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THE BERKELEY SQUARE HORROR

Mayfair, one of the most expensive parts of London, is where you'll find Berkeley Square. At No. 50, once an upper class townhouse, a second storey room became the scene of the capital city's most disturbing haunting. For a long time (starting during the 1840's) the bedroom earned a reputation as a place where nobody could spend a night in peace. According to some sources, many of those who attempted to sleep there were literally driven out in terror by 'The Horror'.

Victorian visitors to London flocked to see the house and stories of strange bangs, noises and shifting furniture were widely told by both occupants of the Square and collectors of ghost stories.



One often-reported apparition was that of a young girl who was seen hanging outside the building from one of the window ledges of the haunted room. Some writers have suggested that the ghost is linked to the tragic demise of a girl who fell from that window whilst trying to escape the lecherous intentions of a wicked uncle. However, others see it as part of the main legend of the house and say that she met her death attempting to flee from the bizarre and vicious 'Thing' which preyed upon human occupants of the room.

Similarly, an earlier story about the sobbing phantom of a little girl in a kilt who was murdered in one of the top rooms by a cruel female servant was also adapted as another example of a victim of the 'Thing' remaining on the premises as a ghost.

Some researchers have attempted to explain the tales about No. 50 in terms of obsessively reclusive occupiers who invited lurid speculation through their eccentric nocturnal habits and there is also a theory that a violent lunatic was imprisoned in the house - leading to the invention of strange tales by neighbours or even to the conditions which created the 'Thing' that terrorised the building.

Below are the most famous accounts of supernatural events at No. 50:

During the time when the house belonged to a Mr Benson, Sir Robert Warboys - an adventurous young man with an ancestral home at Bracknell in Berkshire - asked for permission to spend a night alone in the room. Sir Robert did not believe in ghosts and when some of his friends had told him about the supernatural happenings at No. 50, he scoffed so completely that they challenged him to try the bedroom for himself. Mr Benson refused Sir Robert's request at first; he told him that others who dared to sleep there had suffered terrible mental and spiritual trauma, some guests had even been attacked.

The spectre was described as a 'man-ghost' with an unbelievably ghastly face; a face 'white and flabby with a huge gaping mouth black as pitch'. Others have said that it was an animal creature with many legs and tentacles, a monstrous thing which looked liked it might have crawled from London's sewers. Some saw it as 'a shapeless being composed of depthless shadows' or as "shapeless and slimy and emitting gruesome slopping noises". On one thing only did all witnesses agree: it was an evil being that wished death upon anybody found within its domain.

Sir Robert persevered; he said that his honour was at stake, that his friends would sit up all night downstairs and that he would be armed with a gun. Reluctantly, Mr Benson agreed to the experiment and they fixed a night for the visit.

On that evening they all enjoyed a fine dinner. Most of them feigned a lack of nervousness they did not really possess - but Mr Benson made no pretence of his misgivings about the whole affair and he tried to persuade the others to abandon their plans. Sir Robert was determined to see it through and quite sure that nothing was going to happen. Mr Benson explained that a bell has been installed in the bedroom and suggested that Sir Robert used the bell-pull if he needed to summon help. The young aristocrat agreed, but asked his friends to wait until he sounded the bell twice before coming to him.

At 11.15pm, the host showed Sir Robert to the room. It was large and comfortably furnished with a double bed and armchairs. Two big windows overlooked the Square. A fire was burning brightly in the hearth. Sir Robert did not expect to sleep that night; so he lay on the bed, propped up on pillows with his pistol cocked and ready by one hand and the bell-pull conveniently close to the other.

Downstairs, barely three quarters of an hour later, just as the 12 o'clock chimes were heard throughout the city, the little bell fixed to the sitting room wall jangled. Some of the friends jumped up and started for the bedroom, but one reminded them that Sir Robert had said he'd ring twice if he needed assistance. Hardly were these words out of his mouth when the bell was pulled again; violently and repeatedly, almost tearing itself from the wall.

