London’s most unusual ghost?
Most London ghosts are fairly normal. (Well, normal for ghosts.) Ghostly actors in the back of a theatre. Ghostly ladies in the Tower of London. The pub regular who loved his local so much he never left.
But here’s a great one. A ghost chicken.
Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, was an early scientist - back in Shakespeare’s day. He was a real live wire, always experimenting with new things. Coming back through Highgate in the snow, he had a bright idea; frozen chicken. So he got his manservant to go and get a chicken; gutted it, plucked it, and shoved its cavity full of snow instead of stuffing.
Apparently there have been reports of an almost featherless, very poorly ghost chicken running around Pond Square in Highgate! The poor bird was running round in circles, in a flap. (It hasn’t been seen for years, though, as far as I can find out. So you might not be lucky if you go ghost-hunting in Pond Square.)
The strangest thing is that there should really be two ghosts in this story. Because by the time Bacon had finished stuffing the chicken with snow, he’d caught a sniffle. He died not long after.
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