Episode 2 Our Hometowns Leatherhead & Aberdeen Part 2

Episode 2 continues our journey into the strange and unsettling stories surrounding Leatherhead and Aberdeen.

From eerie encounters in quiet streets and shadowy pathways… to chilling experiences that still can’t be explained… the stories only get darker from here.

What was the dripping figure seen inside a block of flats?
 Why do some people believe something still lingers near the old buildings of Aberdeen?
 And which terrifying encounter left us genuinely shaken?

Join us as we uncover more paranormal tales, ghostly sightings, and bizarre experiences that will make you think twice before turning the lights off.

🎧 Lights On… Still Scared — Episode 2.

Keep the lights on.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back. This is part two of our deep dive into the ghost stories of Leatherhead and Aberdeen. So far, we've covered some strange sightings and experiences, but now we're getting into the ones that don't quite fit the pattern, and those are the ones that stuck with us the most.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Lovely. Right, okay. So my next one is the Woodlands Hotel.

SPEAKER_03 0:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

Well, Woodlands Hotel, I say it's Leatherhead, considering where it is, but it does come under Cobbham, which is the little bit village out. Um now this is not documented publicly that this hotel is haunted.

SPEAKER_04 1:10

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

This is my own experience there.

SPEAKER_04 1:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

So we were going on holiday, and we were going with family, but we decided to stay in this hotel because it's near where my family were. And we were staying there overnight. And we had the dog with us. So we got our keys, went to go up the staircase, and just as we were going up the staircase, I thought, oh I think something's on the staircasing. And I felt like a whoosh go past me, like crinoline paper um skirts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So and I said to the hubby, I said, There's a woman seen on these stairs. She goes up and down these stairs, and he went, Oh, okay, whatever. Like he does. So the next morning, um, he takes the dog down the stairs and he takes a free little wander around the grounds, and he comes back and he starts chatting to the night uh receptionists.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Right, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

And as he's chatting to him, my dog apparently is looking up and he starts to growl. And uh out of um comment that my husband said to the guy, he said, Is this place haunted? He said, Oh yes, there's a woman that goes up and down those stairs, and he said, We we think she's Lily Langtree. Now, Lily Langtree apparently was the mistress of Edward the Seventh. I had heard that she was quite she was quite famous, and they used to go to the hotel because it before it was a hotel, it was actually built in 1885. Now, what backstory for me personally is that apparently my great-grandparents actually met at the Woodlands Hotel.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

She was a chambermaid and he was the gardener. So I like to think that he crossed eyes over the rose bushes.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

That's very nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Um, and it was built by the Bryant family in 1885, and it was a private um house, and it was owned by uh a William Bryant, okay, um, who had a link to the Bryant and Main match company.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Oh, so they say the match company. I do. I remember using them. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

My grandmother on my father's side was a Bryant. So I'm thinking I need to go and look into the family tree, see if we are relative to this William Bryant. If that's the case, then fabulous. Um, yeah, so at that point then, um, it was actually a private home, and Lily Langtree and the King used to visit this private home because they used to like um socialise there as well. So there is a possibility, is Lily Langtree going up those stairs?

SPEAKER_01 4:01

I think that's fabulous.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

If she's there with the king, she's obviously there being accepted as a partner, yeah. She's enjoying it. Um, and that's probably why she she returns. As I said, it's not publicly known whether it is um haunted, but it's the fact that he collab this watchman collaborated my story. Yeah, yeah. So I did say to him I'm not told you not tell you but it. So yes.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

I'd love to work in a place like that, wouldn't it be great? You know?

SPEAKER_02 4:36

Yeah, it is a lovely hotel, must admit.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Picking up all those nice wee stories, and yeah. I do like that. I do like that. I think people that work in non-haunted locations are suffer very badly. They need to for us it'd be a treat. What can you do?

SPEAKER_02 4:52

So we're back to Aberdeen.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

We are, we are. We're gonna go well too, we're gonna go shopping. We're gonna go to uh we're gonna go shoe shopping.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

I'll go shoe shopping.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Shoe shopping. I can't hardly say that shoe shopping. Uh and the company's called Jones. Jones, the boot shop or shoe shop, which is not there now, bizarrely enough, because because poor old Union Street in Aberdeen uh has lost quite a few shops in recent years, uh, unfortunately, but it was a lovely old shop. Well, it was a lovely shop. I used to get my shoes, I used to get the kids' shoes there actually. Jones, they're nice folk. And I and I knew um and I and there's a lady I worked with years ago called Sheila, and her daughter worked at Jones, you see, and I I knew Sheila when we worked at uh Provostkeen's house, and Sheila told me that um her daughter had some spooky stories at the shoe shop, and I thought, well, go around. And you know, when you go around and you speak to people and you say, Well, you know, is is this building haunted? And it's gonna go two ways. So they're gonna look at you and think, You you are insane and I'm not interested.

