Byronic spectres

ALAN MURDIE pays a visit to Newstead Abbey in search of literary phantoms and Gothic ghosts

Back in June, being serendipitously in Nottinghamshire, I enjoyed the opportunity of visiting the revered and allegedly much-haunted Newstead Abbey again, after more than 30 years, kindly guided by distinguished parapsychologist Dr Cal Cooper of the University of Northampton. It was an opportunity to revisit this most delightful of stately homes and its grounds, long a favourite of both literary pilgrims and ghost hunters. Newstead is a place suffused with romantic and fantastic associations owing to its indelible connection with Lord George Gordon Byron, the romantic poet (1788-1824). In the afterglow of such a charismatic figure who left innumerable extraordinary myths, controversies and fictions in his wake, the task of filtering out the real facts proves well-nigh impossible. Thus, anyone writing of the ghosts at Newstead is either going to…

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Fortean Times (Digital) - 1 Issue, 450

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