Ghost
The Strangling Lady
Black eyebrows, cold hands, and a door that would not stay shut.
Stand where it happened
- What's there
- Suburban streets; the house is gone
- Legend from
- 1896
- Tone
- Eerie
Near here stood Goldington Grange, where in 1896 a black-browed woman was said to try to strangle anyone who stayed the night.
In 1896 Goldington Grange, a large house on the edge of Bedford, made the national papers. Its tenant wrote to the London Standard that servants and family would not stay. Witnesses described a tall woman with heavy black eyebrows who seemed to try to strangle them before vanishing, along with unexplained noises and a bedroom door that opened by itself. The press nicknamed the house Silverton Abbey and ghost-hunting parties spent nights there, but the only sighting was by a medium who had dozed off in his chair. Newspapers blamed rats, wind and pranks, the excitement faded, and the house was demolished early in the 20th century.