The Antonine Itineraries

A couple of 'meaningful' coincidences in the last week have alerted me to the fact that I should update the blog post on the alleged Victorian street beneath Selfridges. It's by far the most visited post and the way it's laid out is rather confusing and cluttered. So, here is an attempt to present the material in a more logical way with some added comments in the light of new material.

It was first posted on 10 April 2013.

At the talk for the South East London Folklore Society last week an audience question came up yet again about the existence of a perfectly preserved Victorian street of shops somewhere beneath Oxford Street. I think that the first time this came to my notice was when I was asked about it by Robert Elms during my first appearance on his radio show c.2001; at the time I honestly professed to know nothing about it and the whole thing seemed pretty absurd to me. It has since resurfaced (so to speak) on numerous occasions. I did say at the SELFS talk that I would look into this tale one more time and put my findings on the blog. The result has turned out to be more interesting than I might have thought.

Searching on the internet you can find a number of threads devoted to this topic. On one for example someone poses the question:

'Does anybody know anything about the supposed Victorian High Street underneath the present Oxford Street? Evidently Oxford St was raised up years ago but there is a tunnel underneath where the original cobbled road still stands and the part facias [sic] of Victorian shops. Or is this just an urban myth?'

In my Folklore of London book (2008) I wrote this [original text not the edited published version]:

‘Viewers of the 1991 Channel 4 Christmas Special The Ghosts of Oxford Street, directed and narrated by Malcolm McLaren were treated to a rare sight: behind a door in the basement of Selfridges there survives a complete underground Victorian street, perfectly preserved, with period frontages intact, supposedly lying directly beneath the modern street above. This piece of trickery has since entered London’s subterranean folklore and references to it continue to appear in magazines and on websites.’ 

My information was taken from various discussions about the film on the internet; perhaps naively I assumed that one or two of these participants had actually viewed it and remembered it accurately.

At the time that I was writing my folklore book I tried to obtain a copy of The Ghosts of London but it wasn't out on dvd and didn't appear on You Tube or anything similar; nobody I knew had recorded it. Last week, however, another audience member told me that it could now be seen on Channel 4’s tv on demand website here. So yesterday I finally managed to see this intermittently entertaining former rarity (with a ridiculous performance from Leigh Bowery) on my laptop and guess what? I cannot find the scene filmed in a perfectly preserved street of Victorian shops under Oxford Street. 

Selfridge’s certainly features heavily (the whole of part 2 of the 54 minute film is devoted to it) and there is a scene where Tom Jones dressed in Edwardian [?] costume (as Gordon Selfridge presumably) descends on an escalator to a floor of the store where the staff are dressed in period clothes – Twenties-looking to me, although the displays and products are modern. Other scenes take place inside Regency/Victorian rooms or sets or outside modern Oxford Street shops.  

The main candidate for the street scene must be the section on Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859), played by John Altman, filmed in what looks like a set, dressed to signify decadent dilapidation, intended to represent shops, as an obviously non-authentic sign reads ‘Boots apothecary’. There are however no ‘perfectly preserved’ Victorian shop fronts, nothing to indicate that it lies beneath Selfridge's and, owing to the camera position, no view of a cobbled street. On the same thread mentioned above another contributor claims that:

‘John Altman who played Nick Cotton in Eastenders… was in a bit of the film apparently actually under Oxford Street where there still exists part of this Victorian Street…He claimed Malcolm McLaren let him through a hole in the basement of Selfridges.’  

In another scene the present-day (1991) McLaren chases an actor playing his younger self into the Eisenhower Centre secure storage facility in Chenies Street. The boy descends in an old-fashioned ‘cage’ lift to a dimly lit tunnel that could be part of the former deep level shelter beneath Goodge Street tube station (you can also hear a tube train in the background, although this could have been added in post-production). Security Archives appear in the credits, so it seems that this sequence was filmed within that facility.  

By a strange coincidence the deep level shelter was used by Eisenhower (in his capacity as Supreme Commander of COSSAC, later absorbed into SHAEF) and his officers for a period during the Second World War, after he had rejected an annexe of Selfridge’s at No.14 Duke Street W1 - ‘a sizeable steel and concrete structure blessed with deep basements running 45 feet down’ - which later housed the SIGSALY code-scrambling computer. 

It should also be borne in mind that the now defunct Mail Rail/Post Office Railway (opened 1927, closed 2003) runs around 70 feet down, just to the north of the section of Oxford Street on which Selfridge’s stands. The Central line, opened as the Central London Railway from Bank to Shepherd’s Bush on 30th July 1900, also runs under the bustling thoroughfare. All the above is covered in my book Subterranean City, beneath the streets of London (now - October 2020 - out of print and just waiting for an enterprising publisher to request an updated version).

