The Subterranean Terrors of the London Tombs
Feb 27, 2020Well I must say it really doesn't get more London than this, we have the cobblestones, the dimly lit lights and then here we have the catacombs, the
tombs
of London that lie beneath the bustling city of London, very uh, and they don't shy away from look at it , yes, very theatrical, it's a tourist attraction now, it's a haunted labyrinth, but it sits on a bed of history that is very genuine, let's take a look at thetombs
tone, yes, go ahead this week on Buzzfeed and figure it out. We investigated London tombs as part of our ongoing investigation into the question of whether ghosts are real.These tombs are not the nicest as you can see and have a rather gruesome history. The production value here is through the roof, yeah, yeah, I mean, it's a haunted place. attraction, this is a fun place, huh, it's a fun house built on a historical atrocity, well, that's one way to do it, I guess with that being said, let's get into it, oh, it's, okay, deep in the land, at the foot of London Bridge. Like the catacombs now known as the London Tombs, it is unclear how old these catacombs are, but the bridge itself dates back to ancient Roman times and a brief look at London's tragic history may provide an answer.
In the history of the city there have been several deadly epidemics. Common pits. They became known as plague pits throughout the city to accommodate the scale of the deaths during which hundreds of bodies were quickly buried without coffins or ceremonies. That's fair. It's decomposing on their face while they're still alive, yeah that was a bad thing, you gotta get rid of those bodies as fast as you can, yeah burn them, they're like white walkers throwing up a volcano, I don't care if I dropped it meat off your face, I'd expect you to put a bullet in my head, uh, happily, oh, you won't be able to beat that, you wouldn't even have to ask, mate, if meat didn't fall off your face.
I'd still put a bullet in your head, for what reason? Wait, you're saying you'd shoot, move it. One of the worst plagues in human history, known as the Black Death, occurred in Europe between 1347 and 1351 and killed approximately 1.5 million. The British were a staggering number considering they were about a third of Britain's population at the time, in 1665, another outbreak of bubonic plague devastated the city now known as the Great Plague of London. The disease eventually claimed up to one hundred thousand lives, approximately one year. one fifth of London's population what a piece I mean this wasn't a joke what a piece there's a reason they called it the great plague oh he was a great man no you should have been there for that plague no it wasn't like If that thing was a What a plague, yes, a vote t.
I don't have any family left between these two outbreaks. It is unknown how many plague pits there are throughout the city. It's actually a popular urban myth that the famous London Underground system was designed on its meandering route to avoid plague pits - yeah, it's probably not very fun to imagine a train zigzagging around a bunch of dead people just like that. going through a pile of bones, oh, don't worry, those are old bones, there can't be too many bones going through here. we have bones on the trail again i'm from
london
records from jon stowe's survey oflondon
in 1598 suggest that up to 150,000 bodies had been buried across london in plague pits evidence of these masked tombs has been discovered over several points in history, such as recently In 2013, engineers working on the London Crossbar 14 project discovered a 14-body shaft in Farrington's Charter House Square.That's still a dumb change, I know it's 14 human lives, but don't change and when you say they buried 150,000, I would at least hope it wasn't 100 in a giant pit, I mean, like a cross, yeah I know, but 14 is not right, put it this way, how often are we digging somewhere for a new development in Los Angeles like, oh, there are 14 bones here? or there are 14 bunches of bubbles no we are a young country I'm sure in 100 years there will be a lot of us buried in holes finding mass graves you know that's not how it works man yeah we are I'm going to go through some things.
I want to come Jesus. You are an anarchist. This dark story takes us to the London tombs where we sit tonight before they became a tourist attraction. The tombs had been sealed for decades. Excavations to build the attraction have already begun. In 2007, by brothers Lee and Danny Scriven of Kent, the project was said to have cost more than 2 million pounds during its excavation, they claimed to cite that hundreds of bodies were discovered from the plague pit, where the tomb is located, according to BBC reports, after the skeletons were cited. found in a sealed vault in the basement end of quote the builders refused to work alone at the site shortly after a second room of bones end of quote was found beneath the concrete that was said to have intensified the spooky activities end of quote the bone room I like I mean, this is serious, man, they found a bunch of bones here, yeah, like police pathologists would do, they supposedly dated the bones to the mid-17th century, which took to his main theory that his remains had been plagued victims of this gruesome victim. revelation, no wonder construction workers experienced strange activity after disturbing the bodies of site workers, they would report tools disappearing and strange noises, they witnessed a mysterious surge where more than a dozen light bulbs had flown despite As the new electrical system came into operation, some reported feeling as if someone was watching them, perhaps more horrifyingly, those who have visited since have claimed to have experienced frightening visions, seen sinister faces suspended in the air, and felt violent attacks of poltergeist.
With that in mind, let's take a look at the current state of the underground tombs we sit in tonight. As mentioned before, these tombs are now an attraction, a labyrinth filled with terrifying actors and sets to scare thrill-seeking tourists, but tonight this labyrinth of rooms is empty, ready for us to find what fragments of history are hidden. They refuse to leave a little skeleton man in that tree. Okay, that's fun, so this isn't too serious. Nothing of this. This is what awaits us tonight. This awaits us. I don't know, I have no idea that they have great respect for their dead.
Here in England you can see it's kind of a nightmare, there are dolls everywhere, that brings us back to Spider Island or the dolls, yeah I feel at home, I feel like we're in that shed again, yeah , and just like that there is one. marquee doll there's what oh oh this is the doll that a psychic apparently hates and doesn't want to come in here, I guess that's normal, although I'm actually quite impressed with how horrible a lot of these look, that one is in a my baby's cage in a cage you have to cage him a bad bath otherwise I don't make a cuppa as you can see I've placed all my gear on his lap yeah so let's do it cover your ears oh okay we're back here we are can you tell Hello? oh, it actually sounded like hello, can you say any of our names?
We are Ryan and Shane, who is in this room? Where are you now? every time you hear a voice, you go and then it's almost like your brain half a second later realizes that oh, so nothing of value was said. Well, it sounded like it was said here. I didn't say it. He said here. It sounded like but again, I agree with you that one would really agree that one word doesn't mean much. No, okay, but if it's two words, we'll come back to you, you're there, why don't you talk, uh, yeah, what about you, something to say, Chesterman, you have something to say, how have you, you have a bear yeti, did they burn your face?
Why don't you speak? How are you, headless bride? Do you have something to say, oh, Farmer John, general boy, do any of you have anything to tell us? Come on, there has to be a soul here, that Jesus Christ, what in the name of? christ is that he's a demon he's a fucking exorcist baby the head headless troll doll talk to us say something crazy make ryan lose his mind let's listen to it come on let's go with it let's go I would pay thousands of dollars to make the ghosts real just so we could leave to do this two minutes before, what did you think he said?
I believe it says that a room in the maze known as the brown room is said to house a shadowy figure that seemingly lurks in the dark corners of the room. this is the starting room of the maze this is kind of a classic oh hello sir this is usually where you see a shadow man here in the back corners right now our audio recorder picks up what sounds like a distant female scream in the back of back corners, this used to be the tomb, yeah, well, I mean, this is the whole area, right here, there's this, they executed the two, they dug up the whole site and there was one room in particular where most of the bones were .
This wasn't right, but all of this. The site as a whole was like part of an underground system. It's just weird that they turned it into a haunted mansion. Let's communicate. Maybe it's a weasel. Yes, it was a weasel badger. Wolverine. I don't know what the hell that is. I'm sure I'm not a zoologist, okay, oh, there's another weasel that this guy loved, the weasels were called, the weasel's name, don't call it the brown room, it's called the weasel room, oh, the famous brown room. The weasel of good England, oh, he's reaching for the bottle, he's reaching. for the gym you know what I'm talking about hey, you're about to close a big what are you about to make out with the dog?
I can smell it on your breath that we have reports in this room uh whispers of standard fare, but mainly it's the prominent figure of a shadow person standing back there. I get tired of hearing about shadow people. So yeah, it could also be like a coat on a coat rack. You know, right now our audio recorder picks up a whispering voice. I'm going to give you the floor right now if you want to say something or want to tell us that you're here. We could turn off the light. Do you want us to turn off the lights?
