Richard Jones is a famous author, well-known in London for his books on haunted places and as a host of weekly ghost walks around London. Across the Pond vacations managed to get us a PERSONAL GHOST TOUR of London with Richard! It was amazing! Richard is also big into the history of the city, so he showed us buildings that were the inspiration for Charles Dickens' "Christmas Carol" and told us so much we would never hear.
London is a very haunted city because its been around since the Romans founded it as "Londonium" in 70 A.D. Richard also took us to an excavation site where roman ruins from that year were uncovered, and to another site where an ancient Roman ampitheatre stood. Richard was funny, informative, personable and a really wonderful guy. In fact, the tour was supposed to be about 1 1/2 hours and wound up being 2 1/2 hours!
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| The church where the son's body was desecrated |
Now we'll share some pictures and stories with you, so you can come along with us on our Ghost walk of London!
STOP 1: St. Peter's Church of Cornhill
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| Gargoyle with the pastor's face on it, atop the church! |
Richard told us the story of a pastor from this church who had a teenage son who was known to have "the most perfect white teeth." That was unusual back in the 1700-1800s, because dental care was bad. The son came down with a illness that took his young life. His grave was located behind the church and residence of the pastor and his wife. One night when the pastor and his wife were home sleeping, grave robbers violated the young man's grave and pulled out his teeth! They did that because dentists would pay greatly for a perfect set of teeth, from which to make dentures. As the pastor slept, his departed son came to him in a dream and said "my mouth hurts." The pastor awoke and ran downstairs to the crypt to find his dead son's body on the floor, and his mouth a bloody mess, with his teeth missing!
The pastor apparently became a difficult person after that, or maybe he was beforehand. The pastor later commissioned an architect to build an addition to the church. The architect and pastor wound up hating each other, so the architect designed and had sculpted a gargoyle that sits atop the renovated part of the church, with demon wings and the pastor's likeness for a face!
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