Interesting, Unknown, Obscure, and Enjoyable #3: The Brown Lady

This is a new series I am doing, sort of like MrBLOGGER’s all about series.  The first letter of each word is a vowel, with the exception of A.  This shows that the topics are more to the uncommon side. The reason this blog is labeled 3# is because I have changed my Ciudad de la Paz and my All About the Sargasso Sea into this series.  Anyway, let’s get learning on the brown lady.

The brown lady is a ghost in the UK that haunts Raynham Hall, Norfolk.  She’s called the brown lady because of the brown brocade dress it is claimed she wears.  There has been a couple sightings, but the most popular one is the one in the thumbnail, by Captain Hubert C. Provand.

The brown lady’s identity is Lady Dorothy Walpole (1686-1726), the sister of the first prime minister of the UK.  She was the second wife of Charles Townshend.  Townshend had a notorious bad temper, and when he found out Dorothy had comminuted adultery with Lord Thomas Wharton, Townshend punished her by locking her in a room at Raynham Hall.  She remained at Raynham Hall until her death from smallpox inn 1726.

The first claim of a sighting was from Lucia C. Stone in 1835, concerning a Christmas gathering.  Presumably, a guest Colonel Loftus and another guest named Hawkins said they had seen the Brown Lady one night when they were retiring to their bedrooms, noting in particular the brown dress she wore.  The following evening, Loftus sighted it again, this time being focused to the specter’s empty eye sockets.  The two sightings led to some staff leaving permanently.

The next sighting was made the following year by Frederick Marryat.  He had asked to stay the night in one of the rooms to try and prove his theory that the brown lady was caused by smugglers trying to keep people away from the area.  He was proven wrong.  On the third night of his stay, he saw the brown lady and fired his gun at her.  The apparition disappeared and the bullet went through the wall. Marryat never again attempted to interfere with the brown lady.

In 1936, Captain Hubert C. Provand was taking photos of the hall for an article in a magazine with his co-worker Indre Shira.  When they were getting ready to leave, Shira saw a form gliding down the stairs.  Provand quickly set up the camera and snapped a photo.  That is where the thumbnail came from.  Shortly after, the noted paranormal investigator Harry Price interviewed the photographers and concluded that their reports were valid.

In case you were wondering, I am discontinuing The Steps to Global Domination due to negative comments on the Veggie Caliphate one and Geopro’s recent upload.