Most theatres are reputedly haunted and the Playhouse is no exception, with things being seen, heard or felt multiple times since the conversion to a theatre – some involving a man, some involving a woman, and some involving a young girl.
Until a decade ago, it was not known by anyone connected with the theatre if, in fact, anyone had ever died here. Research has now shown that between 1826 and 1948 there were eight deaths in the building, possibly a ninth, and another with a very close connection – yet surprisingly considering its main use not one by drowning. Most were by natural causes and while none of the others involved foul play by other hands some met rather unfortunate and distressing ends. Does this mean we can potentially identify who, if you believe in such things, haunts the Playhouse?
Death by vaulting horse: Lillian Davies
The most frequently seen ghost is undoubtedly that of a little girl who appears in the auditorium. There have been several occasions when she has appeared during a performance, unwitnessed by those on stage but not by those ‘out front’. One notable example is when an audience member approached a front of house volunteer after watching a play to say that they had “enjoyed it very much but didn’t understand the point of the little girl sat on the edge of the stage throughout the second half”. The little girl had apparently sat there throughout, not moving, not engaging with or acknowledged by any of the actors, and wearing clothes of a different period.
Another example occurred during a performance of the musical Jekyll & Hyde in 2013 when the volunteer follow spot operator, new to the theatre, told the stage manager over the headphones that he could see a little girl sitting cross-legged on the floor next to the downstage left entrance (right next to the stage manager) and that she needed to move further back because if he could see her, so could some of the audience. This was news to the stage manager as there was no little girl back stage nor anyone else sitting or even standing in the same area.
It took a lot of searching before reference was found in a January 1896 edition of the Coventry Evening Telegraph to the death at the Montpellier Baths; this led to the discovery of a full report in the Cheltenham Chronicle of 1 February 1896 on the distressing death of Lillian Davies on 28 January.
In the winter months, the main swimming bath (which is now the auditorium) was boarded over to enable the large space to be used in other ways, most notably a gymnasium. The equipment was so positioned so that on occasion the room could be let to local bicycle manufacturer Edward Stretton ‘for the purposes of giving instruction to ladies in cycling’. On the afternoon in question Miss Blanche Jackson, who ran a private school in Hewlett Road with her sister, attended the Baths for her lesson and brought with her one of her pupils, 11-year old Lillian.
While Miss Jackson commenced her lesson, Lillian started playing with the gym equipment, resulting in Stretton telling her to stop swinging on the rings. A few minutes later Lillian asked if she might get on the vaulting horse and was told not to do so. She remained playing in the area of the horse and Stretton thought there was no danger. What he hadn’t realised was that the horse was telescopic, in that you could adjust the height of its body for jumping over by means of iron pins. Lillian evidently removed two of the pins of the telescopic mechanism causing the horse to imbalance and start to fall. Had she remained still it would have missed her but she panicked and scrambled to move away, resulting in the body of the horse catching her and pinning her to the floor.
Stretton and Jackson heard no cry from the child but heard a thud, causing them to turn. They saw the body of the horse – weighing a full 16 stones – lying on Lillian’s head. They rushed over, pulled the horse off of the unconscious but still breathing girl and saw blood emanating from her ears, nose and mouth; one of the iron pins was still clutched in her hand.
A telephone call to the hospital brought surgeon Boyd Cardew to the scene but a cursory examination of her head made it clear that she was beyond assistance and that the injuries would prove fatal. He administered a little brandy and she died very shortly afterwards. The verdict of the subsequent inquest was accidental death caused by skull fracture. No blame was attached to Stretton, who merely hired the room, but the jury asked that the management of the gymnasium be impelled to ensure the horse was left in a fixed state when not in use.
The disembodied voice: Florence Hudson
The female ghost is usually seen on one of the balconies in the auditorium, usually by staff during the day or by technical volunteers while preparing for rehearsals, very seldom by audiences. The balconies were originally designed as viewing areas for people to watch swimming or other activities such as this St John’s Ambulance competition featured in the Cheltenham Chronicle & Gloucestershire Graphic magazine of November 1910.
