A Glimpse of the Ghostly: David Turnbull

The Black Beacon Book of Ghosts will send shivers up your spine this Halloween. The Kindle version is already available for pre-order at just $1.99 instead of $3.99 and you can add the anthology to your Goodreads "want to read" list today. The anthology will be officially released on the 11th of October 2024. To get you in the mood and give you a little insight into the workings of their minds, our contributing authors are sharing their own haunting experiences with you. Read on, if you're not fainthearted!

Ghost of the Necropolis by David Turnbull

On Waterloo's Westminster Bridge Road there stands an old Edwardian Office block, not far from Lambeth North tube station. If you fancy owning a piece of gothic history with a ghost story attached it is currently up for sale. The abandoned building is the last remaining remnant of what was once the Necropolis Railway.

The Necropolis Railway was opened in 1854 as a solution to overcrowding and unsanitary conditions in London's seven major public cemeteries, themselves built to tackle overcrowding in London churchyards following the population boom brought about in the city by the industrial revolution.

Coffins, corpses, and mourners would be transported from Waterloo to Brookwood, 18 miles away in Surrey, where 2,200 acres of land had been purchased for a gigantic cemetery. In true Victorian fashion you could make your journey to you final resting place in first, second, or third class, depending on your social standing.

One of the most notorious people transported from Waterloo and buried at Brookwood was Doctor Robert Knox who died in 1862. Knox had gained infamy as the surgeon who received murdered corpses from the Edinburgh grave robbers, Burke and Hare. As a result of the scandal following their trial, he'd been forced to relocate to London. His plot in Brookwood is one of the few that was concreted over. Clearly, given his experience of grave robbers, he wasn't taking any chances.

The office block was part of the Necropolis which was relocated in 1902 when South West Railways extended Waterloo station. Coffins continued to be transported to Brookwood up until World War Two, when bombing during the blitz left the station damaged beyond repair.

The building's ghost story has its origins a decade before the war started, when the railway was still fully operational. On the night of 14th March 1929 Police Constable David Ford entered the premises during a suspected burglary. Whilst carrying out his investigation he fell to his death through a skylight. Years later, when the offices were being utilised as a training centre for Transport for London, staff working late regularly reported hearing frantic footsteps running along corridors and up and down stairways, accompanied by the repeated banging of doors. It was believed to be the ghost of PC Ford eternally chasing his elusive burglar. Who knows, the new owners of the building may well find that this ghostly nocturnal chase is still going on.

A Glimpse of the Ghostly: L.P. Ring

The Black Beacon Book of Ghosts will send shivers up your spine this Halloween. The Kindle version is already available for pre-order at just $1.99 instead of $3.99 and you can add the anthology to your Goodreads "want to read" list today. The anthology will be officially released on the 11th of October 2024. To get you in the mood and give you a little insight into the workings of their minds, our contributing authors are sharing their own haunting experiences with you. Read on, if you're not fainthearted!

A Haunted Place - L.P. Ring

Back in the days before schoolwork, class schedules, or Super Mario, I was sat in the car with Mum when she pointed out her window and said “that house is haunted”. In my memory, I asked for details. In my memory, I looked at that unpainted two-storey with its dark windows, overgrown garden, and forbidding silence, and gawped at what beasts or ghouls chuckled or howled within. Truthfully, I probably did neither of those. The moment almost certainly passed in a grey blur. We continued onto the supermarket or wherever, and the kid strapped into the passenger seat said - or thought - not much of anything about that place. Much of what has grown from those few, whizzed-by seconds comes from movies, games, and books. That gloomy, ignored residence that still exists in my memory, down a stony, overgrown path behind a padlocked gate stretches upwards. It grumbles and carps, demands sustenance, and as part of our co-dependency, I toss it scraps, morsels, or maybe even the odd meal. Being honest, to echo my favorite author Stephen King, I find feeding that house fun. And if you’re reading this, I hope you do too.

A Glimpse of the Ghostly: E. Michael Lewis

The Black Beacon Book of Ghosts will send shivers up your spine this Halloween. The Kindle version is already available for pre-order at just $1.99 instead of $3.99 and you can add the anthology to your Goodreads "want to read" list today. The anthology will be officially released on the 11th of October 2024. To get you in the mood and give you a little insight into the workings of their minds, our contributing authors are sharing their own haunting experiences with you. Read on, if you're not fainthearted!

Alfred’s Café - E. Michael Lewis

When Cameron asked us to write a blog post about a haunted location, I immediately thought of Alfred’s Café, a place I’ve visited but that has flown under the radar of most haunted location websites and ghost tours in Tacoma, Washington—coincidentally, where my story, A Passage in Time, takes place.

The building that houses Alfred’s Café was built in 1888, two years before Washington was even a state. It probably started as a dormitory for railroad workers. Tacoma was (and still is) a railway town, being perhaps the only municipality in America to own its own railroad (Tacoma Rail). In 1907, the building was rolled on logs down the hill to it’s present location, to make room for an expanded freight depot. By 1918 it was known as the Brunswick Hotel. The space on the first floor has long held bars, restaurants, barbershops and the like. In 1959, Alfred G. Perella opened Alfred’s Restaurant, which over the years became known as Alfred’s cafe. While the downstairs has been renovated several times over the years, the upper floors have been relatively untouched. Several rooms upstairs are described as small and narrow, with, according to one owner, only room for a twin bed and a box of Kleenex. This plays into the suspicion that the building may have once housed a bordello.

Some people have seen, looking out from an upstairs window, a young girl in old fashioned clothes, gazing out over the parking lot next to the restaurant, her face a tableau of infinite sadness.

The story goes that the working girls who lived in the upper floors would send their little girls to school in a house next door, located where the parking lot is today. One day, a little girl was kept home because she was sick, and a fire broke out at the school. It burned down, killing everyone inside, while the little girl and all the working mothers watched helplessly from next door. How much truth there is to the story is unclear, since the event can’t be confirmed. However, across the lot is the Bullseye indoor gun range, which in recent memory was the home of Bullseye Gunshop, notorious for, among other reasons, as the origin of the rifle used by The DC sniper, John Allen Muhammad, and his accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo.

But it’s not just the shade of the little girl that haunts the place. Past owners and employees will tell you about coffee pots flying off the shelf, or people’s hair being pulled, or the figure of an old woman said to haunt a dark corner around closing time.

The current owner hopes to renovate the upper floors and turn the space into an AirBNB. The location, only a few blocks from the Tacoma Dome, would provide a great landing pad for anyone traveling to see a concert there.

Alfred’s café has seen much and survived much, including the pandemic, which created it’s own ghosts. I recommend the Eggs Benedict or the Monte Christo.