The Saturday Strangeness

Dave Haste
By Dave Haste Last edited 197 months ago
The Saturday Strangeness
Road Ghost

24. Haunted Roads For Halloween!

Despite London’s congested roads and the daily chorus of thousands of beeping horns, ghosts of the cities roads are in fact sporadic. Look through any catalogue of phantom hitchhikers or ghostly vehicles (for example http://www.roadghosts.com/) and you’ll notice a distinct lack of activity within the capital pertaining to tarmac terrors. Why this is we’ll never know – maybe it’s simply down to the fact that elsewhere in the country, where such spooks are in abundance, there is always the quiet dark lane, the wood enshrouded B-road and other perfect settings for such hauntings.

On Gloucester Drive in Finsbury Park, ghostly children have often been heard running up and down the street. Highgate’s very own ‘vampire’ has company, as in the village there have also been reports of a phantom cyclist. Meanwhile at East Heath Road, in northwest London, a grinning old gent has been seen.

However, the eeriest of London’s road-associated ghosts haunt Enfield, Stanmore and the Blackwall Tunnel.

At Enfield, a witch, rumoured to have been executed in 1622, is said to prowl Hadley Road on misty nights. Also as sinister is the Bell Lane black coach, last seen in November 1961 as it drifted off the ground!

In Stanmore, a ghostly wind is said to swirl along Honeypot Lane, whilst on the A41 during October 1985, a motorist claimed to have hit a man walking his dog. Both bodies hit the bonnet but were nowhere to be seen upon investigation.

The Blackwall Tunnel is haunted by a phantom accident as well as a hitchhiker who may well have been a motorcylist who died during an accident in the ‘70s.

By Neil Arnold

Image taken from jipol’s Flickr photostream under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 licence.

Last Updated 27 October 2007