She – or another ghostly woman – has made one excursion onto the stage, however. Following a live music gig, an audience member approached the guitarist in the bar afterwards to ask what the problem was backstage. They had seen a woman walk on, whisper in the musician’s ear, then walk off again. The musician hadn’t heard a thing and no one else saw the woman, but the audience member was adamant.
We only know of one female death that may have occurred on site, that of Florence Hudson on 7 July 1948, wife of the superintendent of the Baths since 1932, Thomas Hudson. Along with a salary, the superintendent received accommodation from the council and this was 47 Bath Road, the property that adjoins the Baths and is accessible from within. Florence had assisted her husband with some of his duties (as had wives of previous superintendents) and had been ill for some months, at home, before she died. Did she also die in her bed at home?
Curiously enough, several people have been alone in 47 Bath Road during the day and found themselves hearing a woman’s voice call them by their first name, as if somehow looking for them. On going to see if anyone is there no one is found; but it always repeats three times before stopping. Could it be Florence Hudson?
Natural causes: Jessop, Page, Neale, Griffiths, Berryman, Tucker
While we can’t be totally sure about the location of Florence Hudson’s death, we do know that Josiah Jessop, manager of the Baths since 1864, died in 47 Bath Road on 28 January 1881 – interestingly, the same date as Lillian Davies, but 15 years earlier – and it’s not just disembodied voices that are heard here. An electrician was carrying out testing throughout the building in 2009 and, on returning to the main office, reported that while on the top floor he kept feeling as if someone was behind him, watching him, enough that he turned around several times to check. He realised after the third time, he said, that it was merely his brain playing tricks on him and he was responding to the noise of someone moving furniture around in the room below. There was, of course, no one in the locked room below and no furniture to be moved around.
A male ghost has been seen walking through the walls of, or popping his head around, the sunken rehearsal room known as ‘the dungeon’ which has previously been a laundry, a wash house, and a brew house. He’s also been seen standing by the supporting pillar in the green room – previously bath rooms or medical treatment rooms – and in the corridor upstairs outside what used to be bath rooms. These rooms saw five deaths in 90 year including three seemingly of heart attacks while having a bath – Frank Griffiths (18 January 1872), George Berryman (21 June 1922) and Mark Tucker (30 June 1936).
Aside from deaths in the bathrooms, two men were found dead or dying on the opposite side of the building away from the public areas. Jeremiah Page was a coachman who worked for Samuel Hicks, a fruiterer who used the stores that now occupied the area previously used as the mill. He was found face down in a heap of coke in the yard (now the theatre’s workshop), apparently drunk. However police sergeant McRae felt certain that whatever was affecting Page wasn’t drink and so he sent for a doctor. The doctor remained with Page for some time and obviously concurred, recommending his removal to hospital. He died later that night (11 October 1887).
accessed via the double doors to the left.
John Neale (died 26 August 1893) had been employed for many years as the engine driver at the Baths but there was confusion at the inquest into his death as to the status of his employment. His wife claimed he had been employed by the Baths for 41 years but this was disputed by caretaker Frank Craddock who said that Neale had not been employed there for nine or ten years, but was in the habit of visiting the property on a regular basis. Had Neale been dismissed but somehow never told his wife?
He was sitting in the pump room on the afternoon of 26 August 1893 and asked Craddock if he could have a bucket of hot water as his feet were cold and was told that it might be possible later on. About 4.30 the caretaker went to look at the boilers and found a new bucket at the top of the steps leading to the engine house. He called out but received no reply and on going down the steps he saw Neale lying with his feet up the steps and his head in the corner against the pumpstone. A post mortem revealed that Neale suffered from very feeble circulation and it was believed this caused him to pass out and fall down the steps. He appeared to have made no attempt to save himself and the injury to his head was cited as the cause of death.
