Brown Lady

Lady Dorothy Walpole

The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall is a ghost that is said in Raynham Hall in Norfolk haunted. It became one of the most famous ghosts in Britain after an alleged picture of the "Brown Lady" in Country Life magazine that photographers took on the stairs of Raynham Hall in 1936. The name "Brown Lady" is derived from the color of the brocade dress in which the ghost was supposed to be seen.

The identity of the mind

Legend has it that the "Brown Lady" is the ghost of Lady Dorothy Walpole (1686–1726), sister of Robert Walpole , who is generally considered to be the first Prime Minister of Great Britain. She was the second wife of Charles Townshend , who was notorious for his temper . Legend has it that when Townshend discovered that his wife had committed adultery with Lord Wharton, she was locked in her room at the Raynham Hall family estate as a punishment and she was never allowed to see her children again. According to Mary Wortley Montagu , Dorothy was actually trapped by the Countess of Wharton. She informed Dorothy that her husband would never allow her to leave. Dorothy stayed at Raynham Hall until her death from smallpox in 1726.

Sightings

Raynham Hall

When King George IV was a guest at Raynham Hall in the early 19th century, he saw the "Brown Lady" standing next to his bed. He described her as pale and with tangled hair.

The sighting of the spirit was recorded for the first time by Lucia C. Stone. Stone reported that at Christmas 1835 Lord Charles Townshend invited guests to Raynham Hall to celebrate Christmas, including a Colonel Loftus. Loftus and another guest named Hawkins said they saw the "Brown Lady" approach their bedrooms one night, particularly noting the brown dress she was wearing. The following evening Loftus again claimed to have seen the "Brown Lady", he later reported that on this occasion he had seen the ghost's empty eye sockets dark in the glowing face. Loftus' sightings caused some employees to leave Raynham Hall forever.

The next sighting of the "Brown Lady" was made in 1836 by Frederick Marryat , a friend of the writer Charles Dickens and the author of a number of popular novels. It is said that Marryat requested to spend the night in the haunted room at Raynham Hall to prove his theory that the ghost was circulated by local smugglers to keep people out of the area. Florence Marryat later wrote about her father's experiences in a letter.

Lady Townshend reported that the "Brown Lady" was next seen in 1926: her son and friend claimed to have seen the ghost on the stairs; they identified the ghostly figure as Lady Dorothy Walpole from her portrait that hangs in the haunted room.

Country Life Magazine

On September 19, 1936, Captain Hubert C. Provand and Indre Shira, London-based photographers who worked for Country Life magazine, photographed Raynham Hall for an article due later in the year. The two men reported that they had already taken a picture of the main staircase and were now setting up for another picture when Shira saw plumes that gradually took on the shape and appearance of a woman and moved down the stairs towards them. At Shira’s direction, Provand quickly removed the cover from the lens while Shira pressed the camera to activate the flash. Later, when the negatives were developed, the famous "Brown Lady" image was revealed. The account of Provand and Shira's ghostly experience at Raynham Hall was published in Country Life magazine on December 26, 1936, along with the photo of the "Brown Lady." The photo and the story of how it came about also appeared in the issue of Life magazine on January 4, 1937 .

Soon after the publication, the well-known parapsychologist Harry Price interviewed Provand and Shira and reported: 'I will say at once I was impressed. I was told a perfectly simple story: Mr Indre Shira saw the apparition descending the stairs at the precise moment when Captain Provand's head was under the black cloth. A shout - and the cap was off and the flashbulb fired, with the results which we now see. I could not shake their story, and I had no right to disbelieve them. Only collusion between the two men would account for the ghost if it is a fake. The negative is entirely innocent of any faking '. Country Life experts said the photo and negatives did not appear to have been altered. Since then, however, some critics have claimed that Shira may have falsified the image by painting, grease or a similar substance in the form of a figure on the lens, or by deliberately moving him during the recording. Others claim that the image was created by an accidental double exposure or that light somehow got into the camera.

After this picture was printed in the magazines, the "Brown Lady" could no longer be seen regularly or hardly at all.