My copy of The Twopenny Tube by Bruce & Croome (1996) says on p23: ‘The large store of Harry Gordon Selfridge was being built near Bond Street station in 1908 and opened on 15th March 1909. Selfridge used many innovative marketing initiatives, but his suggestion that Bond Street station be renamed Selfridge’s was cold shouldered by the railway.’  

I have never had a behind-the-scenes tour of Selfridge’s myself, but a reporter from Time Out who has, certainly did not uncover anything unusual, although it’s interesting that while she makes no mention of the ‘preserved street’ she does refer to an alleged ‘abandoned tube station’ (article posted on the Time Out website on 10 November 2006):

‘We start by heading down into the basements. Myths abound about this subterranean world and, sadly, most of them are just that. There is no abandoned tube station, though Selfridge did lobby to get an underground tunnel built from Bond Street station up into the store – and have the station renamed ‘Selfridges’. Neither was there a river running through it – though there was an artesian well that served the building for years.

There are two levels of basement beneath the lower-ground shop floor: the ‘sub’ and the ‘sub-sub’, descending 60 metres below street level. These are split into two more areas: the dry sub and sub-sub, and their ‘wet’ equivalents. The wet area, more dank than watery, is beneath the original building, while the dry is under the rear building, known as the SWOD (after the four streets – Somerset, Wigmore, Orchard and Duke – that once enclosed it). 

During WWII, the SWOD’s basement was used by 50 soldiers from the US Army Signal Corps; there were even visits from Eisenhower and Churchill. The building had one of the only secure telex lines, was safe from bombing, and was close to the US Embassy on Grosvenor Square. According to Jarvis, a tunnel was built from Selfridges to the embassy so that personnel could move between the two in safety. Interrogation cells for prisoners were hewn from the uneven space available.’ 

With reference to the last two sentences, do we have another folkloric ‘secret tunnel’ to add to the hundreds supposedly under London? This is the first time I've seen reference to a tunnel from Selfridge’s to the American Embassy, but as it was constructed during wartime, as many other similar tunnels and shelters were, it cannot be dismissed totally. Perhaps when the American Embassy site is vacated in 2017 more details will come to light. 

If you think about it logically, had this street really managed to survive intact, it is incredible that it has not been opened to the public as an attraction or 'vintage retail experience' – especially given its hugely busy and tourist-heavy location.

Could this now firmly established piece of subterranean folklore be based on a misremembering of a small part of the Ghosts of Oxford Street that was, as far as I know, only shown on the one occasion in 1991; the urban legend does not appear to predate that year (Robert Elms asked me about it ten years later). The film had not subsequently been readily available on video or dvd (although some people must have taped it presumably?) so this fascinating misinterpretation (possibly coupled with the John Altman comment –if indeed that was ever actually said - or deliberate misinformation from the arch-prankster and former Situationist McLaren) became known through word of mouth, programmes such as the Robert Elms show and the internet? I shall have to go with this theory for now.

On 10 April 2013 I added the following;

As I intend to talk about this topic tomorrow night at Kensington Central Library I thought it was about time that I asked Selfridge's Press Office about this long-standing rumour. They told me that it was  a myth started by the Ghosts of Oxford Street film, as I suspected. Funnily enough, a few months ago, I was emailed by someone at the City of Westminster Archives Centre who had been contacted by a man who swore that he had visited a street of shops beneath Selfridge's in his youth.

On 23 June 2015 I added:

During research for my next book [Secret Tunnels of England: Folklore & Fact] I found out that Selfridge's is adding to its underground domain:

'In 2004 Selfridges announced a multi-million pound refurbishment and expansion programme for the store, which will include the construction of a tunnel connecting it to the recently-acquired Nations House in Wigmore Street, probably for the use of its 3000 staff, rather than customers.' Iain Withers 'Selfridge's picks team for revamp of flagship Oxford Street store' Building 27 February 2014.

On 19 April 2016 I added:

The mystery of the Victorian street under Oxford Street deepens (perhaps). A fairly old online post that somehow eluded me previously states that in fact the remnant of Victorian shops could be found several levels below what was the Lilley & Skinner shoe shop at 356-360 Oxford Street (very close to Selfridge's) and it was this location that Malcolm McLaren used when filming the Ghosts of Oxford Street. The cobbled street gets a mention and we are also told that the council had a 'preservation order' on it. The building is now a branch of Forever 21. I shall endeavour to check this out as soon as I can.

Another personal account was given to me in the pub (so my recall may not be perfect) after the hugely successful Subterranean Saturday talks at Conway Hall on the 9th of this month. A man told me that in the late 1960s he had delivered some clothes to Selfridge's - he had to take them down to a basement area that had been dressed to resemble a Victorian street. 

Now this is all very possible: that period did start to become fashionable in the late 60s and it is understandable that a large department store would want to evoke a Dickensian/Victorian atmosphere, especially around Christmas. But surely this arrangement would not have survived for another 20 years or so, when the Ghosts of Oxford Street came to be filmed? 

