This event has already passed
This is pretty spooky already, and it hasn't even started yet... I'm sitting by the river listening to the bangs and crackles of Bonfire Night. There is a battle of booms and rifle shots going off in the sky but everything is dead dark. I can't even see where the water meets the mud. The only lights are from a distant drizzle of cars heading across the bridge.
The cracks are really something now. It's like a fight in the sky. Loud booms and explosions are echoing off the palace behind me. A couple of dog walkers are coming up the towpath shouting "Charlie! Charlie! Charlie!" and the poor mutt has obviously got scared stiff from the bangs and had a heart attack, or scarpered off into the bushes where they can't find him. Their torches are darting left and right and I can hear the lady holding back her tears as she's screaming for her dog whilst her husband is pretending as if he's got everything under control. I can still hear them shouting five minutes later, a little distance down the towpath, where the billowing smoke is blowing over from the fireworks. They have obviously lit a big bonfire on the other bank and the bright sparks are spiriting up and over the bushes.
A final rat-a-tat-tat of bangs and whistles signals the end of the display and I make my way to the palace. They never did find their dog.
I'm hoping that this ghost tour will be good. We're getting led around by a guide late at night after all the tourists have left, and I'm half-hoping that we'll see some ghosts for real. I paid for a ghost tour so I want to see some real ghosts.
The tour begins in the Tiltyard Cafe so you have to walk up the long entrance driveway past the darkened facade, past a few pretty gardens (too dark to see), and then into the deserted cafe where they give you a hot drink so you don't freeze to death outside. Even the cafe is in darkness. Our group consists of about thirty people and is made up of oldies, young couples and me. Then you get a little pep talk from the guide who tells you what you can and can't do (no photos, no running off screaming through the palace, no dying of fright please). Then you zip up your coat and step into the night.
Two hours later... Okay, I've done it... the tour is all over now. (I couldn't write anything down whilst it was going on because it was pitch black). It was really good! The entire tour was lit by a few ruby red lanterns and an occasional candle lamp illuminating one corner of a courtyard, but other than that it was just the bouncing beam of the lady's torch as she tiptoed round the corners. If you've ever been to the palace during the day then you'll already know that some of the cloisters around the courts can be quite dark and gloomy, even on a sunshine day. So just imagine what those corridors are like when there is no light at all! Even I was struggling to recognise them and I've been here a million times before. I found myself walking through the State Rooms and only becoming aware of where I was when the guide turned her flashlight upon a painting.
I'm surprised that they're allowed to illuminate it so low given all the steep stairs and skinny little passageways -- you can hardly see the feet at the end of your legs. I don't believe in ghosts myself (I'm not an idiot) but the guide helpfully points out all the doors and windows where they've been seen to burst out and even I found myself staring down the dark corridors as we passed by, wondering whether I was going to see one. That is how atmospheric the tour is.
The ornamental gardens and lake
One of the best bits was when we exited a door and found ourselves standing in the ornamental gardens out the back. It was like passing from one kind of darkness into another, and it took me a few seconds to realise that I was now standing outside (that is how dark the insides are!). When I saw the garden laid out before me it was a really special moment. You don't often get to see a sky full of stars when you live in the city because the streetlights drown them all out, but because the gardens back onto the lightless river, and your eyes have already become fully accustomed to the dark, the stars suddenly fill the sky like sequins. It's funny how the best bit of the tour turned out to be just walking through a door.
Later on in the evening you exit the east-side where they have all the gravel paths and man-made lake, and that was when she told one of the best ghost stories. (I won't spoil it by telling you what she said, but when you're standing out there in the cold it's very easy to get the shivers!)
Hampton Court's famous Skeletor ghost
Along the way she also stopped at the big double doors where 'Skeletor' was caught on CCTV. If you don't know what I'm talking about then check it out on YouTube before you go because he's probably the most famous ghost in Hampton Court. This was also the only spot on the tour where I genuinely got a fright... but once again, I will keep my mouth shut so I don't spoil the surprise.
The Haunted Gallery
You also enter the wine cellar (spiders), kitchens (bats), but the highlight of the tour was probably the Haunted Gallery -- the corridor that Catherine Howard was dragged down kicking and screaming after learning of her death sentence. What they do here is really rather special because they force you to walk the entire length of it alone (or in groups of two or three if you're too frightened). They literally shove you in one end and slam the door behind you, and then you're totally alone for the entire length of the pitch-black gallery. And I really do mean alone -- you haven't even got the guide to accompany you. It's just you, some flickering candles on the carpet, and the same space that Catherine Howard ran down screaming all those centuries ago. As you tiptoe through the darkness, past those paintings with their shapeless faces and shadows for hair, you suddenly wonder where the end is... only to discover that it's actually around a few more corners. The corridor is a lot longer than you think! I don't mind admitting that I was walking a lot faster by the end than when I stepped in.
It's a very special tour and you'll learn a lot of Tudor history along the way, but if you're an old cynic like me then obviously you'll take all the ghost stories with a pinch of salt. I didn't believe a word of them, but that didn't stop me staring down the corridors expecting to see something.
If a ghost had jumped out then I wouldn't have been very surprised because if they were going to jump out of somewhere, then this is where they'd do it.
If you enjoy Hampton Court Palace then you might like to visit Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace and Windsor Castle. If you like scary walks, then you might like to try a Jack The Ripper Tour as well
