The Paranormal

The Grey Lady of Cleve Court

How frequently ghosts have their origin in stress and unhappiness. People thrown out of work, jilted lovers, victims of the cruelest deceptions - small wonder that they carry their wretchednesses with them, across lawns and landings, in bedrooms and cellars. We can think of Old Thorndyke who hanged himself when his firm, Mackesons, left Hythe and who now haunts the the Malthouse Arcade; then, there is poor Mlle Pinard, rejected by her soldier lover during the Napoleonic Wars and who now, dressed in orange silk, walks Steel Lane in Meopham; another is the dairymaid, pregnant be a priest, who committed suicide at Old Soar Manor. There are so many whose deep pain is seemingly endless. The Grey Lady of Cleve Court carries her burden of sadness, too.

The house, located in a secluded part of Minster in Thanet, was purchased in 1920 by Sir Edward Carson, the celebrated lawyer and politician. In recent years, as a member of the government, he had been deeply involved in the Ulster 'troubles'. Now a quieter life beckoned and the house on King William's Mount with its stunning views was an ideal spot.

Cleve Court was an interesting house, part of it early Tudor, part Elizabethan and part 18th century. The Carsons very much likes it. Whilst there were occasional unaccounted-for occurrences - footsteps at night like those of a woman in high-heels; tapping at night at their bedroom door when the house was occupied solely by the Carsons - they had no reservations about living there. In fact, Lord Carson (he had been ennobled shortly after settling at Cleve Court) had a rational explanation for the footsteps and tappings: when houses stretched at night there were always odd noises. When a guest heard what seemed like drawers opening and shutting above her bedroom even though she was on the top floor, Lord Carson was able to satisfy himself with an explanation. It was Lady Carson who was convinced of the supernatural origin of these sounds. Even so, she was not alarmed for the house was in no way sinister. It never gave off the disconcerting vibrations felt, for example, at Branden,

Remarkably, it was children who were first aware of the Grey Lady. Edward, the Carsons' son, slept in the Elizabethan wing of the building. When he was five years old and had been sleeping in the same bedroom for four years, he told his mother one day that he did not like the lady who walked at nights in the passage outside his bedroom door. What was she like, his mother wanted to know, but the boy was unable to say. She always walked away, he said.

At the age of four, Edward's cousin, Patricia Miller, came to stay and she slept in the Elizabethan bedroom. She told Lady Carson of the lady who came to stand by her bed. And if only her aunt would look in the corner at that very moment - There! Now! In the corner! the child insisted - she would see that the lady was standing there. When her aunt told Patricia that could not see anything the child was extremely angry. Why did she not see the lady? She was all too plainly there, the little girl said. Suffice it to say that this nursery bedroom became known as 'the ghost room'. Dogs showed a marked reluctance to enter it, and the feeling soon spread amongst the servants.

Another member of the family, the six or seven year old Diana Colvin, when asked back to Cleve Court asked her aunt if 'the poor lady' would be there. The poor lady who walked in and out of the room, Diana explained, the one to whom no one spoke. 'No one tells me who she is,' she complained, adding that she had also seen her walking in and out of the drawing room during the day.

In 1949, an adult in the house had a curious experience. The wife of the young Edward Carson had taken a bath when all others in the household were in bed. She had just left the bathroom when she heard someone coming along the passage towards her. The footsteps came nearer and nearer, right up to her, and then they passed her, receding down the passageway. But no one was to be seen.

Later in the year, in the very early hours of the morning, Lady Carson's spaniel, Susan, woke her mistress. The dog wanted to go out. Lady Carson got out of bed and prepared to let the spaniel out in the grounds. As she went down stairs in this, the Georgian part of the house, she inadvertently brushed against the light switch and put out the light. For some unexplained reason Lady Carson did not bother to put it on again. At the foot of the stairs the dog decided that it would go no further and to discover what was wrong Lady Carson now switched on the light. The dog was obviously afraid of something. Lady Carson then looked back up the staircase and saw the figure coming down.

