Ghost · Chenies · Legendary
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A jealous king's heavy footsteps still climb the Tudor stairs.
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Chenies Manor House and gardens open to the public from April to October (ticketed), with guided group tours all year by arrangement; check dates before you go.
Henry VIII stayed at Chenies with Catherine Howard, who was meeting her lover here. Some say his dragging footsteps still climb the stairs.
Chenies Manor, a Tudor brick house with fine twisted chimneys, belonged to John Russell, a trusted courtier of Henry VIII. The king stayed here in 1534 and came again in 1541 with his young queen Catherine Howard. At her trial for treason, Chenies was named as one of the places where she met her lover Thomas Culpeper. By then Henry suffered from an ulcerated leg, and the house's own history says his heavy footsteps are still heard on the stairs to the rooms where she was said to meet Culpeper. A phantom figure, first reported in the 1950s, is sometimes described as dragging its feet.