Ghosts of Croydon/ Origins of Halloween

Croydon's origins date back as far as the Roman era so it is not surprising that just about every other building has a ghost story attached to it.

Thornton Heath has several haunted buildings, including the Wheatsheaf Inn, and an ordinary family house.

The Thornton Heath poltergeist has become very well known. Back in the early 70s the family living there suffered four years of hauntings by figures in old fashioned farm clothes who threw objects around the house and tormented not just the family members but guests who visited as well. They later discovered, through a medium and then through official records that a farmer named Chatterton and his wife lived there in the mid 18th century and their ghosts who had remained there must have considered the present family as intruders. When even a blessing by a local priest did not work, the family moved away and there have no reports of any activity since.

When UK Paranormal Investigations visited the Wheatsheaf Inn they recorded orbs of light that could not be seen by the naked eye and a faint voice saying hello. The landlady Maria Seal reported bottles that moved on their own in the bar and a permanently cold boiler room. She said the hauntings did not bother here because they seemed to be harmless She also told the investigators that the pub was once a court room where prisoners were held before being hanged on Gallows Green.

Central Croydon has so many historical buildings that nearly all of them seem to be haunted,  including Old Palace School which is said to be haunted by the ghost of an Elizabethan handmaiden and Addington Palace said to be haunted by the ghost of Archbishop Benson. It is also said to be the inspiration for Henry James' novella Turn Of The Screw, who was visiting his friend ARCHBISHOP Benson at Addington Palace. Benson told  James a ghost story that inspired him to write Turn Of The Screw.

This month celebrates Halloween which has its origins in the ancient Celtic festival Samhain. People believed that on October 31st the boundary between the worlds of the living and dead were weak and ghosts came to the living world to cause  trouble. To protect themselves  the Celts wore animal skin  costumes and told fortunes. They  also  lit a sacred bonfire from which they  lit their  own hearth fires.

The Celtic  origins  of  Halloween  are well known , but the Romans also celebrated the passing  of the  dead in late October with  a festival called Feralia, and a second festival to honour Pomona, goddess of fruit  and  trees, whose symbol is an apple  which may have  inspired  apple bobbing.