Later, I tried contacting Forever 21 to ask about the lost street beneath their premises, but to no avail, so one day, as I happened to be in central London I visited the store on Oxford Street. I have no recollection of visiting the Lilley & Skinner shop that was once based there in my youth. The building has only one lower-ground floor - this was confirmed by a member of staff - there are no lower levels - at least not accessible these days, if there ever were. It is on one side of Stratford Place, a fascinating historical cul de sac and close to the route of the 'lost' river Tyburn. I couldn't use Bond Street station as the area adjacent to the store is being prepared for Crossrail. See Westminster City Council's site here - under Stratford Place - where you can download a pdf.

In October 2020 I found that the estimable Survey of London had recently published a volume devoted entirely to Oxford Street, which has made what I always thought rather a dull street (apart from the thousands of bustling pedestrians) come to life and is packed with interesting architectural detail, maps and lovely photographs old and new. There is a long section (pp179-206) devoted to Selfridge's and contains all the detail you would need about the ownership of the land, plans for construction, the building and fitting out of the department store and the various expansions over the decades. Nowhere, of course, is there a mention that during its construction it was decided to preserve a row of Victorian shops in its basement area. In fact the building stands on what was previously the London branch of furniture makers Gillow & Co, who occupied part of the site from 1769 to 1906. There is also a very comprehensive history of the store by Gordon Honeycombe, Selfridge's Seventy-Five Years of the Store 1909-1984 (Park Lane Press, 1984).

Another very interesting blog post suggests that an early Medieval cistern under Stratford Place next to Forever 21 (once Lilley & Skinner) may be responsible for the belief in an underground structure of some kind in the vicinity of Oxford Street. See here. There is also a comment from 2017 written by a lady who says that she worked at L&S and saw the famed subterranean street with her own eyes.

See also a follow-up post here with other eye-witness claims that the street really does exist.

It looks as if this one will run and run - although a medieval cistern - fascinating as it sounds - is not a street of well-preserved Victorian shops with a cobbled street, which is what the original story is all about. For the history of water supply in the area see The Lost Rivers of London and books by Tom Bolton amongst others.

 

While I ponder whether to republish Secret Tunnels of England, here's an extract about an unusual event in Norfolk (pp.68-69).


The Norfolk village of Ludham was said at one time to have been terrified by a fearsome winged dragon, twelve to fifteen feet in length, which appeared every night, forcing the residents to stay indoors between the hours of sunset and sunrise. For its lair, the dragon excavated a series of tunnels beneath the heart of the village: from the corner of St Catherine's churchyard they passed under the high street and local inn. At dawn, after the monster retired to its subterranean home, the villagers desperately tried to fill the entrance with rocks and rubble, only to see the creature burst forth once more each evening.

On a particularly sunny day the dragon unexpectedly emerged from the tunnels to bask in the warm sunshine in the centre of the village. Seizing the opportunity, one brave man laboriously rolled a huge boulder into the entrance to the dragon's tunnels, sealing them shut. Returning to its lair, the dragon found the obstruction impossible to dislodge. Furiously lashing its tail, the enraged beast flew towards the Bishop's Palace (now the site of Ludham Hall) and along the causeway to the ruined Abbey of St Benet, where it passed under the great archway and vanished in the vaults beneath, never to be seen again. The dragon's tunnels were later filled in.

This legend, recounted in a manuscript in the Norfolk Record Office, is undated, but may have been based on an actual event. The Norfolk Chronicle for 28 September 1782 contains the following brief report:

'On Monday the 16th inst. a snake of an enormous size was destroyed at Ludham, in this county, by Jasper Andrews, of that place. It measured five feet eight inches long and was almost three feet in circumference, and had a very long snout; what is remarkable, there were two excrescences on the fore part of the head which very much resembled horns. This creature seldom made its appearance in the daytime, but kept concealed in subterranean retreats several of which have been discovered in the town ... The skin of the above surprising reptile is now in the possession of Mr J Garrett, a wealthy farmer in the neighbourhood.'

A few years ago I was passing through the village and took some photographs see above. The King's Arms pub, St Catherine's church and a local information panel with the story of the dragon.

The rescheduled Underground Folklore talk did go ahead, but in the present isolation situation all other talks will have to be postponed until later in the year.

In the meantime, I'll endeavour to write up some of the stuff for this blog that's been sitting on my desktop for ages without action.

