Abbey House, Cambridge
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Abbey House or Old Abbey House is a 17th-century house on the corner of Beche Road and Abbey Road in Abbey,
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...
. It lies just to the east of the roundabout where Elizabeth Way and Newmarket Road meet. The house is 17th-century but perhaps containing parts of earlier date; it has two storeys with attics. The house is a Grade II listed building; the walls and archway are separately listed Grade II. It has been described as both the oldest inhabited house and the most haunted house in the city.


History

Abbey House was built by Alexander Butler on the site of
Barnwell Priory Barnwell Priory was an Augustinians, Augustinian priory at Barnwell, Cambridgeshire, Barnwell in Cambridgeshire, founded as a house of Canons Regular. The only surviving parts are 13th-century claustral building, which is a Grade II* listed, and ...
(dissolved 1539) and parts of the old ecclesiastical buildings can be found in the walls, cellar and gardens of the house. Local
barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdiction (area), jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include arguing cases in courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, jurisprud ...
Jacob Butler inherited the house and much of the surrounding land, which played host to the annual Stourbridge Fair, in 1714, but lost it in a legal dispute prior to his death in 1765. His tall fierce-looking ghost and that of his dog Wolfie have been reportedly sighted in his old home. The house's reputation for being haunted came to local prominence during the occupancy of Prof. J. C. Lawson of Pembroke College from 1904 to 1910, on the family's first night in residence members of the household were reportedly woken at midnight by a crashing sound, and from 1907 onward, Lawson and others reported seeing the ghost of a nun wrapped in a dark robe, who failed to respond to questioning but stood at the foot of Mrs Lawson's bed sighing during a protracted illness, while children of another family resident in the house at that time reportedly received regular visitations from this nun, who they did not like very much. A local woman, who lived in the northern end of the house from 1904 to 1911, later reported that she had heard stories of the ''Grey Lady'' prior to her residency. According to these local legends the house was haunted by the spirit of a nun from nearby St Radegund's Priory who used an underground passage, marked by a bricked up archway in the house's cellar, to meet with a canon at Barnwell Priory who was her secret lover. According to some versions of the legend, the nun was walled up by her fellow nuns as punishment for her indiscretion. The Lawsons and others also reported seeing ghostly animals in the house's gardens, including a well-fed
red squirrel The red squirrel (''Sciurus vulgaris''), also called Eurasian red squirrel, is a species of tree squirrel in the genus ''Sciurus''. It is an arboreal and primarily herbivorous rodent and common throughout Eurasia. Taxonomy There have been ...
, which vanished when approached, and a large
hare Hares and jackrabbits are mammals belonging to the genus ''Lepus''. They are herbivores and live Solitary animal, solitarily or in pairs. They nest in slight depressions called forms, and their young are precociality, able to fend for themselves ...
, which sat watching witnesses before disappearing. In the 1920s, reports of Mrs Ascham, wife of the owner, repeatedly seeing a disembodied female head at the foot of her bed reached Prof. F. J. M. Stratton of
Gonville and Caius College Gonville and Caius College, commonly known as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348 by Edmund Gonville, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges an ...
, later President of the Society for Psychical Research, who rented the house for a month and reported muttering and singing coming from an empty room.
Urban Huttleston Broughton, 1st Baron Fairhaven Urban Huttleston Rogers Broughton, 1st Baron Fairhaven (31 August 1896 – 20 August 1966), usually known as Huttleston Broughton was a British peer, racehorse breeder and art collector. Early life Broughton was born on 31 August 1896 in Fairh ...
of
Anglesey Abbey Anglesey Abbey is a National Trust property in the village of Lode, northeast of Cambridge, England. The property includes a country house, built on the remains of a priory, 98 acres (400,000 m2) of gardens and landscaped grounds, and a worki ...
gifted the house to the people of Cambridge at the end of
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
in celebration of the cessation of hostilities. The house was subsequently rented by the
Cambridge & County Folk Museum The Museum of Cambridge, formerly known as the Cambridge & County Folk Museum, is a museum located in Castle Street in central Cambridge, England. Overview The museum is housed in the former White Horse Inn, a Grade II listed 16th century f ...
until 1973 and a series of private tenants, including Mr Young and his daughter, who reported strange noises which caused their dog to cower in the corner of the room in the early 1960s, and Prof.
Peter Danckwerts Peter Victor Danckwerts (14 October 1916 – 25 October 1984) was a chemical engineer who pioneered the concept of the residence time distribution. In 1940, during the Second World War, he was awarded the George Cross for his work in defusing Par ...
of Pembroke College, who researched the history of the house. There were further reported sightings of the ''Grey Lady'' up until 1986, around which time the house was exorcised by three clergymen. In 2002, following the death of the last leaseholder the previous year, the council put the house on the market for £700,000 and sold it to the
Friends of the Western Buddhist Order The Triratna Buddhist Community, formerly the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO), is an international fellowship of Buddhists. It was founded in the UK in 1967 by Sangharakshita (born Dennis Philip Edward Lingwood) and describes itself ...
, who as part of the contract agreed to open the house to the public.


Gallery

cmglee_Cambridge_Abbey_House_downstairs.jpg, A downstairs room cmglee_Cambridge_Abbey_House_garden.jpg, Vegetable garden cmglee_Cambridge_Abbey_House_lawn.jpg, View from back lawn cmglee_Cambridge_Abbey_House_side.jpg, View from the side cmglee_Cambridge_Abbey_House_panorama.jpg, Stitched panorama


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abbey House, Cambridge Reportedly haunted locations in the East of England Grade II listed buildings in Cambridge Grade II listed houses