What horror stories have I got for you this Halloween month? I am often asked about ghosts in Knebworth House, and am happy – and relieved – to report that I, personally, have never seen one. But if ghosts are around, Knebworth House is, I’m sure, where they’d be found. We have the dust of five centuries swirling within our Tudor walls. They say that 75% of household dust is human skin. So I do literally live with and breathe my ancestors. I do also have to sleep in the house, so really it is better if I believe that I’m not going to run into one of them on the way to the bathroom. Of course the night is full of noises, and Knebworth House does creak, but as children we would assure ourselves that any noise was simply the flagpole rope blowing in the wind, or pigeons scratching the stucco.
Nowadays I persuade myself that if I am going to meet a ghost it is much more likely to come from the future than from the past. ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy.’ Maybe one day science will find a way of bending time, in the same way that a couple of hundred years ago it pulled electricity out of the air. In the meantime I’m happy to get a good night’s sleep.
However if you do want to commune with the spirits – or just to get dressed up – do join the Knebworth Gardens Halloween Trail in Half Term week. The details I’m sure are on the back of the magazine, or on our website. You only get a prize though if you are a child… or a real ghost.
Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH