RAYNHAM HALL

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 60, 8 September 1937, Page 19

RAYNHAM HALL

MUCH-HAUNTED HOUSE

THE BROWN LADY AND

A DUKE

SPIRITS OF CHILDREN

While accepting Dr. Johnson's opinion of ghostly returns, that "all argument is against it, but all belief is for it," I must confess not only that I believe in ghosts but that I have lived for many years in a definitely haunted house (writes the Marchioness Townshend in the "Cape Times";.

Raynham Hall, known throughout Norfolk as The Great House, lias been the home of the Townshends for successive generations. It is haunted n&t only by the historic Brown Lady (mentioned in all important literature on the subject of the supernatural), but also by a tragic Duke, and the harmless phantoms of animals and children. ,Let me first introduce Dorothy Walpole better known as The Brown Lady. Dorothy Walpole, the sister of Sir Robert Walpole, married the second Viscount Townshend, but the marriage was an unhappy one, and Dorothy's sole interests in life were centred on her children, who remained 'at Raynham in charge of their grandmother, their mother having been deprived of any share in their upbringing. . . . The Viscountess is said to have been a • frivolous creature, with a pardonable love of pretty clothes, judging from a lengthy bill far chiffons which is kept among our family papers. Her husband may have resented her extravagance, but he did not advertise the fact, and no scandal was associated with .her name. One may nevertheless assume.that, in,.colloquial terms. Lord and Lady Towrishend didn't "hit it off.!' ■ An amazing story has. always persisted that Dorothy' Walpole was starved to death at Raynham Hall. In the eighteenth century, enforced starvation in surroundings like those of Raynham Hall would have been impossible, unless Lady Townshend had staged a hunger strike of such magnitude that she died from it. With such an important brother as Sir Robert Walpole living near by, she could not have been "removed" in such a drastic manner. THE FAMILY GHOST. However, the unhappy wife and mother has become the Family Ghost. As The Brown Lady she confines her appearances to' the principal staircase and some .of the corridors.One of the best authenticated stories Of her appearance was in 1849, when a large house party met at Raynham as the guests of Lord Charles Townshend, who then owned The Great House. Among the guests were Major and Mrs. Loftus. near relatives of the Townshends; Major Loftus had no use tor the early-to-bed regime. One particular dawn, when he was making his way upstairs after an all-night sitting, the friend who was with him drew his attention to a lady wearing a brown silk dress, who was standing on the a Asinfadies in Early Victorian days were not in the habit of waiting up in the small, hours, except to give their husbands "curtain lectures in bed and as Major Loftus did not "belong" to this lady, he was naturally puzzled as to her identity, but just as he hailed her the Lady in the Brown Silk Dress vanished. The next night Major Loftus sat up alone to watch for the ghost, who eventually made her appearance. The major, who was familiar with the geography of The Great House, determined to waylay her, cut off her retreat, and come face to face with her in a side passage. , His plan succeeded, and he encountered a handsome woman, dressed in brown, but to his horror two empty sockets represented the place where eyes should have been. The major, who was able to see the ghost quite plainly by the hand lamp which he carried, was so impressed that before meeting the house party at breakfast, he made an excellent sketch of The Brown Lady and passed it round in corroboration of his adventure. The guests were inspired by his recital to sit up night after night, facing the haunted staircase, hoping to see the ghost, who obstinately refused to show herself. MARRYATS PISTOLS. The host became suspicious that The Brown Lady, was in the nature of. some distasteful, practical joke ana determined to find out things for himself. So he replaced his servants by a capable staff of detectives, who remained at Raynham for months on end without obtaining the smallest clue either to the ghost or to the instigator of the suspected trickery. The Brown Lady continues to haunt Raynham, and she was seen quite, recently by Mr. James Durham's sister, Mrs Cyril Fitzroy, and her daughter, who, not being troubled with flights of imagination, are reliable witnesses. One of her appearances was to my son George. As a small boy he and Walter Rotherwell, a young American friend, met a lady on the staircase. She not only frightened but puzzled them, because, as George said, ie could see the stairs through her. Captain Marryat. the writer of adventure stories, was not so kindly disposed towards The Brown Lady as tfajor Loftus had been. Wh-n he was staying at the hall she appeared in the semi-twilight of one of the corridors at Raynham. He discharged his pistol full in her face, whereupon she vanished, and the bullet found its billet in the door behind her. For the rest of his visit Captain Marryat always slept with loaded pistols under his pillow. About twelve years ago, when Sir Henry Birkin (better known as "Tim" Birkin) rented the shooting he, too, sat up to wait for The Brown Lady, and, like Captain Marryat, he was disposed to shoot at sight. But he waited in> vain, although the dog who shared "Tim's" watch on the stairs, showed signs of terror and uneasiness in the small hours. THE GHO^T OF A DUKE. The Monmouth Room at Raynham (so called because the ill-fated Duke of Monmouth slept there when he stayed at the Great House with his Royal Father) is haunted by the ghost of the duke, who appears as a Red Cavalier." He once enacted the role of a ghostly "Scout," as he certainly did one good deed on this night. At one of my house parties the Monmouth Room was occupied by the loveliest debutante of her year, who had begged to sleep there as she wanted, beyond all things, to meet the Red Cavalier. The phantom of the duke did not materialise. The next person to sleep in the Monmouth Room, two days after the debutante's departure, was a connection of the Townshends, a spinster of uncertain age, who had led a small smothered life devoid of romance. It fell to her to experience one glamorous night. She suddenly awoke one night to see the Red Cavalier standing at the foot of her bed, smiling hi a most encouraging manner. She told us afterwards that she was not in the least frightened, only happily interested.

