Eltham Palace

London · United Kingdom · Palace

In the empty palace a guide can be heard addressing visitors who are not there — the man died a week after retiring and never quite went home.

Eltham was the childhood home of the Tudors — Henry VIII grew up here — before the court abandoned it and the art deco millionaires Stephen and Virginia Courtauld built their extravagant 1930s home beside the medieval Great Hall. The palace's most talked-about ghost is touchingly ordinary: a long-serving staff member who died just a week after retiring. Since then, visitors and staff have encountered a man matching his appearance and accent in the halls — mid-flow, guiding a group of visitors who do not exist, in rooms that should be empty. English Heritage itself has listed Eltham among its most haunted properties, and testimony also includes footsteps on the fifteenth-century bridge across the moat and voices under the echoing timber roof of the Great Hall.

FAQ

Where is Eltham Palace located?

Eltham Palace is in London, United Kingdom.

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Accounts are drawn from local folklore and visitor reports.

Image: Tom Parnell · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons