Ghostly Monks
written by Matthew Gorman

WAY BACK IN JULY OF 2005, I printed and wrote about some famous ghost photos for that issue’s installment of this column. One of those photos, reprinted here, depicted the translucent form of a ghostly monk beside a church altar. The Reverend K.F. Lord snapped it sometime in the 1960’s at England’s Newby Church. The Reverend had been simply photographing the church’s altar and saw no apparition until the picture was developed. This photograph holds a particular significance for me, as it was the catalyst that sparked my lifelong obsession with the world of ghosts. I remember first encountering this photograph in a bookstore as a child where it was actually published in a children’s book about ghosts! In the many years since then I have had a multitude of personal supernatural experiences, including witnessing a fully formed apparition appear a foot from my face, but this picture continues to wield an eerie power over my imagination. Recently while perusing Hans Holzer’s career comprehensive book “Ghosts” in yet another bookstore, I began to realize that sightings of phantom friars are more common than I had previously assumed. In fact, in researching this topic, I found more cases of abbeys, monasteries, and churches haunted by the specters of religious brethren than I could possibly hope to recount in this limited space. Herein, however, are contained some of the more interesting examples of these ghostly monks.

Accessible only via winding footpath in the high fields above the hamlet of Chapelfoot in Hertfordshire County, England lays the crumbling ruins of Minsden Chapel. The Chapel was constructed in the 14th century and has been abandoned since the 17th century; its only remaining occupant is the apparition of a monk who appears on Halloween. The monk is seen at midnight on All Hallow’s Eve ascending the span of a spiral staircase that once existed there. The ghostly monk appears to be what is known in ghost hunting circles as a “residual haunting” wherein some event from the past is replayed over and over often at some appointed time. A man by the name of W.T. Latchmore managed to capture the ghostly monk on film in 1904. Other phenomenon reported at Minsden include a glowing cross that appears on one of the chapel’s walls and the sound of the ringing of the chapel’s bells that were stolen long ago.

At Thornton Abbey in Lincolnshire, England the former 14th Century Abbot of Thornton, one Thomas de Gretham, reputedly haunts the gatehouse. By some accounts Gretham was involved in witchcraft and the Black Arts and was walled up alive in a secret room within the Abbey as punishment. Another version of the tale has the Abbot falsely accused of these blasphemous crimes after he began a love affair with his student, Heloise, the fetching young daughter of one Sir William Wellan. After learning of his daughter and the Abbot’s relationship, it is said Wellan conspired with local officials to destroy the Abbot. Despite which version is the gospel truth, however, the Abbot was, indeed, walled up alive; his skeleton was found sitting upright at a desk when a renovation team discovered the secret chamber in the 1830’s. His phantom haunts the Abbey and its grounds today, alternately sinister or lovelorn in appearance depending upon which side of the story one believes.

In Gloucester, England stands the mysterious Blackfriars Priory complex originally constructed in 1239 for the Dominican order. During restoration work in recent years a secret dungeon was unearthed wherein the remains of a child were found. Since then, sightings of a ghostly monk in a black habit have abounded throughout the priory. What correlation exists between the monk’s ghost and the disinterred skeleton remains unclear, but witnesses believe the two to be inextricably linked. The ghost has even been sighted near the entrance to the underground dungeon on several occasions. The Department of Environment, who have been conducting the historical site’s renovation will make no official comment with regards to the haunting but many DOE workers have claimed to have seen the spirit. Also, the workers report doors locking by themselves on frequent occasions.

Considered to be one of the most haunted places in Britain, Beaulieu Abbey in the heart of England’s New Forest has played host to an order of ghostly cenobites for well over a hundred years. The phantoms are said to be those of the Cistercian monks who first arrived at the Abbey from France in 1204. The Reverend Robert Frazer Powles, who served as Vicar at Beaulieu from 1886 until 1939, was intimately familiar with the monastic spirits frequently making comments to the effect of, “Brother Simon was here again last night. I heard his boots squeak.” The Reverend often saw the many ghosts as well, particularly during services in the Abbey’s chapel. The phantom strains of a Gregorian chant can often be heard on a still night at the Abbey, and typically follows the death of someone in the nearby village.

The town of Pluckley, Kent is considered to be the most haunted in all of England, with dozens of separate hauntings throughout the township’s environs. The old rectory cottage near St. Nicholas’ Church is, or at least it was, haunted by the ghost of a 16th Century monk likely executed for practicing Catholicism at a time in England when the religion was banned. It is also likely that he served as a secret confessor for a Tudor lady who resided in the nearby Rose Court, and by some accounts he fell in love with her. His shadowy form was seen cast upon the walls of new homes in the area as his ghost walked the pathway he once did in life, but sightings dropped off completely and inexplicably after 1954.

And yes, even the famed Westminster Abbey itself is not without its resident ghostly monk. The spirit is called “Father Benedictus” and he can be observed floating through the Abbey’s long cloisters in the early evening times, usually around five or six o’clock at night. Witnesses describe the ghost as appearing quite solid and, in fact, people have mistaken him for an actual member of the living clergy on occasion. In 1932 two American tourists recounted that they had a long conversation with the ghost. They remarked that the apparition had been very polite and well mannered. Still, there remains an air of foreboding within the Abbey, something not hard to imagine when you realize that the edifice is, in actuality, really just one giant tomb. Since its construction by Edward the Confessor in 1066 over 3,300 people have been interred beneath the Abbey’s tombs and cloisters. Perhaps it takes a “Father Benedictus” to watch over the other wandering souls that dwell there, some of which may be not so nice.

While England certainly seems replete with tales and encounters of ghostly monks, its churches and Abbeys are by no means the only ones occupied by monastic spirits. Take, for example, the enigmatic Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland, long famed for its connections with the Knights Templar and the origins of Freemasonry. The chapel has had more than its share of paranormal activity over the centuries including numerous sightings of ghostly monks. One apparition appears clad in grey robes while another ghost wears black. They appear both inside and outside of the chapel. A curator at the chapel once witnessed a ghostly monk kneeling before an altar in prayer while four phantom knights formed a protective perimeter around the genuflecting apparition. Other phenomenon associated with Rosslyn include strange noises and unexplained gusts of wind within the chapel’s crypts.

The Isle of Iona, off the coast of Scotland, is considered to be extremely haunted, and with good reason, the entire island is littered with ancient graveyards. Many generations of Irish, Norwegian, as well as Scottish kings were buried upon Iona, and processions of ghostly monks seem to guard over these royal resting places. A monastery founded on the island by St.. Columba in 563 was once the living home to this now ghostly order. So many of these long dead Columban monks with their brown robes and hemp belts have been seen upon the Angel’s Hill area of Iona, in fact, that locals fear to tread there after dark. The monks travel in a silent procession, and are sometimes accompanied by twinkling blue ghost lights.

So what are we to make of so many of these ghostly monks? Why is it that across the British Isles, and all throughout Europe if truth be told, the ghosts of former monks seem to haunt nearly every old church or monastery? Perhaps they remain behind to serve a similar purpose to the one they did in life. Many psychics believe the ghostly monks to be a special class of spirits that serve as protectors to the sacred places that they inhabit or to people in need of their aid.

One interesting phenomenon that may or may not involve ghostly monks is that many people have reported awakening in the middle of the night to find a robed and hooded figure standing next to or at the foot of their beds. I can even recall this even happening to myself as a child, and it really freaked me the fuck out! Some would understandably assume that it was some dark spirit such as the Grim Reaper, some specter of death, that had visited their bedside, but what if instead it had been the benevolent presence of the ghostly brethren who may yet be watching over the flock of the living?