter has had several incidences there that can't be explained, somewhere she has a photo taken late at night with what looks like someone standing in that window/door thing half way up, I'll see if she still has it,,,

 

Frank,,,,

[quo vadis]

Have the same problem on Quo Vadis every morning when I wake up things have moved or gone missing beer, wine spirits etc, cant explain it myself

[Mowjo]

I think there's a clue there somewhere if you look at what goes missing!

 

Frank,,,

[BroadScot]

I think there's a clue there somewhere if you look at what goes missing!

 

Frank,,,

A visit to the Off Licence?

 

 

Iain.

[Mowjo]

Iain! do they still have those?? I havn't seen a proper Offy in years,

 

Frank,,,

[CooWee]

Hi Marina,

 

What follows, happened in August  2013 and subsequent to what follows we heard that a near neighbour at Broom had died, a nice chap, shame.  Also since then I have heard a swan tapping and the sound is nothing like the noise I heard.  I have since that incident slept in the back bedroom alone on the boat and I am glad to say nothing occurred.

 

"The day began very early for me and was shortly to become very strange indeed.  As stated previously I had gone to bed around 2200, but struggled to get to sleep, feeling pretty uncomfortable and beginning to cramp up and not wishing to disturb Lisa, as I did on Blue Diamond when I got dreadful cramps, in fact she said she thought I was having nightmares, well, it was in one sense.  The upshot was that I grabbed my sleeping bag and de-camped to the rear bedroom, this being around 0200.  I lay there stretching legs and rubbing muscles, reading a bit, then I tried to get to sleep, it was during this period that I became aware of a knocking sound and I wasn’t quite clear where it was coming from.  Originally I thought it was an internal door catching on something or something catching on it, but I didn’t really believe that.  The night was still, but something wasn’t apart from me.  I first looked at my watch and the time was just coming up to 0320 and this knocking would have been going on at a guestimate of fifteen minutes.  I listened for another ten minutes and the knocking had a sort of random pattern to it, i.e. knock knock, then knock knock-knock knock, then knock (fainter) knock knock.  I have to admit to feeling rather flaky now and I’d even shut a little curtain at the back of the boat in case a face appeared and with my ticker that would probably have been curtains (sorry couldn’t resist), same thought occurred if I went out onto the stern well, startled into to the river, same result.  Eventually around 0340 I started to get more curious and I turned the stern light on and opened the curtains, nothing there and the knocking stopped when I looked, went to the front bedroom to retrieve my glasses and looked out from the back of the saloon, nothing.  At this point I thought I would wake Lisa up, but to no avail, Krakatau couldn’t have done it.  I also looked at the dog she was also fast asleep, which is a surprise in itself.  I dare say most people have experienced a dog or cat that has been spooked by what it perceives as something in the room, when the hackles go up, gets under a table and snarls and stares at some fixed point in the room, quite disturbing at the time, but I haven’t seen that for a good number of years.  We are now getting up to around 0350 and I was starting to get the feeling that it would stop at 0400, and this isn’t being wise after the event, I really did start sense the knocking was soon to stop and suddenly it went with a sort of rhythm –dud, dud, dud, dud dud dud dud dud, dud, dud, almost as if whatever was doing the knocking finished off with an irritated flourish and the time when I looked at my watch it was a minute or two after 0400.  I have always smiled when people talk about strange things happening to them when moored up on the Broads, we’ve moored up at St Benet, Berney Arms and elsewhere and never a peep.  I am not smiling now and it certainly bothered me then and bothers me now, although after the actual event, quite strange really, I felt almost peaceful or at least calm.  Tonight I will sleep in the same room to see if happens again.

               

I lay there afterwards, still couldn’t sleep, read a bit, thought a bit and with the dawn starting to break I nodded off until 0700ish and then started to think about getting up.  I talked to Lisa about my night time adventure and she seems convinced that it was a swan, well if it was it was an invisible swan.  There was nothing on that boat, no birds scrabbling around, nobody actually on it, it is a mystery."

[BroadScot]

Iain! do they still have those?? I havn't seen a proper Offy in years,

 

Frank,,,

Yes Frank, we still have one in Troon. Been owned first by a father n Son. Now owned by two ladies. They stock an amazing selection of whiskies etc. http://offsalestroon.wix.com/thelmaandlouise

 

Iain

[BroadScot]

Hi Keith,

 

I am being very serious, you are a Richard lll type person, could it have been your sub contious playing tricks with you after a recent gathering? Had you been reading up on him recently as I remember you saying you were going to a meeting. As I said I aint kidding on this one. Interesting, very interesting indeed. Swans from 5am I have had but not any earlier.

 

Iain.

[LondonRascal]

It had been years and years since stopping off at St. Benet's and as you might have found out in the video I took of that first visit, it had a bit of an effect on me.

I have since returned several times and it still has (to me) a very peaceful, calming quality about it - especially so in the ruins of the old mill, but also at the Cross.

 

Now prior to this I had planned on doing something whereby I would dispel any rumours about it being haunted and set up a sort of little spooky piece for the camera with a torch and some tea lights  - but now I am not so sure.

 

It is a bit like (and I know this sounds silly) but if the place has a calming nice feeling for me that if I did something that almost was a joke to the place that it might not be such a nice calming place for me to go to in the future.

The thing is I am not sure if I believe in Ghosts (or spirits if you want to call them that) - but I do think there are things we as humans do not understand as far as how certain places and things effect us.  How one person will feel something and 100 will not but 101st person might then say "yes I felt that too".  Perhaps there is some energy some can feel, pick up on - some see this as something others just a feeling.

 

What I do suspect however is if you were to go away to a hotel and you booked in and spent the night and nothing happened but you were then told the room you were in was haunted, you would perhaps think "load of old tosh".  But try going to a hotel and booking in to be told 'tell us if anything happens the room is said to be haunted' - tell me you would have such a restful carefree nights sleep.  

 

So because our minds need to make sense of things, we have to fill in often what is not there - so an old building perhaps might have a look about it - or just its age that gets the senses far more aware, then with things such as old churches or graveyards so our minds further build up on the expectation of the something - light down to a damp, dark long concrete corridor with a cold breeze running through it - you feel something you just want to get out and back in the open light.  In short I wonder if sometimes it is our minds making things like sight and sound hyper aware and sensitive raising the gain almost - thus distorting things that in another location at  another time one would not see as being supernatural/spooky.

 

Here are some ghost hunters at St. Benet's back in 2011.

 

http://youtu.be/HI9PpRp-BGg

[SweetKingfisher1]

We had moored up at the Waveney River Centre and we wanted to go and have a look around what we all call the wedding cake ( St Mary ) at Burgh St Peter  .

 

Only a start walk to the church gate. Entered though the gate and started to walk toward the door. I was getting a very bad feeling, but I keep walking. We got to the porch and Ian open the door, that was it I could and would not go any further. It was evil to me and I needed to get away from the church   . Ian could not feel anything. 

 

Has anyone else had a bad feeling at Burgh St Peter and yes there is a ghost by the church door? 

 

Another time we were moored at Norwich Yacht Station. During the night I thought someone was by the boat and dropping stones on her, enough was enough so I shouted out to stop it. The stones keep falling. I check out of the window and could not see anyone. The next morning Ian said what I was hearing was     the seed pods fulling from the tree above the boat  . Ok sometimes it can be explained  .

 

Regards

Marina  

[Mowjo]

Robin! you have some good points there, if you look at most so called hauntings they are usually linked to a traumatic incident in the past, occasionally you get one that is linked to someone that loved a place, so I think that when something bad has happened people in the past and now will say don't go in there it's haunted, but I can't explain the feeling people who know nothing about a place get, as I said I can't stay overnight on Barton, absolutley no reason for it apart from it creeps me out and I get the feeling I'm being watched by something that dosn't like me, yet I stay anywhere else on the Broads with no problem, my daughter who knew nothing about haunted places on the Broads, wouldn't go anywhere near St Benets and can't stay on Hoveton little Broad, we often take friends out with us and some have remarked how they don't feel right at certain places, only last year we took a couple of the wifes friends out, we stopped off to show them the Eel catchers cottage at How Hill, one got as far as the door and said there's no way I'm going in there, there's something bad in there, though I have never heard of it being haunted or bad stuff happening there, I know the power of suggestion can have an effect and that if you say somewhere is haunted the chances are that someone will  feel it as well, but that never explains how people that know nothing about a place can get that feeling and see things without a word being said,  I believe in the unexplained not Ghost and spirits as such, but I do wonder that if something bad happens somewhere, does the fabric on the building or place kind of hold the memory like a recording that only certain people can pick up on, I've had too many things happen for me to say it's all rubbish and every time something has happened I go into logical mode and try to work out an answer, but there are things I just can't explain and the go in my X-File,,

 

Frank,,, 

[MauriceMynah]

"and I get the feeling I'm being watched by something that doesn't like me"

 

I get that feeling most places I go!

[quo vadis]

Marina, are you suggesting seed pods hide my beer and wine up?

[Gracie]

I have just read Frank's experience on Barton Broad, we mud weighted on the Broad for the very first time in years of boating in 2013, it was the end of August, mist on the water at sunset, all we could hear was geese and the occasional fish jumping and have to say it was the most relaxing night I have ever spent on the Broads and we've had some pretty magical nights on the rivers. We sat outside of the boat until about 2am with a couple of glasses of wine, I remember at the time having an eerie feeling and mentioned to my husband that I expected Nelson's ghost to appear at any moment Lol. It was the last night of our holiday and normally would be feeling a tad down to say the least at the thought of leaving the Broads, I don't think we have ever felt so calm and chilled in our entire lives.

 

A completely different experience than Frank's, I am not saying we felt calm because of anything ghostly (probably the wine) and not going back on what I said earlier about never experiencing anything spooky but since reading this thread I do remember that eerie feeling that night and the weirdest thing is I never felt frightened, just calm. Not sure if I'm brave enough to do it again after reading Frank's tale though Lol

 

Grace

[Mowjo]

Gracie! don't let it put you off staying there! I honestly can't put my finger on why I get the feeling, I don't get it anywhere else on the Broads, even with boat boat that used to cut out on Barton at the same spot everytime it never put me off, I used to look at Judi and say wait for it, then I'd say something stupid like knock it off George we know your there, during the day and evenings I'm fine on Barton but once it gets dark I'm off, it's hard to explain the feeling, I'm fine on the Island side of the Broad but over by the Yacht station side near the Neatishead turn is a no go area for overnights with me,,

 

Frank,,

[Mowjo]

Just for fun I looked for any hauntings or ghost of Barton Broad and found the one below, they say Lady Edythe is nice and it's good luck if you see her, but reading this I wonder if I remind her of her Father and thats why Barton dosn't like me?  well you never know! there are lots of unexplained things that happen,

 

Barton's Lady of the Lake

In the days of the Crusades a beautiful baby girl was born to the wife of a knight who was away in the Holy lands. On return the Knight refused to accept the baby as his own despite her being born only 5 months after he left. Consequently the baby was fostered out to be bought up by a nurse. As she grew older she became a really beatiful woman, and had many admirers. The Knight returned some years later and met her, he did not realise she was in fact his daughter nor she her father. He fell in love with her, his wife having left for another country in his absence. He offered to marry her and endow all his fortune on her. But her heart was already given to a noble soldier and she refused. He flew into a rage and said no other will have you. Just then her noble lover turned up and defended her, she ran into his arms and just at that moment her father fired his crossbow intending it for her lover. The arrow penetrated her breast and killed her. Her lover told him who he had killed and the Knight sank to his knees in remorse. The Knight went back to the Holly land and never returned, giving all his wealth to the young nobleman. Every year on the 4th August the face of the young girl Edythe appears, floating on the lake. Do not be afraid if you see this fair maiden whose spirit haunts the water, for it is said to be a blessing to anyone who sees her face.

[Happy]

 A few years ago the wife and I stopped at Rockland Broad overnight.  It was when the pub had closed and we were the only ones there. She is quite sensible and level headed but was certain we were being watched and/or the place was haunted!  I must admit I didn't sense anything, had a few drinks and went to bed!

I think she stayed awake all night hiding under the duvet and wanted to leave at first light.  She now refers to the place as "spookyville" and will not go near there again.  I have to say when we have a boys only few days its one of the places we head for and have not had the same experience-maybe due to the other type of spirits drunk!  Regards Alan   

[Gracie]

Just found this about St Benets Abbey

 

As befits it's atmospheric setting, St Benets boasts two ghosts.

 

The first legend is that after 1066 William the Conqueror was struggling to take the Abbey. He bribed a Monk to open the great gate on condition he would become the next Abbot. The Conqueror whose reputation for harshness was deserved, was true to his word. Once the Abbey was taken he had the traitor dressed in full Abbot regalia and promptly had him hanged from the gate.

 

The story goes that every May 25th the Monks screams can be heard late at night.

 

 

The other resident ghost is that of one Brother Pacificus, who, legend has it, has been seen quietly rowing across the River at the Abbey in a small boat accompanied by a dog.

 

 

Well, I'm not mooring there again

 

Grace

[BroadScot]

Thanks for that Grace. Now I know why Abbot Ale has a guid head on it!  Aye, ok i'll get my coat!

 

Iain.

[Mowjo]

Gracie! you better just stay in the Marina then, if you Google ghost of any broads place there is a report of ghost there,,

 

Frank,,,