SPEAKER_02 5:51

Yes, you get that look quite a lot.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

We do, uh more often than not, or they go, Yeah, well, you know, and this guy, the manager, like, yeah, come in and chat, chat, chat. This is brilliant. So we've got lots of good stories because um, okay, the shop interior, like I believe it was owned by a doctor back in the day, because it was a kind of residential street, like all these Victorian streets were initially, and then shops came in, so it became more shops and houses, but anyway, it was a it was a house at some point, um, and the basement was quite old, and weirdly at the back there's a big set of stairs, like really vertical. I mean, honest to God, it was like the the north face of the Iger. I don't know who could climb these things, but it led to uh another series of flats at the back which were derelict, and this lady lived there in the 1980s, in fact, in the 1990s, I think. Elderly lady with no heating and ancient building, very, very nice. So we were like a wee walk around and look, and we did some filming in there, it was all very interesting. But the phenomena some weird stuff. So what you had was the ghost, I think, of a mischievous child because it had been heard. So staff, including the lady I spoke to, whose whose name completely escapes me, and I do apologise, but the daughter of Sheila had said that either her or colleagues had been hoovering in the basement and the hoover was switched off. And as it switched off, uh a little girl's voice said, What is that? as if indicating what the hoover was. Right, which was quite creepy.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

And shoes would often be found scattered. So the manager said to me, for example, one day he's chatting at the desk and he hears this plopping sound on the ground, and they go around and the shoes, a pair of shoes is sitting on the floor, but not like they just fell off, like they've been taken off, floated along, and dropped and placed. Because had they fallen, which they couldn't anyway, they were held in a kind of rack, they would have probably bounced and bump, bum, bump. But this was like a soft. And this was happening quite regularly, as if somebody's saying, Look, I'm here, this would happen in the basement. And on one occasion, uh one of the workers was heading up that big flight of stairs, or at least at the bottom of the stairs, and they heard this almighty thump at their feet and looked down, and this great big heavy padlock was lying at their feet. Where'd it come from? Yeah. The point being was there was a box at the top of the staircase, and this big padlock was sitting in it. But it had floated about twenty foot vertically across, or sorry, horizontally across, and then been placed on the ground. Because had it fallen from the box, it would have gone boom, boom, boom, boom down the wooden stairs, they would have heard the noise, but it just would pump at the feet like that. And this was the kind of weird stuff, it's like somebody trying to draw attention to itself. So, in the flat where the lady used to live, again the same thing, they used it for storing shoes, and people would go up there and you know the door would be tightly wedged open and immovable, come back up, it shut, or they'd come up and the boxes they'd placed there had been strewn on the floor, blah blah blah. This was the kind of phenomena going on in Jones. And as I say, unfortunately, it shut, so we can't go pursue this any further. The building's still there, it may reopen, it may have something else, I'm assuming. But this was the most common phenomena, the child's voice and the porter guy's activity. It was a great building, nice staff, very, very opening, very open to the idea of ghostage and talking about it, you know, and not being judgmental and saying, Yeah, maybe it's not a ghost, I know, but I can't explain it, but this is what happened to me, which is which is nice. But that's Jones basically.

SPEAKER_04 9:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:36

Actually, saying about poltergeist. All right. My next next case is poltergeist activity. Okay, don't Headley Court. Now, Headley is a little bit out of Leatherhead, it is still classed as Leatherhead.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Right.

SPEAKER_02 9:51

I say it's different, but heavenly. So uh Headley Court was an RAF Headley Court. Um used as a medical rehabilitation for RAF pilots. Um, and this report that I've uh I found online is from the early 1960s.

SPEAKER_04 10:11

Right.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

Um there's uh apparently there's a particular four-inch um oak door that could not be locked for a period of time. Uh the night duty officer would lock the door whilst on his rounds, only to find that within 10 minutes all the old-fashioned wrought iron locks and bolts have been returned to the position they were before he locked them. Um and he he, despite several watches for pranks, uh, this carried on for three months. So he could never find anyone pranking him, and then I suppose the time period as well, there wouldn't be enough time for anyone to come in and unlock them without him knowing.

SPEAKER_04 10:54

Sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

Um, and I don't know if it's the same person that's put this story in, but anyway, so while stationed there, uh a pilot officer started to scream out at 11:30 one evening. Um, by the time several officers and myself had arrived in his room, the eight-foot-tall mahogany ornate carved wardrobe was lent against the bottom of his bed at a 40-degree angle from the wall. Uh, the wardrobe had not fallen on its own. The indent from the weight of the wardrobe was still in the carpet, and there was not even the slightest damage mark on the wardrobe from where it had landed on the base of the oak bed.

