The Hammersmith Ghost

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Today on STM I’m taking it back to the early 1800s and the village of Hammersmith, located in foggy London.

Nowadays, Hammersmith is a populated area within the Greater London area, home to almost 200,000 people . In December of 1803, However, the village only had about 5,500 inhabitants - the perfect setting for local gossip to run amok.

And amok it ran! Tales of an ominous specter were spreading among the village. It was described as a white-shrouded figure that would stalk Black Lion Lane. Some said it wore calfskin clothes and had horns and large glass-like eyes. Local legend was that the spectre was actually the restless spirit of a man who’d taken his own life the year before, and who was now condemned to haunt the grounds of St. Paul’s churchyard.

But was the figure really a ghost?

And how did this lead to a legal dilemma that would last for 200 years?

Sources:

1) https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2015/10/the-case-of-a-ghost-haunted-england-for-over-two-hundred-years/
2) https://www.historicmysteries.com/history/hammersmith-ghost/37316/
3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammersmith_Ghost_murder_case
4) https://www.discoveryuk.com/mysteries/the-hammersmith-ghost-londons-paranormal-murder/

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