A headless woman is sometimes seen in this vicinity. She rises slowly from the dark
water and drifts slowly across the surface of the lake. Reaching land,
she begins to run, her arms flailing wildly about her. Witnesses stand petrified
as the headless figure runs towards the bushes and vanishes.
In life, she is thought to have been the wife of a sergeant in the guard who murdered her
in the 1780s. Having hacked off her head, he buried it in a secret location before
flinging her body into the lake, which was then little more than a marsh. Since that
day her headless ghost searches for its missing head.
Nearby...
Queen Anne's Statue
There is a tradition that at midnight on 1 August
(the anniversary of the Queen’s death), the statue climbs down from the pedestal and
walks up and down the street three times.
Cockpit Steps
From the bottom of the steps a headless lady is often seen moving across the pavement
and drifting over the road in the direction of St James’s Park, opposite. The Times,
told in January 1804, of two Coldstream Guards who were so frightened by her that they
were confined to hospital, where they remained seriously ill for some considerable time.
In 1972, a motorist driving along here late at night collided with a lamppost when he
swerved to avoid a woman in a red dress who suddenly appeared before him. Amazingly,
the history of the mysterious haunting was brought up at the subsequent court case and
the motorist was acquitted of dangerous driving!