SPEAKER_04 11:38

Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

Uh, the officer patient that was in bed was on no medication and was due to be discharged back to his wing the following morning. So he would have been medically examined mentally and physically to say that so he wasn't on any drugs or anything. So, and apparently it took six of us, able-bodied men, to return the wardrobe back to the upright position. Uh, the officer stated that he was reading in bed when suddenly there was a drop in temperature in the room. He put his book down and was amazed to see the wardrobe being gently lowered towards his bed as if by unseen hands. That's quite uh that I mean he had the lights on, so yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

And actually, lucky because I had that weight of that thing actually could have been a longer stay, you know, could be longer. It could have been, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:33

And there's also evidence, but there's no no evidence and no official records, but apparently there is a grey lady scene.

SPEAKER_04 12:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:40

She's said to be a nurse who died tragically and seen wandering around the grounds.

SPEAKER_04 12:46

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

And some have said that there's a ghostly apparition of a nurse inside the building. Um, there's also tales of a lady Rowena, apparently, and her ghost cat. But again, there's no documentation to support that. There's no evidence that there was a lady Rowena residing there.

SPEAKER_04 13:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

There's nothing from the family records to say that there was a Rowena there.

SPEAKER_04 13:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

And it said her cat apparently is seen, it's a dark or a black cat, is always nearby, so sometimes this cat is seen before she's seen.

SPEAKER_04 13:20

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

And it's usually on the bottom of the stairs, and she's seen walking down the stairs, apparently. So, yeah, but I mean, looking at the history of who this woman might be, uh, possibly that it was the original owner who brought the property in 1899 and redeveloped it all. Right, it could be his first wife, because apparently she died quite young.

SPEAKER_04 13:46

Right.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

She died before she actually saw the house in completely renovated. So that's a typical haunting, isn't it? Really? She's died young, she's got seen what she was meant to see, and of course come back to enjoy it. Indeed. So, yeah, so yeah, so it's probably not Lady Rowena at all. It's the first night, what, first wife of the man who who renovated it all.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

It's also the the thing is with these, you know, a lot of stories as well. Of course, it's the records, is it? How how accurate are the records? How well kept are the records? Some places kept really good records, you can probably trace things right back. Um, some places not, so maybe records were destroyed. Interesting, interesting. But yeah, that's a good story.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

Yeah, so yeah, spooky cats.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Creepy, yeah, yeah. Phantom animals. Yeah, people people obviously make the assumption that it's only like a person that could be possibly be a spirit, but I mean, you know, animals have souls like the rest of us, and um are quite able, I'm sure, to come back should they wish to or choose to. I mean, how many ghost dog stories are there? Thousands. Ghost dogs and ghost cats, of course. But yeah, ghost everything's really, let's face it. But certainly, um, well, I've heard of many uh ghost dog stories and cat stories. I totally believe it. In fact, one of I remember um I've heard a um team people say they've seen a things like a half a cat, and that sounds really weird, but half a cat's like I know, like it's kind of like um like it's been ingrained in the ether, potentially going through where a door may be, but it's now a wall or whatever. It's kind of like the buildings themselves have changed, but the spirit recognises the building from its time, which is kind of weird.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

But that is quite a traditional spooky story, isn't it? Where you would see sp ghosts walk through walls, yes, of course. Where uh people have checked records and that, and there used to be a door there, yeah. Yeah, um, so mmm.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

