The Lincoln Ghost Walk

The trouble with being a sceptic is that there are times when you have doubts about your doubts.

So it was last evening when I joined a group of tourists and locals for ‘The Lincoln Ghost Walk’. Our guide was a tall lady with long red hair, a flowing black cloak and a flair for the dramatic. At first I thought the goose pimples on my arms were a result of her narration. Or was it the sudden chill in the evening air? Or had our little group been joined by an unseen companion?

There are so many ghosts living in the old part of Lincoln that they form a significant minority community. Perhaps they should apply to the council for a grant. Is exorcism an infringement of their rights, I wonder? Still, they seem happy enough, spending most of their time in pubs, goosing barmaids and frightening old ladies.

Our first ghost was a galloping horseman who arrives in the early morning to bang on the Castle gates demanding entry. He is bearing a royal pardon for a condemned man, too late alas, for he is already hanged.

Not far away is Brown’s Pie Shop, home to a spirit known as Humphrey, who only refrains form mischief if the staff greet him by name each morning.

Roman chariots rattle along the Bail and legionaries march knee-deep up Greestone Mount, trying to avoid the bouncing head of Bishop Hugh as it rolls down towards an archway where a priest once hanged himself, forever cursing cameras and mobile phones used there by the unwary.

Beware the White Hart’s Orangery bar, where a horribly disfigured highwayman lurks, baring one eye only to terrified customers. And the ghost of the lady in Cobb Tower, hanged there for murdering her own children and known still to attack the infants of tourists and shout down to passing shoppers.

Come midnight, the ghosts of the plague dead, buried en masse without benefit of clergy, rise from their graves and attend the cathedral seeking absolution. As they worship their singing can be heard, a thing of beauty, passers-by agree.

The Strugglers Arms, so-called because it stands opposite the site of an old gallows, was once home to a stuffed dog, a lurcher. After the execution of his master, a poacher, the dog pined away and was eventually stuffed and kept in the pub. As long as he was there, there was an area of the pub, where there was a strange coldness and where even the most fortified customers were unwilling to sit. Economics demanded that the dog be moved and now he is again near his master, within the walls of the Castle. He seems at last to be content.

I know a little more about that dog. After the dog was stuffed, the landlord thought it would be a good idea to put it in a glass case to display it better and also to protect it from the curious. Unfortunately, the case he bought wasn't quite big enough and in order to fit the dog in he cut off its tail.

However, that very night, about three o'clock in the morning he was awakened by a scratching noise at his door, which persisted for half an hour. He rose to investigate and when he opened the door he saw a ghostly apparition. It was the dog.

His blood ran cold, because it stared at him with fangs bared and a look of diabolical hatred in its eyes.

The dog turned and started down the stairs. Even this ghost had no tail. The landlord felt himself drawn after it. They reached the bar and the dog looked up at its stiff body in the case. It loosed a fearful, hellish howl, and the landlord knew that the phantom hound was demanding that he replace the missing part.

The landlord knew what he must do. Trembling, he summoned up the courage to look the beast in the eye and croak, 'I'm sorry. I'm not allowed by law to retail spirits after hours.'

As they say, ‘Ooh, it makes you think, doesn’t it?'