SAW A GHOST

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 30, 4 August 1931, Page 3

SAW A GHOST

LORD KILBRACKEN

| A. remarkable ghost story—with Ox» : ford as its setting—is told in a, book of memoirs, "The Reminiscences : off Lord Kilbrackcn," once well known as Sir Arthur Godley, the distinguished Civil servant, who, in his early official days, was private secretary to Mr. Gladstone, says the "Daily Mail." He tells us how Andrew. Lang, the welU ' known writer, in 1869, "saw Conington,whom he well knew as an acquaintance . . . standing under the lamp-post which is situated in the middle of the roar'!, between Oriel and Christ Church, and looking steadfastly towards Corpus; tho college to which as Latin. Professor he belonged, and for which he had. a very special affection.'' At that very moment Conington had died. The story is interesting because Lang, immediately after he had. "seen" the. wraith, met another of ■ Conington's friends and said that Conington had just met him, -when/he was told that this was impossible as Conington-was lying very ill. " Conington was a man of such peculiar appearance- that no one who knew him; could have mistaken a stranger foe him. , One of the most famous of Oxf ori "ghosts," which has frequently been. stated to have been seen, is that of Archbishop Laud, who built the Canterbury Quadrangle of St. John's Collego. He is said to appear in the library, the cast wing of which was added by him, and contains to-dayj among its treasures his cope and other} vestments. There is an uuauthenticated story; that the ceiling of "the rooms beneath, the library has been raised since Laud's day, and that he appears walking tfn the old floor of the library, so that his legs aro visible in the rooms beneath and the upper part of his body; in tuo library itself. Another Oxford ghost is that of the' White Lady said to haunt the Mob Quadrangle of Merton College.