Cambridgeshire has a rich history of folklore and ghostly goings on.

From the eerie college corridors to the horrors of Hinchingbrooke House - there are a number of buildings around the county which are sure to send a shiver down your spine.

But which is the most haunted of all?

Peterborough Museum has a long and storied history as a building, and with that comes a few spooky tales of former residents and visitors.

As part of Peterborough Week, I thought I would delve deeper into this history and some of the stories of the ghosts which are said to haunt the museum building.

The first house recorded on the site of the museum was in the 16th century. A mansion was built for the Orme family, who were given land in the area by King Henry VIII in 1536.

The museum building has a long history, and apparently the ghosts to go with it

Vaults and historic cellars

Laura Hancock, cultural development officer for Peterborough Museum, said: "The very first building on this site was a Tudor building, called Neville Place. And in the Priestgate Vaults, the historic cellars, you can see the remains of that building and also learn about the stories of the ghosts of the buildings past."

The Orme family were MPs and magistrates for the city and were the people responsible for building the Guildhall in Cathedral Square.

The core of the current building dates back to 1816 when it was home to the local magistrate, Thomas Cooke, and his first wife Judith.

Laura said: "Legend has it that he used to pass judgement on people over breakfast. So that your local nightly drunk would come in the morning and if he was found to be not guilty then they would send him away with a pint of beer apparently. So if he hadn't been drunk and disorderly, to begin with, he would have been when he was leaving."

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An eerie operating theatre

The Victorian operating theatre still has the original tiles on the floors and walls

 

After Cooke's death in 1854, the building was acquired by the second Earl Fitzwilliam on behalf of the Infirmary Trust, which he was president of.

In the Victorian era, the building became Peterborough Infirmary, the city's only hospital. An extension was added on to the building to house the operating theatre as well as a kitchen and store-room.

When the hospital outgrew the Priestgate building in the 1920s it moved to Thorpe Road, leaving the building empty.

Percy Malcolm Stewart was chairman of the London Brick Company and bought the Georgian building to donate to the Peterborough Museum Society as a permanent home.

The society was originally called the Peterborough Natural History and Field Club and was founded in 1871 by a group of like-minded individuals interested in local flora, fauna and history.

Members of the club included Dr Thomas Walker, who undertook pioneering work in the Infirmary developing the laryngoscopy, which allowed doctors to examine the back of the throat, larynx and vocal cords.

The museum was opened to the public in 1931, occupying the ground floor and first floor of the building. The top floor was rented out to a local potato merchant, and the rent helped to pay for the running of the museum.

Evidence of the building's history are hidden in the details

"I saw a Victorian woman walking past the doorway"

In 1968 the museum was taken into the care of Peterborough City Council, and since May 2010 the building has been run by Vivacity, the Culture Trust for the city.

Stuart Orme, the curator at The Cromwell Museum in Huntingdon, spent 14 years working at Peterborough Museum. He said: "I've seen genuinely a couple of things I can't explain.

"I was working in the museum one evening with two colleagues set up a temporary exhibition and I glanced up and I saw a woman walking past the doorway. She looked living and breathing and was dressed in Victorian clothing, I went to the doorway to see where she'd gone and she'd vanished which would have been fine, but it was 9.30 in the evening and the door was locked and it was just the three of us in there."

On the first floor of the museum sits a curved room which was at one point most likely the surgeon's office. The grandest of rooms were reserved for the surgeon, who gave his time for free.

Peterborough Museum still has its Victorian operating theatre, one of only three historic operating theatres in the country which survives, and the only one from the Victorian period.

It is this period of time which gives Peterborough one of their most famous ghosts, Thomas Hunter.

The Lonely ANZAC

It is said that the ghost of Thomas Hunter still roams the staircase of the museum

Thomas Hunter was born in England in 1880 but is better known by his nickname 'The Lonely ANZAC' as he emigrated to Australia as a young man.

When the First World War broke out in 1914 he enlisted with the Australian Army and served with the 10th battalion of the 10th division ANZAC forced.

