Twelve Nightmares of Christmas, Day 10 — The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall

There is a startling ghost photograph that was taken in a stately English home, Raynham Hall in Norfolk. This might just be the most famous ghost photograph of all time. Raynham Hall was once the home of Lady Dorothy Townshend, who married Viscount Charles Townshend in 1713. As in many ghost stories, all was not … Continue reading Twelve Nightmares of Christmas, Day 10 — The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall

There is a startling ghost photograph that was taken in a stately English home, Raynham Hall in Norfolk. This might just be the most famous ghost photograph of all time.

Raynham Hall was once the home of Lady Dorothy Townshend, who married Viscount Charles Townshend in 1713. As in many ghost stories, all was not peaceful country life at the Hall. Lady Townshend died on March 29, 1726 at the age of forty, under mysterious circumstances. The official cause of death was smallpox. However, there were rumors that her ladyship had been pushed down the grand staircase, and the fall had broken her neck.

During the Christmas season of 1835, a Colonel Loftus stayed at Raynham Hall as a guest. His stay was interrupted by a nighttime visitation from a beautiful woman. The colonel described her as a noble-looking lady, who was wearing a fashionable dress of brown satin. Her regal looks were spoiled, though, by the terrifying fact that she had no eyes. Only empty sockets gaped where her eyes should have been.

Colonel Loftus made a sketch of his midnight visitor, and a portrait was painted from the sketch and hung in the guest bedroom where the Brown Lady made most of her appearances. (Decades earlier, in 1786, the future King George IV was a guest at the hall and stayed in that particular room. The Brown Lady’s appearance sent the Prince Regent shrieking into the hallway in his nightshirt—a rather embarrassing situation for royalty. After that, he swore he would never set foot in Raynham Hall again—a promise he kept for the rest of his days.)

The Brown Lady continued her haunting of the hall well into the twentieth century. On September 19, 1936, two photographers from the magazine Country Life were on assignment taking pictures of the stately hall. Indre Shira was snapping the photos, accompanied by art director Captain Hubert Provand.

Shira and Provand were setting up a shot of the grand main staircase of the house at around 4 pm, when Shira saw “an ethereal, veiled form coming slowly down the stairs”. Provand didn’t see a thing. He even bet Shira five quid that nothing weird would show up when the picture was developed.

He lost the bet. The Brown Lady had exchanged her customary brown satin dress for a filmy white veil, but her form showed up distinctly in the picture. One of the most famous ghost photographs in the world ran for the first time in Country Life magazine. Appropriately enough, it ran in that year’s December issue.