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Britain's Most Haunted Building
DIRECTIONS
Pass through two rooms and you’ll notice an eerie aura, with the feeling of isolation and coldness increasing as you turn left.
Continue through a series of twisting staircases and arrive at the Wakefield Tower.
That most tragic of monarchs, the unfortunate Henry VI, was imprisoned here. His weak and ineffectual reign ended with his imprisonment and murder before midnight on 21 May, 1471, as he knelt at the small window altar. It is believed, though not proven, that the dagger with which he was ‘stikked full of deadly holes’ was wielded by none other than the Duke of Gloucester (later the infamous Richard III). On the anniversary of his death, as the clock ticks towards midnight, Henry’s pale and mournful wraith appears and paces fitfully around the room, until, as the last stroke of midnight chimes, he fades slowly into the stone and rests peacefully for another year.DIRECTIONS
Go through the door to the left of the altar (noting first the plaque commemorating the murder), up the winding staircase, and step from the shadows into daylight.
Continue along the battlements (the views of the Thames and Tower Bridge to your right are spectacular), pass through the Lanthorn Tower, go down the stairs and turn right to reach the Salt Tower.
This grim building was once the Tower’s darkest, dankest dungeon, used in the 16th century for the incarceration of Jesuit priests who bravely flouted the law of Henry VIII and continued to propagate the Catholic cause. Go up the stone staircase to the first floor, noting the huge and disproportionate fireplace. Note the graffiti chiselled into the bare walls by prisoners such as Henry Walpole, The Jesuit Priest, whose name can be seen in the alcove to the left of the fireplace. Imprisoned here in 1593, Walpole bravely resisted the horrendous torture inflicted upon him as the authorities attempted to extract the names of his Catholic contacts. But in the silent hours spent waiting for his next bout on the rack he prayed to the saints to give him courage, and carved their names on the wall, where they can still be seen today.
Some visitors, finding themselves alone here, have been surprised by a mysterious yellow glow that gets brighter and brighter and fills the room.They hear a low whispered murmuring like a voice at prayer, then suddenly feel the touch of ice-cold fingers on the back of the neck.
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