Suicide due to embezzlement: George Stretton
Perhaps the most likely candidate to wander the corridors in the afterlife is George Stretton, seen in the centre of this photo taken on one of the viewing balconies of a life-saving class. Stretton and his wife were appointed joint superintendents and teachers of swimming of the Baths in 1907 and when the medical spa was added he became conversant with some of the treatments. Wounded during the First World War – he served in the 30th Railway Battalion – his health never fully recovered according to his wife and his experiences left him very nervy and depressed at times.
Despite this he was apparently highly efficient at his job, had been a Past Grand Master of the Cheltenham Manchester Unity of Oddfellows, and was a familiar figure in the Conservative Club. Widely respected, his suicide at the Baths on 19 January 1931 came as a considerable shock. At the inquest, his doctor stated that he had seen Stretton the previous September when he complained of sleeplessness and feeling very low. His wife said that during the night her husband had complained of a pain in his chest and was in a very low mood. It soon became clear, however, that his depressed state was due to something far more serious than his memories of the war.
On the afternoon in question, Stretton was expecting a visitor: Charles Neat, a clerk in the Borough Treasurer’s department. Their meeting was relatively brief. Neat asked to see the tickets sold at the Baths for medical treatments. Stretton replied ‘yes’ and left the room, Neat assuming he had gone to fetch them. A few minutes later, Neat heard some cries at the end of the corridor and rushed to the scene to find several workmen crowded around the door of one of the bathrooms. The boilerman, James Cook, had found Stretton lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Putting his hand on his shoulder Cook asked ‘whatever is the matter, Mr Stretton?’ The wounded man replied in a whisper ‘Jim, I am nearly…’ and died. A razor was found under the bath; Stretton had slit the left side of his throat and Neat was able to provide the reason for such a drastic step,
The district auditor had investigated the accounts at the Baths and discovered a very considerable discrepancy in the takings. Neat was unable to confirm the precise amount at the inquest but the coroner clearly had some information of his own, asking if the deficiency was somewhere between £380 and £390 – a quite astonishing sum when most treatments cost between 4 and 8 shillings in 1926. Clearly, Stretton had been dipping into the accounts and cooking his books for some considerable time.
Curiously, these financial irregularities are never referred to in the Corporation’s minutes either before or after Stretton’s suicide. There is no record of how much the auditor eventually determined had been stolen. In May, new arrangements were brought in for the superintendent to report on a monthly basis, presumably to prevent a recurrence. It worked for a while but seven years later the cashier, a Miss Newman, was dismissed for having altered the books!
Suicide due to insanity: Captain William Layman
Stretton was not, sadly, the only suicide to occur at the Baths. The first, on 23 May 1826, was William Layman, a naval captain who had run two ships aground and been subject to court-martial, but he was extremely highly regarded by Nelson who regarded the loss of Layman to the nation a much bigger loss than that of his ships to the Navy. He arrived in Cheltenham in 1822 while retaining, as many of class did, a house in London just off Sloane Street.
The Cheltenham Journal reported on his inquest stating that Layman had booked a bath for 4 pm and advised the attendant, John Goward, that he wished to remain there for one hour. When Goward went to the bathroom as requested he found Layman lying dead in the bath, his throat cut – and, like Stretton, on the left side. He had hung up his clothes in the greatest order and left a note, written in pencil. The inquest quickly returned a verdict of insanity (which enabled him to be buried in St Peter’s churchyard, Leckhampton) as further evidence suggested that in recent weeks Layman’s mental state had become troubling.
He had recently visited his landlord and said that ‘they’ (whoever ‘they’ were) wanted him ‘sent to London, but he could not live there as it was all dirt and poison. If he went there he should be poisoned, as he could not eat anything in London’. He didn’t see how he could remain in Cheltenham either as it was ‘the damnedest place in all the world, the water was the most filthy’ and when it rained he had got his cook to stand outside and catch the rainwater as it dripped off the slates. He had also accused said cook of behaving dreadfully towards him, despite rewarding her with a gold sovereign.