When, as befitted a courtier, the duke paid her the homage due to a

Princess of the Blood, and bowed himself out into the shadows of the opposite wall, he became the happiest memory of a drab lifetime.

It was a gesture worthy of the son j of the Merry Monarch, who, if he never | said anything wise, at least was consistently charming to women. There are two ghosts of children at Raynham. One of them haunts a room known as the Stone Parlour. She was first seen, although, I believe, often previously heard, by Miss Baumer, my I German governess, whom I asked to act as hostess one day during my Mayoralty at King's Lynn (where I was due to open a bazaar), and receive Lady Norah Bentinck, her two ' little children, and the Dowager Coun- ■ tess of Gainsborough, who were com- [ ing on a visit to Raynham. 1 THE THIRD CHILD. The visitors were welcomed by Miss Baumer, who presently said to Lady Norah, "1 thought you were only bring- ; ing two children, but I see there a»e i three. Is the other child sleeping with • Biddy, and, by the by, wherever has she got to?" ■ . "What other child?" said Lady 1 Norah. "There are only Biddy and ; Henry. I don't know what you mean i by three children:" Miss Baumer explained that when Lady Norah and the children got out of the car. a little girl, wearing wb>t she described as a picture frock, went* 1 with them up the steps leading to the entrance, and ran through the hall into the Stone Parlour. ' "It was impossible for me to be mistaken," she added, and she always insisted that Biddy and Henry must have been accompanied by the Townshend child, who still loves the Stone Parlour for the sake of its happy earthly associations. Apart from the manifestations I have described, the death of a Townshend is heralded by various portents often associated with historic houses. Shortly before my mother-in-law, the Dowager Marchioness, became seriously ill at her house at Gloucester, I gave a party at Raynham, and Miss Baumer, the ghost seer, who had been helping with the arrangements, noticed a tall fair woman, wearing a flowing pink dress, who came out of my bedroom, holding her handkerchief to her eyes. Seeing her evident distress, Miss Baumer hastened to ask me whether any guest had arrived after dinner, and if there had been any contretemps. I told her no, and we decided at once that what she had seen was in the nature of a warning. This was so; the Dowager Marchioness died before many weeks had passed, and my sister-in-law, Lady Agnes Durham,. tells me that before the death of her father, the fifth Marquess when Raynham Hall was let; the' tenants were awakened by hearing the footsteps of many people passing up and down. A BOND WITH SPIRITS. When they started to investigate waves of blackness alone flowed down the staircase. The same thing happened on the following night. Next morning news arrived that Lord Townshend had died in Paris about the time of the disturbances. It seems as though some kind of sympathy must exist between the Townshend family and the world of ghosts. When Lord George Osborne, the second son of the then Duchess of Leeds '.(nee. Lady Charlotte-Towns-hend), was killed at Oxford in 1831, Mrs. George Portal, Lady Anne Townshend's niece, saw George Osborne pass through the room where she was sitting. Mrs. Portal spoke to him, but he did not answer, and the servants declared that neither Lord George nor anyone answering his description, had entered the house. But on the next morning -word came of the fatal accident which Lord George had met with at the moment when he had been seen by Mrs. Portal. In the Royal bedroom at Raynharrr, not far from the saloon where the picture of the lovely Duchess of Leeds hangs, it is usual to find the heavy chairs, set overnight well back against the, wall, arranged next morning round the large card table. Perhaps some of the gamblers who lost fortunes at Raynham are permitted to return and indulge in a more exciting game of chance..