As part of his time, Hunter fought in the trenches of France and Belgium, and it was here during the Somme offensive in 1916 that Sergeant Hunter was seriously wounded.

Hunter was taken to a field hospital but they believed his condition to be in need of more advanced medical facilities than they had on hand. So Thomas Hunter was sent back to England for the necessary surgery.

During his journey up to Halifax on the train, Sergeant Hunter's condition deteriorated.

Laura said: "It's said that the medical personnel he was travelling with smelt a horrible smell of almond, and when they lifted the covering that was over Thomas they could tell that the almond smell was gangrene. So they knew that he needed treatment faster than they could give it to him, so he was offloaded at the nearest station that had a hospital, and that just happened to be Peterborough.

"The story goes that Thomas came here to the Peterborough Infirmary and would have been treated in the operating theatre in the hope to save his life."

Sadly it was too late. Sergeant Thomas Hunter died in the building on July 31 1916.

Touched by the story of this young man far from home, the people of Peterborough held a public funeral and his grave can still be seen at Broadway Cemetery today.

Laura said: "Peterborough as a city really took Thomas to their hearts when he had a funeral it was attended by many people who saw in him their young men off fighting in the First World War."

Even to this day, over a century later, Thomas Hunter is still honoured by the people of Peterborough on April 25, ANZAC Day.

Thomas Hunter's spirit was restless, and it is said that he is the man in grey that haunts the museum's staircase to this day.

Laura said: "There are stories of workmen who have come and they know there couldn't be other people in the building, but they see a figure glide up the stairs as though on a cloud of ash, and then just disappear.

"He's probably one of our most regularly seen ghosts in a building which is quite haunted."

The spooky cellars

The furniture may not be Tudor, but the bricks certainly are.

The cellars underneath the museum building date back to the original house from the 1500s, with the atmosphere being enough to spook me out.

Much of the stonework in the cellars date back to the Tudor house, where original window frames can be seen. The cool climate made the cellars perfect for storage, and during the building's time as an infirmary, it is said that they were used as a mortuary until a proper one could be built at the back of the building.

Laura said: "That's where we probably have the most reports of activity."

Stuart Orme identified two main presences down in the cellars.

First is the ghost of a monk or priest, Stuart said: "possibly relating to the original house on the site, a shadowy figure of a monk has been seen down there quite a few times."

The second ghost is rarely seen, but more often heard. Laura said: "There are particular stories of poltergeist activity, things getting thrown around and that sort of thing."

Stuart expanded on this, saying: "He's a chap in dirty ragged clothing, we think he was a servant from when it was a private house. He used to scuttle around in the cellars and he would make people jump. People would find small stones and nuts and bolts off the shelves come flying at them across the room.

"One young lady was standing alone in one of the rooms in the dark and she felt a presence behind her, and she felt someone lean in and breath down her neck. He can feel a bit threatening but nobody has ever been hurt by him or any of the ghosts. The cellars are definitely one of the creepier parts of the building."

Lady Charlotte

Does Lady Charlotte still run up and down the stairs to get away from her husband?

When Thomas Cooke moved into the building in 1816 his wife, Julia, came with him. Thomas and Julia Cooke had 12 children, with 10 of them surviving into adulthood.

Julia died in 1817, and two years later Thomas Cooke married again, this time to Charlotte Squire, the daughter of a locally prominent family.

It is said that Thomas and Charlotte did not have the happiest of marriages, and in 1822 the pair got a divorce.

To get a divorce at that time was next to impossible, Stuart describes it as "next to impossible, you needed your own act of parliament to get a divorce through in those days. They must have really hated each other."

A selection of spooky sightings in Cambridge

Sounds of Murder, Cambridge, Sweet Shop, East Street,1970s

A sweet shop was supposed to be haunted by the sounds of screaming from someone being murdered with an axe.

As a side note, around the same time two other shops along the road were also said to be haunted,
although one had been demolished and the other was empty and run down.


