Crooms Hill Again

I went back in the daytime, changing my route a little, crossing Greenwich park to the Crooms Hill entrance. On the way I passed the old Anglo-Saxon tumuli that rise so faintly, like a giantskin version of nettle rash on the surface of the land. They are not impressive, truth to tell, but they do have a real sense of peace about them. They lie near the Henry Moore statue and the Royal Observatory. From there I crossed to the Crooms Hill gate - in fact there are two out of the park onto the hill - and made my way down into Greenwich proper, to the Fan Museum, where I saw some extremely pretty items, and had scones with cream and jam in the museum's orangery, so bijoux and twee-charming that one could feel one's pinkie ascending with every lift of a tea-cup.

Of course it didn't feel the same, but neither did it feel entirely empty. Greenwich has a lot of ghosts. My research wasn't focused on the park or the town; I wanted to know about Crooms Hill proper. So far, I have come across two ghost stories connected with the street, one about a young sailor who knocked on one of the doors asking for his mother. Later it transpired that this was impossible as he had died two days before in Jamaica. The other intrigued me rather more; In 1934 a coffin was sighted being carried across the park by red-headed women who were cut off at the knees. They took the coffin to the Crooms Hill gate, where the entire vision vanished.

A commentator on this story suggested that the building of Conduit House in 1934 may have disturbed nearby spirits. Conduit House is outside of the park, and I wondered if the commentator got confused between Conduit House private flats in Blackheath and the 18th century standard reservoir Conduit House within Greenwich park. It was a discovery to me that the latter - itself not far from the Crooms Gate Entrance - is attributed to the architect Nicholas Hawksmoor; sometimes I swear I'm trapped in a vortex with this guy. Whatever I study in all the variety of stories about London, he inevitably turns up, presumably saying in spectralese: 'And I made this... And this... And this...'

Beyond this, my researches petered out. I was too taken by descriptions of the rambunctious Greenwich fairs, and the mermaid discovered at Greenwich, as described in 1683: 'This place has been often haunted by other strange monsters [...]: "A perfect mermaid was, by the last great wind, driven ashore near Greenwich, with her comb in one hand and her looking-glass in the other. She seemed to be of the countenance of a most fair and beautiful woman, with her arms crossed, weeping out many pearly drops of salt tears; and afterwards she, gently turning herself upon her back, swam away without being seen any more."