There's a house in Divana place in Aberdeen, which I don't know much about because it's like a one-off story, but it is a very beautiful building. Uh it was built in the 1820s, I don't know the exact day, but it's a very beautiful building. But there was a fire, so the level of the floor had changed, and there's a couple of ghost stories attached to it, and pretty much the most famous one is a woman who's seen like from the waist up, gliding across the floor, which sounds absolutely terrifying. But of course, the level of the building completely changed, so she'd been walking on a floor from that period. But uh, yeah, that would be a bit disconcerting.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Because there's that famous um story of the guy in York, isn't it, where he sees all the Romans, but they're half-legs. That's where the road used to be.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Yeah. So well, it was actually strangely one as well, uh, outside Perth with Romans that are seen from you know partially from the knee up kind of thing, too. And again, I think because they're walking on a modern road, but the original road would be raised up there. Yeah, it's an odd one. I like that. What am I gonna talk about now? I don't know. What are you gonna talk about? Do you know what? Do you know what I'm gonna do? I'm talking about Powers House. Oh Powis House Powers House, yeah. Um a lot of people in Aberdeen will know this. It's the oldest community centre in Scotland, allegedly, in the oldest building. Well, this has been disputed because there is Craig and Tinney in Edinburgh, but ever. This was uh what we were told at the time. It's built about 1805, thereabouts, early 1800s, for a very famous uh wealthy merchant family called the Lesleys and they of Powers and they owned this massive estate. The Pows Gates are two really cool looking uh minaret type structures that sit on the high street of old Aberdeen, so the state was huge. But as time went on and the money dwindled, the land was sold off and it was sold off to the council, and of course the council built a state, Powce Estate, so the estate shrank to this lump of grass in the middle, and the house would be there. And um the story goes it's haunted by a woman called Annie Baxter, and this is a name that I've heard for many years, and you know the people who work there obviously, oh, it's Annie Baxter, who's meant to be a servant who fell pregnant to the owner and you know either died or was done away with, depending which version of the story you want to take. But the records do show lots of servants there, but no Annie Baxter, so we don't know, I honestly don't know. But I kid you not, I have heard so many stories from that place, it is insane. People believe it to be haunted, and you know, and the funny thing was I did take a paranormal group there years ago thinking we're gonna find out something tonight because this place is so active. I mean, I felt some really weird stuff there, and nothing happened. It's like the ghosts were thinking, Saw do, we're not gonna appear. I know it's always the way, but anyway, one of the guy know Michael Molden used to work there, he was uh well, he actually published my first book, would you believe it back in the day? But he's a very nice guy, musician, and he ran the music department there, and he'd seen a woman uh nursing a baby one evening. Well, I think it was during the day while he was shifting amps because he was going to gig. So he saw this, he told me the story, and we got chatting, and he took me down to the basement area, which was probably you know, it's all been done up, but there's still old bits. And he took me into this room and he says, Well, this is a music room, and he says, Well, I'll tell you what happened here. He says, For example, um, we were like a group of young kids here singing, and they all ran out of the building crying and upset because a male voice shouted through the speaker to get out of his building, which was kind of odd. And being a tech guy, he told me that this was you know would have kind of been impossible to fake. And the second thing, which was quite interesting, was he had a band there one night and they closed the door. In fact, they locked the door upstairs because obviously they're in a different part of the building, it's quite big. I think it was just random people walking in, it's all locked up. So he's in the room recording and playing these guys, and they hear this mighty crash outside, and of course the music stops and they go out, and the uh fire extinguisher has been taken off the bracket and upended and smashed on the ground, the nozzle's broken. So that was another sort of mass evacuation from the building. So this ghost's been seen many times. So my wife Carol, for example, when she was doing washing there once upon a time, many, many years ago, they had a sort of launderette, if you like, in one of the rooms. Felt a really bad feeling behind her and ran out of the room. And the rest of the stuff that was highly amusing said, I'll just beat Annie Baxter. And I went with a mate once and we did a wee investigation because you know we were allowed to go in now and then, it's great to take photos. And we went up to the attic, and uh, I remember, you know, and I don't get scared about these things generally. I mean, there's been a couple of times in my life I've kind of this is a bit heavy. Well, that was one of them because I was actually trying to get into the attic, and you know, you can just walk, it's modernised now, and my god, I felt the most intense feeling, like a like a like a dread. I was I was actually genuinely freaked out, so I was kind of opened the door like really slowly, and it it went, whatever it was, but it was right behind the door. And it turned out later that I spoke to a lady called Melissa, and she said, Well, when she was like 14, she used to accompany her granny there, and she only found out later she was there, she thinks, because her granny was quite nervous about the building for cleaner, and she said she'd seen a figure of a wee kid up there, which totally freaked her out. But the best story of all, there's a few, there's a phantom monk being seen by the way, so you know, a bit of everything going on there. The person that lived upstairs at the time, the caretaker, used to say that they heard footsteps going up. So this young lassie I spoke to, woman who was a young lassie at the time called Olive, said that she, when she was allowed in the house, used to run up the stairs, get up to the top floor and lock themselves down because the footsteps went up the stairs. And the father who was in the basement quite often through saw a monk, which is interesting. But one guy, when I worked at the foyer, this young guy said to me that I had a really bad experience one night uh when I was at uh Powers' house, and I was like, Oh, do tell. And he said, basically the kids used to hang out there as a youth club and it Night when they finished, they would just muck about in the bit of grass at the front. And they're all kids are all looking out from the house, but he's looking up at the house, and he sees a woman looking by the window with a kind of black hair and this bluish glow around her. And he screamed and he bolted. But the thing is, everybody just heard him go ah and run, and they didn't know what the hell was going on. So they're a bit freaked out. And they went round his house and his mum came to Dartmoon and said he's not coming out. And he sat staying in his room for about three months, terrified because of his apparition. He described it to me, he says, I was scared shitless basically by this. So I thought, um, that's interesting. So about a year later, I'm still working on the same course at the foyer, and this other person arrives, and her name is Melissa, and I get chatting to her, and that's her whose granny worked there. And she I was chatting about the ghost, it just came up because she was doing a project in ghost. I thought, well, I'll help her, why not? This is good. I said, Oh, yeah, one of my friends had a terrible experience. Oh, yeah, really? What was his name? When she said, blah blah blah. Alright, that was the time the guy saw the figure in blue. Yes, we were there. Well, I was there beside him, and that's exactly what he saw. Like almost like a floating head. Yeah, oh very, very terrifying. Uh, and that was Power's house. Yeah. But to finish off, um, I spoke to someone else recently, it's the same building. And there was a hell of a lot in this building. I could write a whole bloody book about it. Seriously, it's terrifying stuff.

