Ghost of a Monk

From: 
Story type: Ghost
Location: Michelham Priory, Sussex, United Kingdom
Source: Form Submission
Date submitted: Sat Jul 17 03:14:45 2010

I was on holiday visiting family in the United kingdom, me and my grandmother and some other extended family decided to take a visit to Michelham Priory in sussex. I did not know much about the priory other than the obvious. Unfortunately on the way there we hit some major roadworks and got stuck in a traffic jam for almsot 4 hours. by the time we arrived at the priory, it was 5 in the afternoon and only half an hour until it closed. We decided not to waste the car journey and spend half an hour there anyway. We paid for our tickets and walked through the entrance gate into the huge grassy courtyard.

It was early autum and was quite dark, so we deicided just to have a look at the indoor attractions. We started at the main building, the origial priory which used to house the monks. We walked through the door and were met buy one of the guides, she aplogised but said she would not be able to show us around because she had to lock up another part of the building, we said this was ok and we were fine to look around ourselves. We explored the bottom of the building, the old kitchen, dinning hall and armory. it was incredibly interesting and i was engulfed by the history.

I started to feel quite uneasy as soon as we walked up to the second floor, it was almost dark outside now and for some reason many of the upstairs lights seemed not to be working. It got so dark infact that before we entered one of the rooms, my grandmother suggested she goes and finds the guide to let her know about the lights before we looked at the rest of the building, we agreed and the rest of the party left to find her. Just me and my cousin stayed behind.

We waited in a small corridor that was dimly light by the lights. I was feeling quite uneasy and then suddenly out of the corner of my eye I saw a dark figure at the end of the corridor, i turned quickly and saw it dissapear into a room at the end of the corridor. I figured it must have been the guide we saw earlier, so i followed to find her. I reached the end of the corridor and peared into the room, it was almost completely pitch black except for a fake flame torch hanging on one wall. I called out for someone but heard no reply. I looked back and my cousin was still waiting at the other end of the hallway.

I walked into the room and had a quick look and found that there was no one there. I thought this was very weird but I deicded it must have just been a shadow I saw, and I dismissed it. I turned to leave and i stepped out of the room, I looked back down the corridor and saw a dark figure, it appeared to be a small man wearing a monks robe, walking down the corridor towards my cousin. I was quite taken aback, and called out to him, he turned to me, pulled down his hood and made some sort of a noise that I can only describe as a very short sort of chant, and evaportated into the air.

I was so shocked I think I almost keeled other, I stood there for many minutes until my cousin looked down the corridor and saw me, he came rushing towards me. I asked him if he had seen the monk and he said no, even though he had been looking down the corridor when I saw it.

I was very shaken and quickly left to find the others, i met them on the top of the stairs with the guide, who apologised about the lights and quickly flicked them back on from a switch behind a painting. I told them about what I had seen and the guide said that many people report seeing apparitions of monks as well as hearing monks chant, lights turning off, cold spots and even the appirtion of an old lady.

I was very shaken by my experience and insisted that we leave immediately, the others agreed and the guide accompanied us out.

That was not the only paranormal experience we had that night, whilst leaving the building, eveyone of us remarked on hearing the chanting of monks coming from back in the building.

We all hurried to the car park and left quickly.

To this day I am not sure what or who I saw in the building, nor do I know why my cousin did not see it. I do know that we were the only guests in the locationat the time, and there were only 3 staff, one at the ticket desk, almost 100 meters awya form the building, one in the cafe, more than 400 meters away, and the guide who went to lock up a seperate part of the building.

As for the chanting, that defintely made up all of our minds that this was a very haunted location.