A while ago we did a circular walk from Appledore in Kent that included a stretch of the Royal Military Canal and a visit to St Mary's church in Stone-in-Oxney. The church was rebuilt following a fire in the fifteenth century and has a number of interesting features, the most unusual of which can be found in the rear of the building under the tower. It is a large almost square piece of carved Kentish ragstone, 2 feet by 1 foot 10 inches and 3 feet 4 inches tall with a distinct carving of a bull on the side facing the viewer - the other three sides are too badly damaged and eroded to make out the images, but it is assumed that they also include carvings of bulls (see Notes and Queries below). It is commonly identified as an altar from a temple dedicated to Mithras that was either on the site of the church, or in the near vicinity.

I've visited a number of Mithraea over the years: San Clemente in Rome, Martigny in Switzerland, and Carrawburgh Roman Fort on Hadrian's Wall amongst others. Of course, one of the most famous is the Mithraeum uncovered along the Walbrook in the City of London after the Second World War that has in recent years been relocated and reconstructed as part of an atmospheric and numinous visitor experience that is highly recommended. See here.

Sculptures from the temple were also preserved and are now on display in the Museum of London. The most interesting shows the culmination of Mithraic rites, the slaughter of a bull, or tauroctony. We saw a very impressive example at the Louvre in Lens a few years ago. See here.

The church at Stone-in-Oxney provides a laminated copy of an article from the journal Bygone Kent (c.2000): 'Traces of Mithraism in Kent' by R.B. Parish (I haven't been able to find the text of this article online for a link, but I quote from it below) which is very informative.

A basin has been carved into the top of the stone and the article quotes Rev. Grevile Mairis Livett (misspelled as Levit) Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (his obituary can be found here): 'The most significant feature is the focus hollowed out of the top for the reception of libations made to the god, or of the exta (internal organs) of the slaughtered animals to be burnt, while the flesh was consumed at the sacrificial feast.' It is also noted that the basin once had an iron lining.

Livett's description of the stone continues: 'It has certain peculiar features: there is no inscription such as is usually found on Roman altars on the front face, while the sides are usually blank or may have symbolic carving on them, the back being plain. In this case, the bull, repeated on all four sides, must be regarded as the symbol of the god, and I imagine it must indicate the devoting of the altar to the soldier's god Mithras, though his altars are generally sculpted with a representation of the taurobolium ie. Mithras slaying the bull.'

'Set into the foot of the structure is an iron ring which rather erroneously has been suggested was where victims were secured to be sacrificed. This would, however, appear to be unlikely and it would be more feasible that it was set into the stone when it was used as a horse mounting block and thus was to tether the horses to.'

The stone is mentioned in Notes & Queries Oct 23 1869 (p.347): Stone Altar. This object is not noticed in the Archaeologica Cantiana. The only account I have seen of it ... is the following from Murray's admirable Handbook: "In the garden of the vicarage of Stone is preserved an ancient altar (Brito-Roman?) which before its removal there had, time out of mind, been kept in the church. It had figures of oxen on four sides, only one of which is now perfect. At the foot is an iron ring for securing victims (?) and vestiges of the iron lining to the basin existed until very recently. This altar seems to illustrate the name of the district, 'Oxney', the cattle island."'

The village website informs us: 'At that time the temple and its military outpost would have been on the coastline, overlooking an extensive marshy delta. The higher ground of the Isle of Oxen formed the edge of the great Wealden forest of Anderida.'

Tradition had it that the stone had been discovered at an unknown date under the north chapel floor where it remained until the eighteenth century when it was moved to the vicarage garden and used as a mounting block for horses. Historian Edward Hasted noted that during this period 'it suffered considerable damage, becoming cracked and mutilated.' Hasted's History of Kent has an illustration, as does Camden's Britannica, according to Parish's article.

It's worth reading 'Historical Notes on the church of Stone in Oxney, Kent' by W.H. Yeadle (1935) which can be read as a pdf here.

In the early 1920s antiquarians wanted the stone to go to Maidstone Museum or be protected by a shelter, but in 1926 it was moved from the vicarage garden to its present location inside the church, a feat achieved by public subscription and support of the Kent Archaeological Society.

It has been suggested that the altar may have come from the Saxon Shore Fort called Stutfall Castle at Lympne. See here.

Interestingly and I suppose inevitably local folklore also includes tales of secret tunnels in the vicinity, to quote from the Bygone Kent article once more, with the author's highly speculative interpretations:

'It may also be significant that Kenardington, not far away [about 5 km to the north east] on Romney Marsh, is associated with three interesting pieces of folklore which may have relevance here. One is that the church is built upon a mound, beneath which are said to be "tunnels", for which one could read a Mithraeum. These are bizarrely said to be haunted by a coach, perhaps a folk memory of Roman chariots. The third is that somewhere in the land around it is said to be hidden a golden calf, which is of course the sacred symbol of Mithraism. Sadly no Roman remains have been unearthed to support the theory and the mound on which the church sits is generally believed to be Danish. Yet, these possible folk memories are highly suggestive, and the stratum, sandstone, would be easy to tunnel into. Perhaps then this was another Christianised site, or the altar came from Kenardington.'