SPEAKER_02 23:25

Another one. Another one, yes, another one.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

So, yeah, yeah. So, anyway, this this woman uh who worked there, um so I see who I should I don't know if I should say this, but yeah, I will say it. She she's she was like a uh a local and she used to hang out there, but she would occasionally break in. Right, you know, no not that any mischief, but just to hang out, right? Which you know and she said one time she'd gotten in and her and her mate were like, you know, mucking about and I think they were eating some biscuits or something, you know, it was it wasn't that bad, just like mucking about. And they decided to go down to the music room and they were you know mucking about in the music room, pretend to play drums and all this kind of thing. And then they heard Serbie come into the building and they're like so they sat really quietly in the music room. The car saw footsteps going downstairs, and it said it sounded like a guy who'd smoked about 40 wood by in a day was standing outside the door, you know, like breathing like that, and they were like just sitting like and they they couldn't move, they said, Well they're for bloody ages, frozen like this, and this whatever it was, and then they felt like whoever it was was drifting away the presence, and at the same moment the drum kit behind her went boom, like somebody played the drum, batter, and they just bolted for their lives, bolted out the front. Well, the the fire door and the basement just ran because it was so scary. Um, and that was that's what she said anyway. But the drum just went crash like somebody's playing it. It was, it wasn't a music lover that goes, obviously, or maybe it was, I don't know. Yeah, might have been chasel channeling a bit of jazz there, maybe I don't know, but anyway, it was terrifying. So that's Power's House, and it's got some really cool stories. And uh I'm gonna try and get and have a wee look around at some point if I can when next time. Yeah, that'll be good. I know, because it's been a long time, and yeah, I was told to maybe contact them. So if you're listening from Power's House, I'm pre-empting. Putting it out there, putting it out there as they say, anyway. That's that.

SPEAKER_02 25:25

That's that right. So next one for me is Polston Lacey, which is in Great Bookham. Now Great Bookham is just literally up the road from Leatherhead, so it's not that far. And Polston Lacey is an Edwardian Manor House, very, very nice. I've been there, it's lovely. Now part of the National Trust. Okay, so you can wander around there and wander around the grounds, there's like huge parklands, it's got a lovely like view of the South Downs, it's it's lovely. Anyway, so originally it was owned by a a lady called Dame Margaret Grenville, and she owned it from early 1900s to 1942 when she passed away, and that's when she bequeathed it to the National Trust. Now, on a birth certificate, her father was William Murray Anderson, but in fact, her birth father was William McEwen. He was a brewer.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

Oh, McEwen's lagging.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

Indeed, of that fame, and she used to work for McEwen's, so she was very, very well off this lady. So basically, Polston Lacey was her party pad. She used to entertain royalty and politicians and celebrities.

SPEAKER_04 26:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

Um, and apparently King George and Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, apparently visited there during their honeymoon, so they stayed there during their honeymoon. So it was like, you know, it was just loads and loads of parties going on, loads of socialization. Um, so apparently it is haunted by a ghostly ghost housekeeper.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

Who's seen as a shadowy figure holding a tray, and then she'll disappear into the wall.

SPEAKER_04 27:09

Right.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

And you do, phantom laughs can be heard in the salon as if there's a party still going on.

SPEAKER_04 27:15

Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 27:16

Now that that is a beautiful room. It is gilted gold, and yeah, yeah. So if you're gonna have a party, you hold in there. So they're still partying, basically, by the sounds of it. And outside, there are phantom footsteps heard on the gravel.

SPEAKER_04 27:30

Right.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

Uh, and for many years there have been stories of a spectral figure that walks from the estate on a foggy night. And there's a path known as the nuns walk, which is haunted by a shapeless swirling mass of green mist.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

Oof, delay sound of that.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

And a figure of cloaked in brown, possibly a monk, those monks get around. They do, they do um that haunts an ornamental bridge nearby. Now, I found this story on the Facebook page Leatherhead Local Ghosts and Stories. And big it up to them, big up to Lawrence who runs it. So um, this was actually posted quite recently, December 25. Now I'm not sure where how long ago it was, but this member says, My mum, dad, and brother, who was around nine or ten, were walking up to the street towards Polston Lacey, just up from the stables. My brother had raced ahead on his low-to-motorbike. Um, when a figure all in white with a flowing dress ran past my mum and dad without a sound. They called to my brother, who stopped and looked back, and as she looked, he looked back, the figure seemed not to have a face, and it continued up the path. They didn't see where it went.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

So I got a shiver there, strangely enough. That's creepy.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

That is quite creepy.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:59

So perhaps that would indicate about the shape of a swirly mess.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

I feel like it had no face. I know, I don't like that.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

See, that's that's that's a bit, you know, ghosts are okay, but ghosts are a bit kind of more no-faced, as it were, or missing bits or heads or path. Ooh, that just I don't know where that is. That's a bit that's a bridge too far.

SPEAKER_02 29:23

It is a bit.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

Well, as it were.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

It is, so yeah, so that was post.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Interesting to see who she was.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

It was, yes. You know, I mean, there seems to be several ghosts there, but that would indicate that perhaps outside is what it was before. Yeah, it became the manor house.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Um, um, yeah, well, I I've I've got an Aberdeen one, funnily enough. So no surprise there, strangely enough. This is one from the high street in Old Aberdeen.

SPEAKER_02 29:55

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Now, Old Aberdeen, obviously, as the name implies, is is the oldest part of Aberdeen, but it wasn't part of the city at one point. It's a it seems like a separate borough. It's a university area, uh, there's tons of stories connected to it. I mean, it's got some very, very old buildings, there's lots of sightings of monks there, even in even in the you know, the student halls of residence. It's got the proximity of St. Marker Cathedral, you've got a very ancient little graveyard called the Snow Kirk, it's got a few legends attached to it rather than ghost stories per se. And yeah, it's been some weird stuff happened uh around there. But I was given a letter a few years back by this lady who remained anonymous. However, she did say her friend, called her Jane, um, had a had a very nasty experience while living in Old Aberdeen on the high street. Now the high street's pretty long, so I wonder about the I wonder if it's that house there, because you know there's lots of old houses. So Ansley can't tell you the the the actual number of the house, unfortunately. But she said this is a genuinely true story that when they moved in, the the woman, the witness, kept getting woken up at night by somebody touching her hair. So she'd wake up like that and look around the room, and obviously a bit scared, nothing there, covers up around the old eyes and back to sleep. And this went on for some time. And then, of course, I asked the children, Were you sneaking in the room and touching my hair? The husband, did you touch my hair in the middle of the night? And they went, No. So one night she has this dreadful dream, or was it because she thinks well I don't know, you have to make your own mind about this. But she felt there was a presence in the room that she followed into the hallway and lifted the carpet, and there was a trapdoor which he went down into the cellar. And whilst there witnessed an absolutely shocking and horrific murder that her friend said she wouldn't even discuss because it was so bloody awful. And then found herself literally back in bed like freaked out. And so the next day, of course, went back down to the carpet to lift it to see was there a trapdoor, which there wasn't.

SPEAKER_02 32:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

But it stuck with her and it really freaked her out big time. So some weeks later she's shopping and she's down the local shop. Now it has changed, but there were a couple of news agents I remember in close proximity to the high street. Whether it's that one or not, I don't know. But it was raining and she went inside, and I think it was partially escape the rain, but she got chatting to the shopkeeper, and in the conversation, you know, asking where she's from, blah blah blah, and she'd moved into such and such, and he apparently said, Oh, did you know that there was a murder took place in that house many years ago? Oh yeah, and she was like, I am out of here, and exited rather quickly. Now, I have not been able to find out if a murder took place or not on the high street as of yet. But I'll be honest with you, I have not been too diligent in that process, so I may yet uncover something. When it happened, I don't know, but but that was the story, and I got the letter, all handwritten, I might add, this person. Which kind of makes you think, well, if it was just some nonsense, they took a hell of a lot of trouble over it. So I was very grateful to receive it one way or the other. But if it did really happen, my god, that must have been pretty eerie. It's a spooky area, it's got like uh there's an area running down from it called the Spittle, the hospital, the leper hospital. Lots of spooky stories attached to that too, and people having plottergeist activity in the houses and yeah, a little book in itself, methinks. Not that I'm gonna do that one, but you know there's a limit.

SPEAKER_02 33:43

Never say never. Never say never. Never say never, growing.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

Yeah, we'll see.

SPEAKER_02 33:48

Right, and I have a final story for me. All right. Uh it's a house near Plough Pub in Kingston Road.

SPEAKER_04 33:56

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 33:57

A little quick one. So yeah, so um, again, this comes from the Facebook Leatherhead Ghost page.

SPEAKER_04 34:04

Right.

SPEAKER_02 34:04

And this member now Lawrence has said that this is from a member regarding the house near the Pell public house. This isn't the first time I've heard about this property. So this member has said, well, we moved into the house temporary for nearly two years. At first was fine, but then I started noticeing cold spots in the room. I have had experiences of the supernatural before. Then my daughter had said the upstairs light would turn off when it was when she turned it on. I said it was electric's ha ha, but it it kept happening. There are two switches, one up the top of the stairs, the one down the bottom. So this made me think upstairs bathroom was at the back of the house. It was always a strange feel about it, like you were being watched. Uh, my son, who had a ghost friend in another house, said he saw someone in his room a few times. He was next to the bathroom. After we moved, I spoke to a few people who stayed there, and they also said the same thing. So knew then it wasn't supernatural. So then there's a comment from another member saying, I stayed there when it was a halfway house. It used to be a halfway house owned by the council at that point. Also, death had a creepy feel, and strange things happened. The end room on the ground floor near the garden. I used to be scared of going in there, always had a feeling something was watching me. I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking it. Now, this house, quite a few years back now, my brother lived in it.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_02 35:52

So when I read this, I text him, yes, and I said, you know, that house that you in, did you have any experience in it? And he said, Well, you know, the ground floor was always cold, even when it was a hot summer's day. Right. They can never get that house real cold, uh, warm at all. Um, so that would perhaps it's the creepy feeling at the back of the house, yeah. So then I thought, do you know what? He didn't really spend much time in the house.

SPEAKER_04 36:22

Right.

SPEAKER_02 36:22

The only person who would have spent a lot of time in the house would be my sister-in-law because the kids were quite young at that point. So I actually called her yesterday.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

Very good. And I said I like that perseverance.

SPEAKER_02 36:34

Did you feel anything? And she said to me that um the top of the stairs in the bathroom always felt off, it felt cold and it didn't feel a nice place. And there was a long corridor, apparently, that led to the kids' room, right? Um, and the bathroom. So this was at the back.

SPEAKER_04 36:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:53

Um, the kids were were quite young at that time and said they really didn't like their room. So that would all tie in with what these other people were saying. So we didn't stay there that long enough for what it's just as well. Yeah, the poor kids being more sensitive, they were so yeah, so that is finally me from Leatherhead. Very good, not a big area. Very good.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

That's a good, good, good, uh, good little cache of stories there from a we area. Very good indeed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:24

So if you got any stories that you want to tell us, have I got another one? Get in contact. Oh, yeah, for that the public, yes, please do have you as well. Weatherhead.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

Aberdeen too, anything in touch. We'll love stories.

unknown 37:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:37

Love stories. The creepier the better. As long as they are true stories.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

Yeah, yeah, because yeah, we've have you have you ever had stories given to you that are that you found out later they're just baloney and all the time. I've got I I've I had a few recent I had one, oh, in a book given to me for a book, and I I felt very upset about it. Because I thought, why did you bother doing that to make up this crazy story? It kind of fitted it. Thank God it wasn't an integral part of the book, it was merely a a we aside. But I just thought, you know, why would you bother? You know? Just to but anyway, generally speaking, people are very nice and they want to share rather than offload. Share. Which I think's great. But yeah. Indeed. I have one more story from Aberne, if you don't mind. Off you go. Which is one that was told to me by several people. Several people, because the building itself is a tower block. So it contains, I don't know how many flats, but there is a lot, and it's called Marshall Court. And it Marshall Court is down at the foot of Marshall Street in Aberdeen, where all the executions took place, because behind it's Heading Hill. And Heading Hill is where there was which executions. Uh kind of my figures right here, probably about 23, I think, if I remember. Uh, multiple decapitations, because they cut the heads dropped off. And um built on the site of the original Gordon Highlanders barracks, which was also meant to be haunted, and the Sick Children's Hospital next door. So you can imagine all of this all that energy. So this big building it's built there in 1965, and there's two, there's one's a kind of slightly shorter kind of block, one's 16 stories. And I was working for the council, and I was working uh with groups, and I remember working with this lady, and she was talking about when she lived there, and she said, Oh, yeah, we lived in uh I think it's about the fifth floor, and the weird stuff happened to her. But her dad was the main one who was getting it, which was really odd, and he was I don't think he was particularly interested in being approached by ghosts, but uh he used to wake up in the middle of the night and weird things would happen. One instance was uh a milking stool in the room, which is interesting, like a ghost milking stool, which actually raised your three-legged one, raised through the raised through the well up through the w the floor above. Bright blue, right in front of his eyes. And another time a woman came out from his headboard, like an elderly woman in a crinoline bonnet, went right through the the the the wind the wind, you know, the the wall opposite.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

