SEAN McNEANEY highlights a dubious appearance of the Green Lady of Thorpe Hall and other ghosts to be encountered on the roads of Lincolnshire.
Much has been written over the years about the ghostly Green Lady who haunts Thorpe Hall, a Tudor mansion situated near Louth. The ghost is said to be the shade of a beautiful Spanish noblewoman who, after the battle of Cadiz in 1595, was taken prisoner by Sir John Bolle, the then owner of Thorpe Hall. It is said that during her captivity the lady fell in love with Sir John, and according to one dubious legend she killed herself when her love for him was unrequited.
The fact she never visited Thorpe Hall (nor England) during her lifetime, has not stopped reports of her ghost dressed in green (giving rise to her being called the Green Lady) haunting the hall and its environs down through the centuries. The Reverend H J F Arnold, a former vicar of Wainfleet, had a strange encounter with the Green Lady of Thorpe Hall, because he claimed to have seen her on a road many miles from her usual haunting ground.
It happened on a rainy December evening in 1935, as Arnold was driving to Aisthorpe, near Lincoln. Suddenly in the glare of his headlamps he saw a woman step into the road in front of him:
“Alarmed lest I should run into her, I applied my brakes and stopped. I took my eyes off her for a second while getting into neutral gear and in that second she had disappeared.”
Arnold was later convinced the woman he saw – dressed in a green silk gown with a tight bodice and flowing skirt, and with bare head, arms and neck – was none other than the Green Lady of Thorpe Hall. He based this assumption on a rather tenuous connection that a mansion belonging to a relative of Sir John Bolle had once stood at nearby Scampton.
Another ghostly woman, shrouded in a cloak, has been seen running across the road in Pear Tree Lane, Utterby. Elsewhere in the village, in Ings Lane, sounds of a ghostly horse and carriage have been heard.
There are also a variety of headless ghosts haunting Lincolnshire’s highways. A headless bride walks the lanes of Scremby at midnight, and the phantom coach of Ostlers Lane, Maidenwell, has a driver who keeps his own severed head on a seat beside him.
None of the above has been seen to my knowledge within living memory and I suspect they are folklore rather than actual phenomenon. Unless of course you know different!
Born and brought up in Louth, I was always well aware of the legend of the Green Lady.
I believe I saw her in 1995 when I was 25 and attending journalism college in Sheffield.
It was a misty November Sunday evening, about 7pm. I’d been to Louth to see my parents and was heading back to my digs in Sheffield.
I came out of the junction with St Mary’s Lane, turning right to drive out of town, passing Thorpe Hall on the way. Here, there is a slight rise in the road which levels off at Thorpe Hall. Driving up this incline I saw a figure crossing the road at the summit, moving toward the hall (which was on my left hand side) from a footpath shrouded in trees on the opposite side.
By the way the figure moved I assumed it to be female. In the early winter gloom and with no street lamps nearby the light was poor, but she appeared to be wearing – if I were to describe modern clothing – a long coat with the hood up, as any woman would on a cold, damp night. It seemed to be of no discernable colour, or pale grey as the mist hanging between the trees.
She was some 200 yards ahead and crossing the road quite slowly into my path. Fearing she had not seen me I flicked on the main beam of my headlights and as the light illuminated the road ahead she vanished.
Whether this was the Lady, or a trick of the light with my imagination filling in the pieces, it certainly seemed very real.
Hope this ‘encounter’ is as interesting to you as it was for me.
By the way, the legend as I know it states he was the prisoner and she, after falling in love with him, helped him escape.
It was only then did he reveal he was married and she could not return to England with him. Her parting gift to him was a painting of herself wearing a green dress.
After he set sail she killed herself and her spirit, inextricably linked to the painting, followed it to Louth.
Gary McKie
Thanks very much for telling us about your sighting of the Green Lady, Gary. It’s always a treat to receive previously unrecorded first-hand testimony like this: really it’s what Uncanny UK should be all about.
Hi Gary. Thanks for telling us about your sighting of the Green Lady. It’s always a treat to receive previously unrecorded first-hand testimony like this. It’s what Uncanny UK should be all about.