It was a woman. She was wearing a very full grey skirt down to her feet. Round her neck and shoulders she wore a very pale grey cape. In her hair was a piece of white ribbon. Even though the woman averted her face, Lady Carson could see that she was young. She looked very solid; she was 'quite material in every way'. The figure now turned on the landing and went into the Elizabethan part of the house. But there was a coldness in the air and the experience terrified Lady Carson.

In December 1949 these two incidents received wide coverage in the newspapers. They also produced an interesting response. EC - she did not give her full name - wrote to The Times to say that at the age of fifteen she was working at Cleve Court. It was her first job and she was under-housemaid. One day she had been asked to prepare a room at the end of the passage as a nursery for a visiting child. It was early in the morning, about seven o'clock, when she was in the room and she heard footsteps outside the door. EC looked up to see a lady in an old-fashioned dress peering in at her. Thinking it was one of the guests the girl made as if to leave. But no, the lady waved one hand as if to tell her simply to carry on with her work, and went on.

When EC mentioned this to another of the maids later in the day. her remarks were pooh-poohed. She had been mistaken. There was no one in the house wearing a long, old-fashioned dress. And the young housemaid accepted what her older colleague had told her. Only now, after forty five years, and after reading about the recent events at Cleve Court, did EC realise who it was that she had seen. And she also now understood the reason for the brusque response she had received from the other maid who clearly had not wished to frighten her.

Despite the fact that Lady Carson had received a terrible fright, she would have no truck with the idea that the house should be rid of its ghost. 'You see,' she said, 'we like our ghost. She does no harm.' After all, children had told her for years about the Grey Lady and none of them had come to harm. The atmosphere of the house was in no way affected by the presence of the ghost. Even the family physician, Dr Moon, who had a most odd experience at Cleve Court (described elsewhere in this section) nevertheless agreed that the atmosphere was always pleasant.

Lady Carson never again saw or heard the ghost of Cleve Court. But in 1966, Andrew Mackenzie, researching the story, received a letter from Mr and Mrs Rigden, gardener and maid at the house. 'About the the footsteps at Cleve Court, yes, they are still heard, and very plain at times,' the Rigdens wrote. 'You hear them come to the bedrooms in the old part of the house, mostly after midnight ... These footsteps were heard last week by a woman now living in the old part and she told us both she had heard footsteps.'

The most likely candidate for the role of the Grey Lady of Cleve Court is the much put-upon wife of Josias Fuller Farrer, who in 1762, when still a minor, inherited the house and a fortune of £1000,000 from his father. This premature inheritance was his downfall although it must be admitted that it was long years before he ran through it. The young man is said to have 'converted the house into a scene of riot and extravagance almost incredible.' Cleve was an open house 'where all kinds of visitors who could amuse or be amused were welcome.' There were seldom fewer than forty guests with their servants.

For himself Farrer 'maintained thirty horses in his stables for various purposes: drove six in his carriage, with out-riders mounted and furnished with French horns; kept hounds and hunters, and even a seraglio of women for the accommodation of his visitors. When his cellars overflowed with wine, butts were deposited to ripen in the out-offices, and when required for use, too frequently found emptied by the train of rascal attendants.' Each fortnight three butts of ale were delivered to Cleve, and very often even this was insufficient for Farrer and the countless hangers-on who drank and ate their way through the fortune. Some local tradesmen are said to have dated their prosperity from the days of Josias Fuller Farrer, who in time found himself reduced to comparative want.

But his wife and his only son? Where were they at this time of riotous extravagance? Certainly they did not share in the merrymaking. What wife could, knowing the kinds of women that her husband invited to the house? According to some accounts, whilst scenes of depravity and licence were enacted below, she was exiled upstairs and locked in her room.

Reports of the Cleve Court ghost, that sad and lonely woman, have her looking fondly at the children in the nursery bedroom. Perhaps, isolated in her own room, ignored and scorned by a brutally selfish husband, she had sought comfort from the only possible source, her own sleeping child. Her deep distress at her situation echoed down the years. In the Carsons and their children she did at least find people who had some sympathetic feeling for her. Nevertheless, there is a matter to be considered. If ghosts have feelings carried over from their lifetimes - and this particular story hints that they do - perhaps Cleve's Grey Lady ought to have been laid to rest. Perhaps it is not enough to say that 'we like our ghost' and leave her to trail a sad way down endless years.