In my Secret Tunnels of England I mention the widespread folklore of buried golden calves - possibly a memory of pre-Reformation statues of saints and other Catholic treasures, rather than Mithraic origins. I hope to visit Kenardington soon, as it does not appear in my book, but sounds worth including if there is ever a second edition.

Three talks have been confirmed this year, with more in the pipeline.

NEW ADDITION: DECADENT LONDON at TREADWELLS BOOKSHOP
Thursday 20 February 7.30 pm: see their website for details. HERE

Thursday 27 February SECRET TUNNELS: FOLKLORE OF UNDERGROUND ENGLAND
Kensington Central Library Lecture Theatre  6.30-7.30 pm FREE. More information and book through Eventbrite here
Part of a mini Folklore Festival in which, amongst others, Christopher Josiffe should also be giving a talk.

Thursday 26 March WHISTLER: CHELSEA'S GREATEST ARTIST Chelsea Library 6.15-7.15 pm
More information and book through Eventbrite here FREE

Thursday 9 April DECADENT WESTMINSTER City of Westminster Archives Centre 10 St Anne's St, Westminster, SW1P 2DE (details to follow)  FREE

A busy summer school holidays now having finished, I hope to write up some information about a few of the places we visited in England and Wales of relevance to this blog.

Firstly, Lavenham in Suffolk, a very pretty village with a wealth of timber-framed buildings - famous in Folk Horror circles as a location in Witchfinder General see here.

Lavenham appears in Secret Tunnels of England: Folklore and Fact and during our visit I took some photos of some of the buildings mentioned in the text:

'The beautifully preserved medieval wool town of Lavenham in Suffolk includes many half-timbered houses such as the rambling block of buildings in Water Street known as the Priory. Originally the property of the Benedictine Colne Priory at Earls Colne, Essex, the building, which began as a thirteenth-century hall house, has a blocked-up doorway in the cellar leading to a culvert, probably used for the dyeing of wool. According to a local guidebook: 'on the opposite side of this is a corresponding doorway of a subterranean passage leading towards Lady Street (there is authenticated proof of this).' The lavish brochure for the present-day 'boutique accommodation' says 'It is rumoured that there is a secret underground passageway connecting Lavenham Priory to the Swan Hotel, which was built during the Reformation.'

Facing onto Lady Street, The Grove is a timber-framed house with a Georgian front and gardens that stretch back to Barn Street. It was in the gardens that: ' a Roman bath or crypt was discovered and evidence of an underground passage leading from the splendid building on the Barn Street side of the Grove garden towards the Guildhall was also found.' The Guildhall is a sixteenth-century timber-framed building founded by the local wool guild and later used as a bridewell and workhouse; today it is a National Trust property.

On the corner of Water Street and High Street stands the Swan Hotel with the old Wool Hall now incorporated into it. In the fourteenth-century cellars there is said to be a blocked entrance to a passage that runs along under the road.'

Little Hall, Lavenham, is also worth visiting (no secret tunnel) - see here - a 14th century house with plenty of atmosphere, used as a kind of artist's hostel during the middle years of the last century by the Gayer-Anderson brothers who amassed an eclectic collection on antiques, pictures, books and Egyptian artefacts including the famous Bastet Cat Goddess, now in the British Museum.

We also visited Bury St Edmunds, home to one of the 'vanishing fiddler' tales popular in that part of the country.

'In Bury St Edmunds, a number of buildings have been incorporated over the years into the ruins of the great Benedictine abbey, once among the richest in Europe. On Angel Hill, the Angel Inn, now the Angel Hotel - built in 1779 on the site of three adjoining inns, The Angel (build in 1452), The Castle and The White Bear - sits on arched vaults that date back to the thirteenth century.  Tunnels are said to honeycomb Angel Hill and local legend connects them with Maud Carew, a nun alleged to have poisoned Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (1390-1447), who was arrested on his arrival in Bury St Edmunds on 18 February 1447 and died on 25th of that month. Her ghost, seen as a 'Grey Lady', 'still patrols the buildings, passing in and out of the walls with celebrated abandon.' The legendary tunnels are very likely remnants of the abbey's drainage system. Once more we hear of a bold fiddler being  the only person willing to enter the tunnel under the Angel, being followed on his subterranean journey by a crowd listening to the slowly fading music that suddenly ceases, with no subsequent sign of the fiddler - 'probably he was instantly suffocated by some unwholesome vapours that he there met with.'

Photos above of Lavenham Priory, The Grove and The Guildhall in Lavenham taken by me, Angel Hotel in Bury St Edmunds (not by me).

I shall be giving a talk about 'Tunnels Under Holborn' on the evening of Thursday 13th July.  It's for The Friends of Lincoln's Inn  Fields, but I understand that anyone who's interested can come along.

