Christ Church Greyfriars

Formerly a gothic church, the ruined gardens situated between the Old Bailey and St Paul’s Cathedral are allegedly the home to some feisty female ghosts.

The tower at Greyfriars' ruined churchyard is a surviving monument to the Blitz

This site was the last resting place of Isabella of France – the wife of Edward II and the mother of Edward III – who was given the dubious moniker of ‘She-wolf of France’. The conniving Queen consort plotted to depose her husband and, one night in September 1327, the King met with a death most foul. According to a rather teeth-clenching account, the monarch met his maker by way of ‘a kind of horn or funnel…thrust into his fundament through which a red hot spit was run up his bowels’. Hot stuff indeed.

Isabella was imprisoned by her son and died incarcerated. She was buried in her wedding dress at Greyfriars with the heart of Edward II on her chest. Lucky she was dead; red stains are a bugger to get out of white.

Apparently, Isabella’s beautiful but angry ghost can be seen at twilight still clutching her old man’s beating heart. Hell hath fury…

If one paranormal pin-up wasn’t enough for you, then maybe Lady Alice Hungerford will satisfy your needs. Alice, considered a great beauty of the Tudor Age – a time when false teeth and small pox scars were de rigueur among many high-class women.

The gardens that now fill the churchyard

Alice, like Isabella, was in a murderous mood. In 1523, she bumped off her husband with a dose of poison. She was put to death by boiling, which, even though it was nearly 500 years ago, seems like a ludicrous punishment. She too was interred at Greyfriars and she too spooks the graveyard.

Now this is were it gets saucy. Many years later, during the reign of Old Queen Vic, the spectral stunners were seen to be catfighting by a night-watchman. Ladies please. Let me loosen my tie.

So, when the Looking For Ghosts team turned up at Greyfriars in our dinner jackets, armed with red roses and Belgian chocolates, we were disappointed not to catch the slightest glimpse of these nocturnal nymphs.