The Langham Hotel in Marylebone, London, is known to be home
to a number of ghosts who have been seen by a large number of witnesses. To be added to the list now are members of
the England Cricket Team who were spooked into changing rooms during a recent
stay in the venerable hotel.
History of the Langham
The hotel opened in June 1865 on the land where the Foley
House had stood until the Foley family line had ended after a series of
unfortunate deaths. The hotel was the
first to use elevators that were called rising rooms at the time and also to
feature air conditioning, hot water in every room and was decorated with 15,000
yards of Persian tapestry for a touch of pure luxury.
During World War II, it was used by the English army and was
damaged by German bombings as well as being dying inside its walls. After this, the BBC took possession of the
building and in 1965, the BBC Club operated from the premises. In 1986, the hotel was sold once again and
after a $1.5 million restoration, it opened its doors again on March 4th
1991.
The hotel has had a large number of prestigious guests over
the course of its history including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, Mark
Twain and Napoleon III, of whom we will hear more later.
Cricketers Encounters
According to the ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board), some
of their players are already convinced that the hotel is haunted. Several players requested to have their rooms
changed and a number of wives declined to stay in the hotel after a series of
strange noises and lights as well as taps turning on and off and spirits
wandering around the hallways.
Player Stuart Broad said he was in his room when the taps
turned on in the bathroom. He turned on
the lights only for the taps to turn back off and when he turned the lights
out, the taps were back on again. He was
so unnerved by the activity that he requested a change of rooms.
Two other players, including wicketkeeper Matt Prior, were
said to have felt presences in their rooms and were unable to sleep.
Ghosts of the Langham
As to who the ghosts were that disturbed the cricketers,
there are a few candidates to choose from.
It is doubtful they encountered the ghost known for tipping beds as this
would probably have been mentioned in the reports. This ghost is a joker who enjoys tipping
people out of their beds in the middle of the night and there are reports going
back to the BBC times of people being woken by someone bouncing on their
bed. In 2003, one guest was so terrified
by his antics that he fled the hotel in the middle of the night and refused to
return to the hotel.
Perhaps the presence felt may have been the ghost of the
silver haired doctor. Since the 1960s,
after the BBC took control of the building, a man was seen around the hotel
with grey hair and dressed in Victorian clothing. He wore a black coat and had a glazed look to
him. He was said to have committing
suicide after murdering his bride in the hotel.
Some of the illustrious guests in the hotel’s history may
have never left the premises after their stay.
Napoleon III has been seen in the hotel basement as well as the spirit
of a German price who jumped from a window after the outbreak of the First
World War. There is also a German
soldier patrolling the hotel wearing a military-style button up jacket and
staring silently from a fourth-floor window.
One of the oldest ghosts is that of a footman who dates from
the times when the Foley House stood on the property. His presence is marked by a cold feeling.
Room 333
Finally, the most famous haunting in the hotel is that of
Room 333. One first hand report came
from BBC Radio Announcer Alexander Gordon who was staying there in 1973 when he
saw a fluorescent ball that changed into a man wearing Victorian eveningwear. Gordon asked what the ghost wanted and it
floated towards him, allowing him to see that its legs were missing two feet
from the ground. Its arms reached
towards him, its eyes empty at which point he fled. A colleague went back into the room with
Gordon and they both saw the ghost slowly fading away.
A side note is that the floors of the hotel were raised two
feet to allow central heating pipes to be installed, perhaps explaining why the
lower parts of the spirit’s legs were missing – he was walking on the old floor
level.
A desk clerk at the hotel said that most people avoid the
room and those who have stayed in it are unaware of the stories. He said he himself refused to step onto the 3rd
floor at all.
