Speculation, Fact and Fiction

Well, the 'ghost walk' was highly enjoyable. We were led around the heart of the city and university by Rob Walters, who is a proper Oxford City Guide and as it happens, author of Haunted Oxford.

It was a clear, mild evening and our route took us along all manner of back alleys and sidestreets that I haven't been down since I was an undergraduate. I'd forgotten just how atmospheric Oxford is in the autumn dark, and how quiet it can be. You don't have to get very far at all from the High to lose the traffic noise completely.

Some of the stories were quite creepy and odd, others amusing, one tragic - that of Mary Blandy who was hanged on the old castle mound for poisoning her father (dastardly suitor persuaded her to give him a white powder in his tea to improve his disposition). She begged the hangman to hang her low so no one could see up her skirt - this being before 'the drop' when death by slow strangulation was the order of the day. He did so, but the coffin that should have been waiting when she was cut down hadn't been brought up. So she was carried down the hill slung over his shoulder, very unseemly. Apparently her ghost still flits around the mound in distress.

Overall the largest category of ghosts in Oxford would seem to be deceased academics who have come back to carry on working in their favourite libraries. Well, yes, I certainly encountered dons who wouldn't let some trifling inconvenience like dying stop them checking outstanding references.