The Lyttelton Ghost Story – George Stanton

 George Stanton was one of the founding fathers of the Aurum Solis. The following short ghost story was told to him in 1886 by Mr Westcote. Stanton’s recollection of the story came into my possession from the estate of William Corbett, Head of the Stonehenge Lodge 667 of the Order of Druids. The lodge held its meetings in the Golden Lion Inn, Worcester Street, Bromsgrove, in the West of England in the 1880s.

“On Thursday, the 25th of November, 1779, Thomas Lord Lyttelton, when he came to breakfast, declared to Mrs. Flood (originally a Miss Amphlett), wife of Frederick Flood, Esq., and to the three Miss Amphletts, who were lodged in his house in Hill Street, London, (where he then also was), that he had had a most extraordinary dream the night before.

He said he thought he was in a room which a bird flew into, which appearance was suddenly changed into that of a woman dressed in white, who bade him prepare to die; to which he answered, "I hope not soon : not in two months?" She replied, "Yes, in three days." He said he did not much regard it, because he could in some measure account for it, for that a few days before he had been with Mrs. Dawson, when a Robin Redbreast flew into her room ...

In the evening of the following day, being Friday, he told the eldest Miss Amphlett that she looked melancholy; "but," said he, "you are foolish and fearful; I have lived two days, and God willing, I will live out the third."

On the morning of Saturday he told the same ladies that he was very well, and believed he should "bilk the ghost."

Some hours afterwards he went with them, Mr. Fortescue, and Captain Wolseley, to Pitt Place, at Epsom; withdrew to his bedchamber soon after eleven o'clock at night, talked cheerfully to his servant ... stepped into bed with his waistcoat on, and as his servant was pulling it off, put his hand to his side, sunk back, and immediately expired without a groan...

This declaration of his dream, and his expressions above mentioned, consequential thereunto, were upon a close enquiry asserted to me to have been so by Mrs. Flood, the eldest Miss Amphlett, Captain Wolseley, and his valet de chambre, Faulkner, who dressed him on the Thursday; and the manner of his death was related to me by William Stuckey, in the presence of Mr. Fortescue and Captain Wolseley; Stuckey being the servant who attended him in his bedchamber, and in whose arms he died.”

I guess the moral of this story is that if you dream that a bird flies into your room and promptly changes into a woman dressed in white then do one thing - create those dreamy legs and run, run, run! Fast! Do not under any circumstances enter into dialogue with her...