The talk starts at 7.00pm and is FREE.  You will need to book through Eventbrite.  More details can be found there.

It will be held at No.32 Lincoln's Inn Fields (the Old Land Registry building, now part of the London School of Economics) - more here.

Books will be for sale at the usual discount.  I shall have copies of my books that have recently gone out of print.

10th July  This event is now fully booked.  However, in my recent experience with Eventbrite at least 50% of those who book don't show up - so if you're really keen it may be worth a gamble if it's not too much trouble.

I shall also be doing a walk on Decadent London towards the end of August.  Details to follow soon.

Yet another 'lost' street has been in the news recently.  This time it's in Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, beneath a Georgian town house in the centre of Stockton known as Gloucester House, currently being refurbished. See here and here.  The 'street' appears to be a series of storerooms and possibly accommodation for servants (although I think they are probably more storage areas), linked by passages.  Talk in the articles of the 'secret tunnels' linking to other parts of Stockton is characteristic of all such discoveries and reports, but is extremely unlikely.

Reading Master Ghost Hunter, a Life of Elliott O'Donnell by Richard Whittington-Egan.  It is one of the very few biographies I've read where I find it almost impossible to trust the accuracy of any of its contents (the biography of Sax Rohmer Master of Villainy is another, although not to the same extent.  It's possible that the two writers may have met, as they were both members of the Ham Bone club in Soho).  O'Donnell would appear to have been the Arthur Shuttlewood (see The Golden Ram of Satan post) of ghost hunting, having been witness to literally hundreds of apparitions, some terrifying enough to scare one to death - if his accounts are to be believed.  He also seems to have met a vast number of unlucky individuals who had their death foretold by a ghost and to have experienced a statistically remarkable series of coincidences and uncanny encounters.  I even wonder whether he actually did spend some time in the United States, travelling around and working on a ranch, or whether this was yet another product of his over-fertile imagination.  The book itself is well produced, with some nice glossy illustrations, some placed at the beginning of each chapter.  A huge amount of the text consists of long quotations from O'Donnell's books and unpublished autobiography and footnotes do not identify where passages have been taken from.  There is almost no authorial comment on what is being presented.

Only one tale includes a secret tunnel.  In 1952 O'Donnell assisted a group of Bristol University students in a seance and treasure hunt.  The alleged haunted house on St Michael's Hill, Bristol, was: 'built on the ruins of the convent of St Mary Magdalene, founded in 1174 and destroyed by Henry VIII.  For the past seven years the woman who owns it has been troubled by strange happenings.  Silent vibrations shake the walls at night.  Doors slam suddenly.  The daughter of the house frequently finds her nylon stockings mysteriously knotted next morning or the buttons of a coat or blouse done up, apparently by no human agency.'

O'Donnell was present at a seance in which the following information was received about the site: 'Sister Mary, a nun, killed Sister Angela at the corner of a secret passage beneath the convent.  She buried jewellery under the floor there.  Later, in remorse, she threw herself down another well.  She has haunted the area since, can find no rest until her bones are recovered and buried and the treasure is dug up and sent to a church in Italy.'   Some parallels with the nun of Borley here.

A group of students went down to the cellars and attacked the floor, excavating some of the well.

'There, in a dark cobwebbed corner of what must have been the crypt of the convent. the students, stripped to the waist, dug down into the clay and rubble that filled the old shaft.  At the depth of five feet [they] struck brick. [Fellow students] laid bare what appeared to be a brick-and-stone wall.  It had a hollow ring, and is believed to conceal the entrance to a secret passage ...

 'After probing the brick surface, which seemed slightly curved, as if it were the top of an arch, the treasure-seekers decided to suspend operations until an expert could examine the brickwork.' (pp261-262).  We are not told if the expert was consulted.

It is rather a mystery how O'Donnell earned money in his early years to pay for all his travels.  It seems to me that he took up writing purely to make money and had to thereafter keep coming up with the sensational goods.   He wrote of his activities:

'Let me state plainly that I lay no claim to being what is termed a scientific psychical researcher.  I am not a member of any august society that conducts its investigations of the other world, or worlds, with test tube and weighing apparatus; neither do I pretend to be a medium or consistent clairvoyant - I have never undertaken to "raise" ghosts at will for the sensation-seeker or the tourist.  I am merely a ghost hunter.  One who lays stake by his own eyes and senses; one who honestly believes that he inherits in some degree the faculty of psychic perceptiveness from a long line of Celtic ancestry; and who is, and always has been, deeply and genuinely interested in all questions relative to phantasms and a continuance of individual life after physical dissolution.' (pp.3-4)

I've just discovered that Richard Whittington Egan died in September at the age of 91.  He was an acknowledged expert on Jack the Ripper, whom he refers to here as 'Saucy Jacky' (?!)  When I was writing Decadent London I tried to read his biography of Richard Le Gallienne, but was defeated by the orotund style.  Master Ghost Hunter was published earlier this year.  Obituary here.

