A Right Royal Fright!
Dave Packer knows all about Hampton Court Palace, but even he can’t explain the mysterious events he’s witnessed
The palace is a huge, complicated beast, built and adapted over a long period of time,” says Dave Packer, State Apartment Warder Team Leader. “It has a lot of tricks up its sleeves. There’s a lot of wood here for example, which contracts when it gets cooler and makes strange sounds. Some of the floorboards are much longer than domestic ones and when you are walking down certain galleries they can flex, which can feel and sound like somebody following you.
“But a lot of things here aren’t so easily explained away. If, for example, one of our first aiders receives a call that a visitor needs attention then there’s a 50:50 chance they will be in the corridor called the Processional Route. An analysis of two years’ worth of first aid reports showed that 50% of faintings were there, which in a six-and-a-half acre building plus sixty acres of formal gardens, is way beyond mere statistical chance.”
More familiarly known as the Haunted Gallery, this is the location of the ghostly appearance of Henry VIII’s fifth wife Catherine Howard, who is said to be seen and heard screaming down that same corridor as she revisits the desperate moments after her arrest in 1541.
“If people are aware that they are in the ‘Haunted Gallery’ then there could be a degree of suggestion happening but interestingly, quite a lot aren’t.”
A major source of the ghostlore of the palace are the custody warders whose job it is to maintain the safety and security of the palace around the clock. They are usually pretty hard-headed, not people who are easily spooked. More than one person has come here to work as a cold hard sceptic about that sort of thing but now they are much more open-minded, having had some really inexplicable, sometimes quite disturbing, experiences.
“One young custody warder was patrolling through Queen Caroline’s apartments a couple of years back,” said Dave. “She was in the part of a corridor where a smell of old fashioned perfume often manifests and she distinctly felt a cold, boney finger brush her fringe from her forehead. This feisty lady was quite unnerved by that experience.
“People have reported feelings of unease in the room known as the Wolsey Closet and several have actually reported seeing a
Even with all possibilities factored in, it doesn’t explain everything that happens
dog in there, One lady stood in the doorway and pointed it out to one of my colleagues. He couldn’t see anything.
“Late one winter afternoon I was checking the route before closing it down and pushed the door closed in the Cartoon Gallery. I walked to the end of the gallery but doubled back when I realised that I hadn’t turned the lights out. I found the bolt in the big, brass lock on this solid Baroque door fully home, fully engaged, yet I hadn’t touched it. The lock is only on that side of the door. The Gallery is a very empty, sparse space, with nowhere to hide and I was alone in there. The same thing happened several times and eventually the palace authorities had to get our specialist locksmith to pin the bolt back.
“Sometimes areas of the palace can just feel different – more of a hair on the back of the neck sensation than something concrete. Often, several custody warders will come back off patrol and they’ll all have had a similar experience in a certain area. The manifestation of the scent happens so frequently that while they might comment to one another about it, they mostly don’t bother to report it. The ordinariness of that is quite remarkable in itself!
“I am open-minded about it all, very aware of the tricks your senses can play on you and how we interpret things, but even with all possible explanations factored in, it doesn’t explain everything.
“Being able to share the tales of the palace is what makes my job. To come in day after day to a building like this and share these stories, whether about Tudor food or politics during the day or about ghosts at night, is a privilege and a joy.” Hampton Court Palace: 0844 482 7777 WWW.HRP.ORG.UK/ HAMPTONCOURTPALACE