Maritime mysteries of the Queen's House (From This Is Local London)

Maritime mysteries of the Queen's House

10:20am Wednesday 21st August 2002

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The Queen's House at the National Maritime Museum attracts one million visitors each year to gaze at its astonishing architecture and exhibitions. But those who linger in its 400-year-old precincts may be in for a chilling surprise, as Chris Steel found out.

Eerie chanting, mysterious footsteps and petrifying visions are more readily associated with a Transylvanian castle than the sunny verandas and chambers of Greenwich's premier tourist attraction.

But alongside the enormous oil canvases and carved busts of Greenwich's great and good, the Queen's House is host to more mysterious living memories of the maritime town's past.

"We do seem to have quite a collection of spooks", explains Queen's House Manager Maria Blysinsky, "And a lot of the re-ports of sightings and strange goings-on come from the staff, par-ticularly the security guards who patrol the underground tunnels and the galleries after dark."

Gallery Assistant Tony Anderson was thoroughly spooked one morning in May when he was standing in the Queen's House gal-lery. In a written statement after his experience, he explained to Museum bosses:

On Monday, May 20, at 9.45am, myself and two colleagues were talking about what tea-breaks we were on, when something caught my eye.

One of the doors from the Bridge Room closed and I thought at first it was the girl who does the lectures at the weekends.

Then I saw a woman glide across the balcony, and pass through the wall on the west balcony.

I couldn't believe what I saw. I went very cold and the hair on my arms and my neck stood on end.

We all dashed through to the Queen's Presents Room and looked down towards the Queen's Bedroom. Something passed through the ante-room and out through the wall. Then my col-leagues all froze too.

The lady was dressed in a white-grey colour crinoline type dress.'

Maria added that many members of staff have pursued anony-mous footsteps around the grounds, only for them to suddenly stop.

The choral chanting of youngsters has also been heard in the buildings, but no earthly explanation for the sounds has been offered.

Perhaps the most chilling sightings have been on the stunning Tulip Staircase, the first cantilevered spiral staircase built in this country.

Many tourists have told staff they have seen the pale figure of a woman at the bottom of the stairs, frantically mopping blood from the stone floor.

It is understood that three centuries ago, a maid was thrown from the highest banister, plunging 50ft to her death.

Hooded figures have also been seen loitering at the foot of the staircase, making it notorious among staff.

The passageways under the museum have gained equal infamy, with doors slamming shut and frequent mystery taps on the shoulder for bemused security guards.

One member of staff returned to the west wing after being un-able to open a door in the tunnels, only to return with a colleague and find the door had vanished.

Lady visitors to the rooms should also be on their guard from one mischievous spirit who has more on his mind than fine art.

One rattled patron reported that while admiring the portraits, a small invisible hand had pinched her in an "inappropriate place".

Maria says that the shocked victim was one of several targeted by the roaming hand, but offered an explanation to the phantom philandering.

"In the nineteenth century, the House was used by the Royal Hospital School, and the boys who attended used many of the rooms as dormitories. It would seem that one of them is still there in some form."

She also points out that it may be the museum's design which contributes to the ghostly phenomena.

"At the time Inigo Jones set about designing the building in 1616 he was fascinated by symmetry and geometry, which came from the Italian Classicism of the time. The main rooms are based on cubes and double cubes, and even the flooring follows this pattern.

"There has been a great deal of suggestion that the perfect symmetry of Inigo Jones's design of the Queen's House, and the fact it is built on the path of a number of Ley-lines, may be behind the ghosts and spooky occurrences, but we'll probably never really know."

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