Mr Benson was the first up the stairs, closely followed by the others. Halfway up the steps they heard a shot fired in the haunted room. When they threw open the door Sir Robert lay sprawled across the bed; his head hanging over the edge, almost touching the floor. In his left hand he held the bell-pull which had been ripped from it's fixing. On the floor near his right hand lay the pistol. His eyes bulged from their sockets in an agony of terror. His lips were curled back over his teeth which were tightly clenched as though locked in a fit. "My God!" one of the men cried "cover him up!". Mr Benson lifted the fear-stiffened body onto the bed and draped it with a sheet. Sir Robert had died, not from a bullet, but from the kind of extreme terror that nobody can live through.

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Some years later, two sailors Edward Blunden and Robert Martin from H.M.S. Penelope, just returned from a cruise to the West Indies, found themselves in London with little money in their pockets. It was late December and they were on their way home to Portsmouth. For a time they walked the streets without any agreement as to where they'd spend the night. Whilst passing through Berkeley Square they noticed a 'TO LET' sign outside a dilapidated house. The sailors decided that the empty dwelling would be a good place to shelter and keep warm till morning. A basement window was forced and they got inside. Thus they entered the infamous No. 50 - it had been empty for many years because nobody dared to live there.

One of them had a candle and by its light they explored the downstairs rooms. The furniture was falling to pieces and rats scurried around; so they opted to go upstairs and see what the rooms on the first floor were like. By then the candle was almost exhausted and Blunden became nervous; he wanted to leave, but Martin objected strongly and pointed out that they were not in any position to pay for lodgings. They entered the haunted room and Martin pressed home his argument by stating that a fire could be lit in the hearth. They collected bits of wood from the neglected furniture and broken floorboards and they soon had a blaze that warmed them and drove away most of Blunden's fears. Martin went to sleep very quickly. Blunden stayed awake. When he heard a noise, he swiftly shook his companion awake. "Listen" he whispered. At first Martin could hear nothing...then he recognised the sound of a stealthy footstep on the stairs. After a pause, the same sound again...but this time nearer. Then another step...closer still. What made these footfalls more awful than anything that either of them had ever heard before was the fact that they were distinctly unhuman in character. They were hollow-toned and accompanied by scratching...it seemed that the padded and clawed feet of an animal were scraping up the bare wooden boards of the stairs.

Slowly the door opened. The two men were sweating with fear. Something came in. Afterwards Martin was unable to properly describe it... he recalled a 'collection of shadows', a 'shapeless form'. It was certainly a being, a vicious being which grew in size as they watched. Blunden looked about desperately for a weapon; a curtain rod was propped up against the wall by one of the windows; he rushed over and grabbed it. As he did so, the spectre moved to place itself between Blunden and the door. Then, from out of its shapeless, featureless shadows, two limbs emerged. Not arms or hands, Martin said that they reminded him of 'a huge bird's talons'. For a moment the thing remained motionless, towering over Blunden, its 'limbs' outstretched. Slowly, deliberately, the thing moved towards him. Blunden screamed, but the spectre didn't pause.

Martin saw his chance and while the ghost went for Blunden, he threw himself out of the door and down the stairs. he fell, rolling to the ground floor. Somehow, though he couldn't remember how, he managed to open the bolts and get the front door open. Panic-stricken and yelling for help, he ran into the Square. In Piccadilly he found a policeman and dementedly stuttered out his story as he brought the constable back to Berkeley Square. As they ran back there were sounds of breaking glass and splintering wood. A piercing scream rent the air. They found Blunden's body impaled upon the iron railings below the room's broken window. His neck was broken and his face was a mask of stark horror.

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In 1872, Lord Lyttleton - who had extensive experiences of ghosts and the supernatural - spent a night alone in the haunted room. he armed himself with two blunderbuss guns loaded with buckshot and sixpenny pieces. The silver coins were intended to be charms against the evil spirit. Lyttleton claimed that the ghost appeared and that it attacked him - but he managed to overcome his fright and to fire one of his guns at it. The ghost 'fell like a shot duck' and then it seemed to evaporate. Like Martin, he couldn't precisely describe the being's appearance - but he stated that he had never encountered a more terrible, more malign ghost in his life.



Number 50 (since renumbered 25) is now Maggs Brothers' antique bookshop and its staff report that the room where the thing lurked no longer has any sinister or evil presence - they claim that, during several decades of occupying the building, nothing even vaguely supernatural has been observed. Nobody has ever satisfactorily explained why the 'Thing' apparently departed after such a long period of tenure.



taken from www.horrorfindweekend.com