To Lyminster in West Sussex to investigate an interesting piece of local folklore.  Knucker Hole is a deep round pool, close to the church, fed by a strong underground spring.  According to Notes & Queries (1855) such deep pools:

are called by the people thereabouts Nuckar Holes.  They are very deep, and considered bottomless, because such strong springs arise in them that they never require to be ... emptied and cleaned out.  A mystery ... attaches to them among the common people, who seem to have a vague notion of their connexion with another bottomless pit.

The Lyminster pond has been measured to a depth of thirty feet, but a local story says that village men once took the six bellropes from the church tower (a pub nearby is called The Six Bells) tied them together and still could not touch the bottom.  The word Knucker derives from the Anglo- Saxon 'nicor' or 'water-monster' (nicoras appear in Beowulf) and the Lyminster pool was said to be the home of a fearsome dragon.  For years he ravaged the surrounding area until a brave knight slew him.  A very worn medieval tombstone, believed to be that of the knight, could for centuries be found near the church porch, but more recently was moved inside to stand by the font.

Another local tale ascribes the slaying to a young villager called Jim Pulk.  The canny lad baked a huge pie, lacing it with poison, and drew it on a horse cart to the pool, where he hid behind a bush.  The dragon emerged from the water, sniffed the pie, ate it together with the horse and cart, the poison soon took its course and the dragon curled up and expired.  Having cut off the creature's head, to celebrate his victory Jim went to the Six Bells for a beer, but collapsed and died when he wiped his hand over his mouth - he'd forgotten to wash the poison off his hands; the tombstone has also been claimed as his.  Another version features a hero called Jim Puttock.  For more see Folklore of Sussex by Jacqueline Simpson (Tempus, 2002, pp.34-39).

Inevitably, there is a secret tunnel involved.  Simpson notes that: 'Some seek a rational explanation, saying, for example, that there was a nunnery in Lyminster, linked to the church by a tunnel, and that the nuns invented the story of the dragon to scare soldiers away from this tunnel at the time of the Conquest.'

Inside the church of St Mary Magdalene we were pleasantly surprised to find a stained glass window commemorating the Knucker Hole tale.  Between two angels representing sun and moon a fearsome dragon is approached by the figure of Jim Pulk bearing a much-reduced pie that would have been unlikely to finish off the monster.  The window is, however, very beautiful.  It was made by Caroline Benyon.

Unfortunately, the Hole itself - a couple of hundred yards down a wide grassy path from the church - cannot now be easily seen and sits heavily fenced off (complete with barbed wire!) and behind thick high hedges.  Only small glimpses are available through a gate.

Pictures above:  Stained glass window, tombstone and limited view of Knucker Hole through gate.

Both upcoming talks organised by the London Fortean Society are attracting a lot of interest.  I've already been approached for a magazine interview and by a Radio 4 producer for a possible radio programme based on subterranean themes.  Once more the details are here for the talk next Wednesday at Conway Hall (sold out, but I shall be doing basically the same talk for the April event) and here for the more ambitious event on Saturday 9th April (200 booked already) with Scott Wood, Gary Lachman and myself talking on the mysteries of the underground.

Attendees will have the opportunity to buy a signed and stamped copy of Secret Tunnels of England: Folklore and Fact at a special cheap rate (at least 50% off cover price).  As it keeps going out of stock on Amazon, it's probably easier (and cheaper) to get it directly from me.  It's a limited edition of 400, half of which have already sold.

The book will be now out on Friday 9th October.  Apart from the copies I'll have with me to sell at talks (at a reduced price) the other main outlet is:

Sounds That Swing
88 Parkway
Camden Town
London NW1 7AN

Telephone: 020 7267 4682

email: nohit.records@yahoo.co.uk

Published early October 2015 (the cover is proving problematical for the printers and has delayed publication by a few days)

Foreword by Bradley L Garrett and Afterword by Gary Lachman

Available from Sounds That Swing Parkway, Camden Town, London and at my talks.

A talk on 22 October in London.

I am hoping to promote the book around England over the next few months:

There will be a talk at York Central Library (should be on their website soon) at 3pm on Sunday 25 October.

Another will takes place in the independent bookshop Five Leaves in Nottingham on Wednesday 28 October.

Some more talks in London and elsewhere will follow in the coming weeks.

I recently acquired a copy of [Here are] Ghosts and Witches (Batsford, 1954) by J. Wentworth Day, illustrated by Michael Ayrton, wherein another East Anglian secret tunnel legend can be found [pp.22-24], told in Wentworth Day's inimitable style:

'Spinney has several ghosts.  No place is better fitted for them.  Founded by Lady Mary  Bassingbourne, 'of the Wykes', in the twelfth or thirteenth century, it was a lonely outpost of the Augustinian Canons, standing grey and grim, enisled amid reefy leagues of fen and mere.  A bare wind-twisted belt of scrubby firs was all that protected it from the wild nor'easters that howled down on the wings of the frost and battered its doors, rattled its windows, and beat flat the winter reeds in the great fish-stews.