And and this was going on one of the rooms, in fact, was so bad they um I think they swapped bedrooms at that point because this blue light was seen. Now it's really weird, once the fifth floor would kind of tie in with the barracks, because you know the barracks weren't particularly tall, but I guess they would have been tall enough to accommodate these spirits who were still wandering about from time. So that was a creepy story. And then behind there, you had a street next to it uh called Commerce Street, where I've interviewed two different people. And at that time I was going, I was I was doing a go uh history tour, and the lady who told me about the you know the milking stool was on the tour with one of our clients, and we're looking over to Calmer Street, and she's got the you know, and and I'm talking about some woman who'd lived in number six and had heard Latin chanting going on and all this, and we're all very interested, you know, it's all tying into the executions of the time. And the uh guy on the tour goes, Oh, that's really weird. He says, My friend actually stayed next door to number six, number eight, and he had some stories to tell, so he begins to tell us his stories, and you know, it's a creepy area. But then Dave Hardy, who's a mate of my brother's, comes away with a real beauty, and he's like uh, oh yeah, I lived in that floor, quite high up, like near top floor, and it's a masonette type thing. If I I the I think the way it works is bedrooms downstairs, utilities upstairs, it's back to front kind of thing. And he lived there with his kids, and uh his son's called Dave, by the way, so there'll be two Dave's involved in this young Dave, older Dave. Older Dave is doing the dishes and the kitchen doors open, which is glass fronted, and young Dave's watching as the figure of a girl walks by the glass door, and his father's doing the old dishes, and he looks around and sees the girl and goes, uh and he stands like that watching because the girl turns around and walks down the corridor and she's like describes having blonde hair and a dirty dress. So him and Dave creep down after the ghost, if you like, to see what's happening because it goes down to the kids' bedroom. Kids are asleep, no ghost, so they're a bit alarmed. Second instant, uh Dave's in the bathroom doing whatever he's doing. I didn't spit he didn't specify, you might add. It's gone. I thank God for that, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:50

It's completely different. It is completely.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

I didn't sign up for this. So his son is watching this. Uh his son, his son is comes out of his bedroom and starts screaming at the door for his dad, and his dad's like, what the hell? You know, I'm in the bathroom. Quick, and he comes out, and apparently there's a bookcase sitting at the top of the stairs, and the books are now flying out one by one, being thrown over the stairwell. So they're freaked out and they don't move. And eventually you have to go down when everything calms down to get the books. And they're a big pile, and apparently one of them has a set of human teeth in it that's bitten through like five pages. So that's a bit alarming.

SPEAKER_04 43:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:29

Now here's when it gets weird.

SPEAKER_04 43:32

As if it wasn't with before.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

And uh and I know him, and he's dead, he was genuinely dead straight with me on this. But what it is, I can't explain it, and he couldn't either. But the gist of it is he's sleeping on the couch, and he's not drinking, and he's not taking anything, he's just sleeping on the couch, and it's got quite a wide headrest at the back, and he wakes up and he feels very, very cold, and he kind of feels like there's something. Just behind him, and he kind of glances that way. And there's a woman lying across the top of the sofa. She's got long black hair, massive black eyes, but those eyes travel down the body, the bottom half of her becomes like a fish. Like a mermaid type thing.

SPEAKER_02 44:20

Oh, that is weird.

SPEAKER_00 44:21

Yeah, and he was totally freaked out because he said he was just he closed his eyes and he was like and he said he lay there for a few minutes, uh, till it and then it felt the air to return to normal. But the couch was damp. So they moved house. Yeah. As you do. But but but the point was that I said, Well, what is it? Because you know, it's a bit unusual. Is it a a spirit, a nature spirit, or something that we don't really know? And all he could offer me up was that at some point in his life he'd been very interested in the occult in the 70s and potentially magic of some description. And I'm not gonna say any more than that, because I truly don't know what he did, and I would start saying he did this or he did that, but he said that potentially was why this, whatever it was, was drawn to him. Because he did have supernatural experiences re-arcured throughout his life, potentially from his interests when he was a young man. And that is his story, and that was in a tour block of sixteen stories. But like I say, various people had various stories. I've just given you two examples. There's probably another three or four I could give you from that one area, which begs the question, what the hell's going on?

SPEAKER_02 45:37

Well, yeah. Oh, it's not gonna be haunting because it's a new build. Yeah. But the chances are it's still gonna be big old footprint from the past there.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

Yeah, yeah. It's an interesting area. The whole castle gate's very interesting. I mean there's tons of stuff going on there, and it's I don't know, I think it's probably the most active area if you like at the moment, I guess. So they say. But what do I know? I'm just telling the stories. Just telling the stories. Thank you for the leatherhead stories. We will uh we will we have more at some point, I'm sure. Cache are a veritable armory of spooky stories to fire at you over time.

SPEAKER_03 46:40

I keep the hall light on, but the shadows never fade. Every corner always per secrets of the choices that I made. There's a tapping at the window, though the wind is standing still, and the chill runs down my spine like something moving at its will. I tell myself it's nothing, just the creaking of the floor, but every night the silence feels louder than before. You can hide from the somebody here. Something little remembers me. I'm too afraid to see every picture seems to watch me as I pass. I feel waiting for the moment when my courage doesn't last for little prayers to keep the nightmares from my bed. Something sits beside me, breathing the goose in my head. You can hide from what's already cute. Something in the dark remembers me no matter what I do, that feeling doesn't go a light still scared The hauntings never fade Maybe it's just trauma, maybe ghosts are made of fear But every night I swear I feel a presence drawing near You can say there's nothing there but tell me if that's true I just something in the quiet feel like it's looking through me You can't hide from what's not everybody