A Bloomsbury Ghost.
A curious story comes from Bloomsbury in connection with a quiet little tavern in Torrington Mews, known as the Earl St. Vincent, where some strange manifestations, put down in the neighbourhood to supernatural agency, are said to be occurring. Inquiry elicited the fact that several times recently the manager, who sleeps on the premises, has been aroused from his slumbers by the ringing of bells throughout the house, and, after waking the other two occupants of the house, he has come downstairs to find the bell-rope still swinging, though no disturber of the peace could be discovered.
No reason for this strange bell-ringing seems forthcoming, and a late manageress of the house declares she has often been thus disturbed, and has also heard footsteps about the premises during the daytime, when it was absolutely certain there could be nobody upstairs. Thirty years ago similar phenomena occurred, and special police were required to keep the thoroughfare clear for traffic.
Illustrated Police Budget, 22nd January 1898.
Evicting a Bloomsbury Ghost.
One of London’s ghosts is to be evicted from its Bloomsbury quarters to make way for some new London University buildings. The Earl of St Vincent Inn, its haunt in Torrington Mews, just off Torrington Square, has been scheduled for destruction.
The inn is reached, as all romantic and ancient hostelries should be, by a narrow passage, and is just the house a ghost would select for a home. It is low-ceilinged, oak-panelled, and has a network of forbidding cellars for the ghost to play pranks in. How she came there, for it is a “she” ghost, is a mystery. One theory is that in life she was the victim of a highwayman who used to frequent the inn. Another suggestion is that she is a discarded ghost of a notorious spiritualistic circle which used to sit in Bloomsbury.
Sheffield Evening Telegraph, 23rd September 1913.