Young Boy, Cambridge, Private residence, Petersfield area, Late 2014

A residence who started seeing a young boy in mid-twentieth century clothing researched her neighbourhood and found ten people, including children, died in a bombing.


Large furry penguin-like creature, Cambridge, Newmarket Road, unknown date

Once seen in Merton Hall, this strange creature has been more recently reported waddling along the Newmarket Road.

A local paranormal group examining the case came to the plausible conclusion that the ghost may be that of a doctor in a cloak, wearing a beak-like mask which they believed would protect them from the plague.


Pink Light, Cambridge, guest house in the area, 1970s

A guest reported their room was filled with an intense pink light after they switched off the bedside lamp.

When the lamp was turned on again, the pink light vanished.


Witch sight, Cambridge, in former home on site of former Woolworth's shop, unknown date

A phantom witch was reputedly haunting a building which was demolished and replaced with Woolworth's.


Animated Stone Lions Drink from the Gutter, Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, Midnight (reoccurring)

On the stroke of midnight, the lions that stand outside the Fitzwilliam Museum leave their posts to drink from the gutters a few meters away.

Other sources say they disappear inside the building they guard.


Open window poltergeist, Cambridge, Eagle public house, late 1970s

One story says a window in the upper part of the pub is cursed; if it is ever closed then ill fortune follows.
Like so many other pubs, the site was also once home to a poltergeist.


Second World War pilot, Cambridge, Cambridge Airport, late twentieth century

A number of buildings on this site have reports of phantom pilots in their flying gear or RAF uniforms.

Sounds of footsteps in empty areas are not uncommon, and there is also a story of ghostly singing.


Womaniser, Cambridge, BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, studio 1a, 2003
The studio is reportedly haunted by an old man who was renown for his womanising ways - he is never seen, though his presence felt.


Drug induced ghost, Cambridge, Addenbrooke's Hospital, unknown date
The story is that a ghost appears to those who are being administered morphine; the psychological effects of the drug would appear to be ignored in this tale...

Stuart believes "perhaps because she had such an unhappy relationship with the building is why she left her impression on it."

It is reported that people have heard someone running down the stairs, and Stuart even said that psychics and mediums have picked up on a Thomas associated with the building, an older ghost than our lonely ANZAC.

Stuart said: "At a ghost hunt about 10 years ago, a group of people sat at the top of the stairs and a group at the bottom. Both heard the sound of a woman's footsteps, someone running down the stairs, and the sound of another woman's voice calling out 'Lady Charlotte, Lady Charlotte!' and some have heard footsteps along with the sound of rustling fabric as a Victorian dress would sound on the stairs."

Ghost walks

It is said that the ghost of Thomas Hunter still roams the staircase of the museum

 

Back in 2001, Stuart Orme had not long been working at the museum, it was his job to organise events and guided talks and walks when he came up with the idea of doing a ghost walk.

Stuart said: "We thought they would be a one-off for Halloween, but they proved so popular we carried on doing them, and it's 18 years later now and they're still going."

There are two ghost walks offered which take place at night. The first is the 'Peterborough Museum Candlelit Ghost Tours', which happen on the second and last Tuesdays of the month from September through until May at 7.30pm. These tours explore Peterborough's most haunted building by candlelight as you learn about the spirits said to call it home.

The second tour is the 'Ghostly Goings On' walk, which happens on the third Tuesday of the month as well as every Tuesday during July and August at 7.30pm. This walk explores the spooky city of Peterborough, venturing out to the Cathedral and city centre.

Stuart gave an example of what has been seen on the past during the city centre ghost walk, saying: "We were doing a ghost tour around Halloween seven or eight years ago when we were in the graveyard around the Cathedral precincts. We were halfway round, collecting tickets and money and the first two ladies to come through the archway said they saw this white female figure standing by a tree in the graveyard. So they walked toward it, and as they walked toward her she just disappeared. There are other people who have reportedly seen the woman in white as well."

To find out more about the museum, it's collections or the walks and tours available visit the Vivacity website.