Description:
– Timber-framed hall used as meeting hall, courtroom, parlour, library, museum and now a performance venue. It escaped calls for its demolition in the early 1900s.
Era:
– The Great Hall was built around 1390 as a meeting place for the Guild of Corpus Christi.
Bloody history:
– Between 1876 and the early 1900s, the hall was used as a local police headquarters, which saw many unsavoury characters go through its doors.
– In 1864, the docks were staffed by French prisoners of war.
Ghost ratings:
– The White Lady is rarely seen but apparently moves furniture around the Library.
– Some reckon it’s not a White Lady, but the ghost of a monk dressed in grey, which may be explained by the fact that there used to be the Old Grey Friars Monastery, located only 300 yards from Guildhall, and some monks did live at the Guildhall for a time.
– A Cavalier type character has also been seen in the Great Hall
– Both a phantom dog and a black cat ghost have been been seen in the Courtyard and in the Great Hall, respectively.
– The apparition of a police officer has also been spotted.
Spooky experiences:
– Staff often close the bile that sits on the main table of the library to find in the morning that the White Lady/Monk have opened it up to the same page each time.
– Burglar alarms have been triggered by an unseen presence.
– Heavy footsteps have been heard in the Constable’s cottage, and in the roof area, which is where the Constables once slept when the Hall was used as a police HQ.
– Orbs have been seen in the Great Hall.
Some claim that they’ve seen legs grow from the portrait of Henry Earl of Huntington, which hangs in the Major’s Parlour.
First Broadcast : 25th May 2004