Ghost Tours of Hertfordshire and Essex

Ghosts are ubiquitous! This guide has 62 tours, which incorporate over 280 towns and villages, and more than 800 sites. Directions are given in each tour to enable the investigator to find the sites. Map references have been included using Ordnance Survey Maps, together with the map numbers, to enable the investigator to find the haunted sites. The purpose of the guide is to enable the enthusiast to seek and observe. There are notes of interest and history notes as the counties are awash with fascinating stories and legends.

So decide which tour you are going to tackle first. You may wish to meet the phantom army at Thundridge Church ruins, the screaming woman in Water Lane, Bishop's Stortford, the Witchfinder General, Mathew Hopkins at Manningtree, or maybe the ghostly monks carrying a coffin at Belchamp Walter.

I have been interested in ghosts and the unexplained all my life. I first remember sensing a presence when aged about six or seven, and had many supernatural encounters in my youth. My parents consequently thought that I was a child who was ‘afraid of the dark’. I suffered from strong poltergeist activity at the age of sixteen, and my parents then began to believe that the incidents were not my imagination – well, mainly my father – my mother with some reluctance. Previously, it had been an uphill struggle to convince them that I was not ‘playing up’.

My late aunt on my mother’s side of the family professed to be psychic, but I understand that she may have ‘embroidered’ her stories. The upshot was that my parents did not have much time ‘for all that nonsense’.

I believe that being an only child has made me an independent and self-reliant woman, but it was sometimes a lonely existence as a psychic child, with unsympathetic parents.

I lived in a very haunted apartment in Harrow on the Hill. My husband and I witnessed many different types of phenomena there.

I have experienced a variety of supernatural happenings, at many places, up to the present day, including Avebury Manor, Wiltshire, houses in Penge and Croydon, and time slips at Ascain, France, on a train near Victoria Station and at Waltham Abbey, Essex. I was formerly a member of the Ghost Club.

Having said all that, my life does not revolve around spooks. I had a successful career in finance, which resulted in a move to the Hertfordshire/Essex borders. My adopted hometown is Bishop’s Stortford, which I find fascinating, and the surrounding countryside and counties, captivating.

My other interests include medieval French history, the Tudors and the Stuarts, jazz, classical music (I was a singer in a choral society – a lady tenor!) and continental cuisine. I am also a semi-professional artist and I have included some illustrations in this guide as an ambience to the narrative.

Customer Reviews

5.0

3 reviews

Albert Ernst

Excellent book, on par with anything a Big Five publisher would put out. I especially liked the numerous tid-bits about poltergeist-plagued spots. My only suggestion, is that it would've been even better with some creepy black and white photos! (Albert A. Ernst, author of "VLAD DRACULA, THE IMPALER.")
Albert Ernst

Excellent book, reminds me of Anthony D. Hippesley-Crowe's "Haunted Britain,' but with more focus on regional, and more recent, tales of hauntings and poltergeists in eastern England. Only complaint, is that it would've been even better with photos.
Anonymous

Jenni Kemp is to be congratulated on the amount of work and attention to detail in this pretty thorough guide to a part of England with a rich history of ghostlore. She lays out itineraries for 62 tours, involving 280 towns and villages. More than 800 individual sites are listed and described, with map coordinates and local histories high- lighting such topics as notorious crimes, haunts, poltergeists, deaths and tragedies, mysteries, and even some Forteana. This was the territory covered by the witch-hunting maniac Matthew Hopkins. As excellent as it is, it would have been more comprehensive if her stories were referenced more fully; but there is, at least, a general list of her sources at the back.

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3 reviews

Albert Ernst

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