Haunted East Anglia
A fascinating book called “Haunted East Anglia”, written by Joan Forman in 1974, has been republished in 2005.
Ms Forman was born in Louth, Lincolnshire, so one would have thought she would know better than to call such a big area East Anglia.
She makes a common mistake. The Kingdom of East Anglia consists of Norfolk and Suffolk, the lands of the East Angles, and in particular the North Folk and the South Folk. It specifically does not include Essex, the Kingdom of the East Saxons.
Ms Forman’s native Louth would have originally been in the Kingdom of Lindsey, later taken over by Mercia.
Having said all that, she trawls through stories of ghosts in eight counties – Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Suffolk, Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Essex and Northamptonshire. There is an article about each.
The Essex haunted places include a particularly famous one, the St. Annes Castle inn near Scrapfaggot Green at Little Leighs, as well as Saffron Walden, Dunmow, Tilty Abbey and – inevitably as it is the oldest town in Britain – Colchester.
And each county has a similar selection. For example, there’s the story of the young girl who haunts a house at Southwold connected with the Battle of Sole Bay.
“Haunted East Anglia” should be available in good bookshops.
Posted by colin on Saturday 17th June, 2006 at 7:38am