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ History ( Memento of the original from September 30, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2
↑ http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/raynham.html
↑ '... he took possession of the room in which the portrait of the apparition hung, and in which she had been often seen, and slept each night with a loaded revolver under his pillow. For two days, however, he saw nothing, and the third was to be the limit of his stay. On the third night, however, two young men (nephews of the baronet), knocked at his door as he was undressing to go to bed, and asked him to step over to their room (which was at the other end of the corridor) , and give them his opinion on a new gun just arrived from London. My father was in his shirt and trousers, but as the hour was late, and everybody had retired to rest except themselves, he prepared to accompany them as he was. As they were leaving the room, he caught up his revolver, “in case you meet the Brown Lady,” he said, laughing. When the inspection of the gun was over, the young men in the same spirit declared they would accompany my father back again, “in case you meet the Brown Lady,” they repeated, laughing also. The three gentlemen therefore returned in company. The corridor was long and dark, for the lights had been extinguished, but as they reached the middle of it, they saw the glimmer of a lamp coming towards them from the other end. "One of the ladies going to visit the nurseries," whispered the young townshends to my father. Now the bedroom doors in that corridor faced each other, and each room had a double door with a space between, as is the case in many old-fashioned houses. My father, as I have said, was in shirt and trousers only, and his native modesty made him feel uncomfortable, so he slipped within one of the outer doors (his friends following his example), in order to conceal himself until the lady should have passed by. I have heard him describe how he watched her approaching nearer and nearer, through the chink of the door, until, as she was close enough for him to distinguish the colors and style of her costume, he recognized the figure as the facsimile of the portrait of "The Brown Lady". He had his finger on the trigger of his revolver, and was about to demand it to stop and give the reason for its presence there, when the figure halted of its own accord before the door behind which he stood, and holding the lighted lamp she carried to her features, grinned in a malicious and diabolical manner at him. This act so infuriated my father, who was anything but lamb-like in disposition, that he sprang into the corridor with a bound, and discharged the revolver right in her face. The figure instantly disappeared - the figure at which for several minutes three men had been looking together - and the bullet passed through the outer door of the room on the opposite side of the corridor, and lodged in the panel of the inner one. My father never attempted again to interfere with “The Brown Lady of Raynham”. '
↑ http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/column.php?id=183215 The camera never lies?
↑ Parkinson, Daniel Mysterious Britain & Ireland website ( memento of the original from July 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2
↑ Country Life Magazine, December 26, 1936

[1] History ( Memento of the original from September 30, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2

[2] ttp://www.museumofhoaxes.com/raynham.html

[3] '... he took possession of the room in which the portrait of the apparition hung, and in which she had been often seen, and slept each night with a loaded revolver under his pillow. For two days, however, he saw nothing, and the third was to be the limit of his stay. On the third night, however, two young men (nephews of the baronet), knocked at his door as he was undressing to go to bed, and asked him to step over to their room (which was at the other end of the corridor) , and give them his opinion on a new gun just arrived from London. My father was in his shirt and trousers, but as the hour was late, and everybody had retired to rest except themselves, he prepared to accompany them as he was. As they were leaving the room, he caught up his revolver, “in case you meet the Brown Lady,” he said, laughing. When the inspection of the gun was over, the young men in the same spirit declared they would accompany my father back again, “in case you meet the Brown Lady,” they repeated, laughing also. The three gentlemen therefore returned in company. The corridor was long and dark, for the lights had been extinguished, but as they reached the middle of it, they saw the glimmer of a lamp coming towards them from the other end. "One of the ladies going to visit the nurseries," whispered the young townshends to my father. Now the bedroom doors in that corridor faced each other, and each room had a double door with a space between, as is the case in many old-fashioned houses. My father, as I have said, was in shirt and trousers only, and his native modesty made him feel uncomfortable, so he slipped within one of the outer doors (his friends following his example), in order to conceal himself until the lady should have passed by. I have heard him describe how he watched her approaching nearer and nearer, through the chink of the door, until, as she was close enough for him to distinguish the colors and style of her costume, he recognized the figure as the facsimile of the portrait of "The Brown Lady". He had his finger on the trigger of his revolver, and was about to demand it to stop and give the reason for its presence there, when the figure halted of its own accord before the door behind which he stood, and holding the lighted lamp she carried to her features, grinned in a malicious and diabolical manner at him. This act so infuriated my father, who was anything but lamb-like in disposition, that he sprang into the corridor with a bound, and discharged the revolver right in her face. The figure instantly disappeared - the figure at which for several minutes three men had been looking together - and the bullet passed through the outer door of the room on the opposite side of the corridor, and lodged in the panel of the inner one. My father never attempted again to interfere with “The Brown Lady of Raynham”. '

[4] ttp://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/column.php?id=183215 The camera never lies?

[Mysterious-5] Parkinson, Daniel Mysterious Britain & Ireland website ( memento of the original from July 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2

[Life-6] Country Life Magazine, December 26, 1936