They lived a good life, those old monks - asceticism offset by old wine and the best that the Fen netsmen and decoymen could bring as tribute.  It was too good to last.  When Henry VIII fell upon them Spinney suffered with the rest.  That is how the first ghosts began their earthly span.

The legend is that when Henry's men-at-arms marched on Spinney, the monks fled in terror down the subterranean passage which is supposed to connect the Abbey with Denny Abbey, five miles across the fens, on the other side of the Cam.  They took with them the plate and all else moveable of value.  Half-way down the tunnel they met the monks of Denny, who also had been turned out by Henry's ruffians.  They decided that it was better to yield up the holy treasures and be saved than perish and be glorified.  So they trotted back to Spinney.  There they found the Abbey wrecked and cast down, and tons of debris over the door to the outer world.  The same had happened at Denny.

Thus the monks expatiated their carnal backslidings by dying in that nightmare tunnel.  Some of my family tried to explore the tunnel fifty years or more ago, but it was full of water and noisome gases.'

He goes on to say that a later owner of the house, built on the cellars of the priory, was troubled by tapping under the floor (said to be the ghosts of the monks tapping on the roof of the tunnel).  'At other times footsteps have been heard and horrible sliding, serpentine rustles, as of gigantic snakes slipping about on the brick steps.  Water fills the tunnel to within a few steps of the top. it is extremely probable that the river has broken in at some time and flooded the passage.  This belief has given rise to stories that the tunnel is inhabited by great eels, which accounts for the "slippery ghosts".'  He also reports that workmen digging on the fens 'found the arched brick roof of a tunnel which seemed to run in a straight line between the two abbeys.  The men got down to gault before they struck the roof, so it is possible that the tunnel might have been driven through the sticky tenacious gault with little fear of inundation from the marshes above.  Gault is impervious to water.'

A more prosaic history of the Priory of Spinney can be found here and some information on the subsequent history here.  One important feature of such tunnel legends, common after the Dissolution, was that they reinforced the official propaganda of the 'carnal backslidings' of the monks, as Wentworth Day puts it.

In August we visited Binham Priory in Norfolk, a former Benedictine house established in the twelfth century - after the Dissolution the nave was used as a parish church -it's a beautiful place.  The west front has one of the earliest traceried windows in England.

It's also interesting from a folkloric point of view.  In 1898 a contributor wrote to Norfolk and Norwich Notes & Queries:  'It is believed that an underground passage leads from Walsingham to the church at Binham, where the natives still point out the spot where the entrance is said to be.  The story has it that many years ago a fiddler volunteered to walk through this passage from the Binham end, and to play his instrument all the way.  He began his journey alone...but was followed above ground by a number of people, who could hear the sound of his violin below.  All appeared to go well till about half the journey was accomplished, when the music suddenly stopped, and the man was never seen again.  The spot where the subterranean harmony ceased is still called "Fiddler's Hill"'.

An earlier story from 1892 names the fiddler as Jimmy Griggs and he's accompanied on his subterranean explorations by his dog Trap.  The line of the tunnel could be seen on the surface as a green bank.  It was said that at night 'a grate tall feller, like an old monk and dressed in black' [a Dominican monk] walked along this bank from Walsingham to Binham shaking his head and appearing to look for something.  In this version the dog runs trembling from the tunnel without his master who was said to have been taken by the Black Monk.

We couldn't see any signs of a tunnel at Binham but at the point where the fiddler's music stopped there is a large round barrow known as 'Fiddler's Hill'.  During road works in 1933 the mound was cut into and workmen uncovered human bones and those of a small animal.  The fiddler and his dog?  Despite the fact that there were two human skeletons, one of a girl, the animal skull was thought to be a dog's, so it's understandable that many wanted to believe that the legend was true.  Archaeologists thought that the burial was Saxon.  The mound still stands at a crossroads which would have increased local lore about it.  As Westwood and Simpson state in Lore of the Land (from which much of this information comes) 'Burial mounds in folklore are associated with a cluster of themes, particularly one categorized by folklorists as 'Path from grave to lower world.'  Detailed archaeological information about the barrow can he found here.

The early versions of the story have the tunnel running between Binham and Walsingham (where we were staying on holiday) but the information board at the mound claims that it ran from Binham to Blakeney.  A legend at Blakeney tells of a tunnel from the Guildhall to the Carmelite monastery and a later one that it finished at Wiveton -  there is also a story of a blind fiddler entering the tunnel but failing to reach the other end.  All photos by me.