In my father’s Desert Island Discs interview, which I mentioned last month, he talks of the ghosts that are resident in Knebworth House. There has been a house here since the Dark Ages – at least since Cnebba had his Saxon camp on the top of this hill – so it stands to reason that, if there are ghosts in any house, there are going to be ghosts here. Sleeping in the darkness of these creaking passageways every night, I have done my best to avoid them – rationalising any noise as pigeons scratching in the stucco or the clinking of the flagpole. However if you are more inclined than I to meet one, you may want to join the young families taking the Pumpkin Trail on 27th-29th October – thrills include “Meet the bats”, “Help make the witch’s brew” and “The Terror Tunnel”… I think I’ll be heading to bed with a mug of cocoa – and some cloves of garlic round my neck!
Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com