1945
22
YEARS
THE ILLUMINATED CROSS
“Reginald Hine, a solicitor…
[and] historian … of Hertfordshire
...was a familiar sight at Dent’s…”
“...while his
Confessions of an Un-Common Attorney
was in production…”
Underwood (left) at work with a colleague (right) at Dents, with Reginald Hine (behind, right).
“The book contains a reference to
the haunted ruins of Minsden Chapel…”
“…the fourteeenth-century chapel
that was leased to Hine for his lifetime…”
“I had also heard about this reputed haunting from
Elliott O’Donnell,
a leading ghost-hunter of the day…”
“…he told me he twice visited the ruins alone…”
“…and once he heard sounds
of sweet and plaintive music…”
“…and thought, just for a second,
that he saw a figure in white
standing in one of the archways...”
“But he added, in the phrase so often used
by serious ghost-hunters and psychical researchers...”
‘It was gone almost at once
and may have been a trick of the moonlight…’
Minsden Chapel is located not for from
Letchworth in Hertfordshire
in the village of Hitchin.
“I talked with Reginald Hine about Minsden…
and he told me there were several legends
and vague stories of a murdered nun…”
“…the ghost monk mounts steps ‘no longer visible’
…[and] disappears to the sound of
‘sweet and plaintive music’...”
“I visited Minsden accompanied by my brother
and by Tom Brown…"
Underwood (right) with his brother John (left)
“On reaching the secluded site…
we eyed the fragmentary ruins
and separated…”
“…as I turned towards the east end of the ruins…”
“…I heard faint but distinct music…”
“...as I stopped to listen,
it ceased…”
“Tom Brown...hastened towards me
and reported hearing identical sounds…”
“…my brother,
only a couple of steps behind me,
heard nothing…”
After his visit, Underwood makes plans to return...
...to experience Minsden
at night
on Halloween...
“On the first All Hallows’ Eve that I spent at Minsden…”
“…in the company of Tom Brown and Derek Clark…
we all saw…”
“…at 1.45 a.m...”
“…a white cross
which seemed to glow with an unnatural brightness for a few seconds before fading…”
“It continued fading and reappearing for some minutes.”
Tom Brown (left) and Underwood (right) at the ruins of Minsden Chapel.
“I suppose it could possibly have been
a trick of the moonlight,
as a full moon was shining down…at the time…”
The cross had appeared near where
the ghost of a monk was once photographed.
Underwood points to where the luminous cross appeared upon part of the ruins of Minsden Chapel.
Thomas William Latchmore
Minsden Ghost (1907)
Reginald Hine had included the photograph
- taken by his friend Thomas Latchmore -
in his earlier book The History of Hitchin (1929).
However Latchmore later confessed during
an interview with Elliott O’Donnell
that it was a hoax.
Many believe the ‘ghostly monk’ in the photograph
is none other than Reginald Hine himself
- with a hat and cloak.
“Hine…was greatly interested in the cross…[we] had seen;
and his one encounter with a ghost...
remained a vivid memory…”
“It happened at Stanegarth…”
“…a crumbling Elizabehan manor-house…”
“…[with] no less than three ghosts…”
“The third apparition is the one Hine saw…”
“...a mild-mannered woman
who always seemed to appear
to new occupants of the house…”
“He found himself suddenly wide awake…
…and he saw a tall, fragile-looking woman
...coming towards him…”
“Her face,
fixed and remote,
reminded him of a sleepwalker…”
“...but the eyes were wide open
and in his words
‘shone like the stars…’
“…she stretched out her right hand to touch him
and Hine shrieked…”
“Help came,
and the figure
disappeared..."
“Hine committed suicide a few years later,
in 1949, while chatting to friends
at Hitchin railway station...”
“As a train approached he casually said,
‘Wait a minute…’
and walked on to the line in its path…”
“Meticulous to the end,
he left a note
addressed to the local coroner...”
“…he told me that it was his intention
that his ashes should be scattered
in [Minsden Chapel]…”
“…so he gave a warning
‘to trespassers and sacrilegious persons...
'after my death…I will endeavour, in all ghostly ways,
to protect and haunt its hallowed walls…’ ”
No Common Task
pp.51-53
Hine’s memorial at Minsden Chapel
