Ghost
The Remorseful Fellow
A ghost born in a novel who refuses to leave.
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- What's there
- 17th-century bathing pool in a secluded college garden
- Legend from
- 1918 novel
- Tone
- Curious
Christ's College hides England's oldest outdoor pool, and a ghost that was invented in a book, but has walked there ever since.
Some people claim a stooped ghost walks by the old bathing pool in the Fellows' Garden at Christ's College. He is said to be Christopher Round, a Victorian fellow who let, or helped, his brilliant rival Collier drown in the pool and spent his life in remorse. The tale comes from A College Mystery, a 1918 book by Christ's graduate Alfred Ponsford Baker, dressed up with a confession and fake newspaper extracts. The Spectator's reviewer in 1919 bluntly called it all fiction: the college never had fellows named Round or Collier. Yet the ghost story stuck, and many still repeat it as true.