So everything is in shadows. Everything is him. Shadow man, how do you part? So we are men of the shadows. Holy, no, it's dark. Well, now it may be easier for you to focus on us. Do you have something to say? I'll give you a minute, we can't see you. Now apparently this is the best time for a ghost to do something when it can't be recorded, so this is your time, okay, we're about to leave. I'm going to turn on the light in the corner now, oh, I'm failing. Aside from the plagues, some of England's most violent stories actually took place more or less on top of the tombs we're in tonight, as far back as the 13th century.
England sometimes punished crown merchants by hanging, quartering and quartering this process, among other horrible things, would include pulling someone's head. the limbs severed possibly by horses and ending with decapitation, the heads would be placed on the pikes of the merchant's gate, a gate that was found in an older incarnation of London Bridge, yes, calm, that's fair, I think totally calm, I mean, betrayal, you know you're right, betrayal. It's bad, let's have a horse pull your limbs out again, we've already covered this, but they didn't have much to do back then, so you're telling me that if you didn't have Netflix, you'd resort to Cutting People's Heads Off, I'm putting them on funny sticks, no, if I'm reading a book and I say, well, this is the height of entertainment, someone said, well, they're going to smash someone into four little pieces outside. slap four horses on the butt and watch them, uh, watch them fall apart.
I'd probably just put my little marker nearby, put on my shoes, and head out to the town square. What's wrong with that? Many things. Several things occur to me. From above, I'm putting myself in historical context today, I probably wouldn't, but I probably wouldn't. I think it. 60 possibilities. I'm saying no to that. Some famous heads that once sat on these pikes included the head. from fox-like Catholic conspirator Oliver Cromwell and Scottish freedom fighter and brave heart William Wallace That said, one detail I withheld about the remains found in the graves we are exploring tonight was that some of the skulls found had holes in them, which suggests that some of the grotesque mounted heads once prominently displayed for the London public found a home here in the London tombs, in fact, a medium who visited the tombs as well as claiming to sense hundreds of tortured souls also from that the aforementioned fox guy is fine, that's something like that.
Well, I think fox, this fox guy, did you have him ready to go? Oh damn, maybe this violent story could explain the many figuresdark people wandering through the hallways using laser technology, maybe we can capture movement so that in this hallway to give tours, the tour guide would be standing right here, yeah, and they toured this hallway and at one point a tour guide said they saw a man standing back here, okay, so there's a lot of stuff hanging in that hallway. I don't think shadows can play with someone's imagination, there is only one way to find out, so I want to place the laser grid there so we can see any movement, that way we can discern if it is something that moves or if it really is just shadows playing tricks on someone right, it wasn't very productive last time well, it's not going to be productive every time you remember one more time capturing an apparition or something by physically manipulating our world is like catching lightning in a bottle that a holy grail, yeah, it's not going to happen every time, yeah, or anytime, let's do it, let's do it, let's start the network, I'm doing it, this is much more anticlimactic than I expected, oh.
That's fun, huh, I enjoy it Okay, to the man down this hallway, who are you, why are you here? Can you move for us? Can you move something? Could you move one of those hanging pieces of clothing while we change? batteries in our equipment we heard loud footsteps down the hall we quickly turned everything on but only caught the end of the noises hello, I don't know if our microphone was recording but something was definitely moving down there, do you want to go look? I heard that down there too Hello Jesus, this is what you heard, although true, that was quite loud, it was very loud, it sounded like footsteps in this forest because this look, it wasn't like that, no, hello, oh, come on, oh, good sir, oh.
Hello sir, we are in the Jack the Ripper room. Hello, do you hate that? I don't know what that was. Okay, let's go back. That was. Oh, sorry, you almost had evidence of a ghost. Our sound recorder was turned off. all of our equipment was off because we were changing batteries and of course at that moment we heard the footsteps convenient, very convenient, yeah, yeah, yeah, I knew you were going to say that and that's probably what most of the shaniacs and skeptics are thinking out there and Frankly, I know it looks bad, it bothers me, um, we just caught the beginning, but I'm struggling with the evp, so it kind of masters the steps on the dark disk again, it could be a hundred thousand things. before it's a ghost, it could be one of us rubbing against something, it could be you know someone on the team making a noise.
I'd love to hear a ghost say something ghostly. I would love to see a ghost. I'd love to. to see some evidence of something perhaps the most active room in the tombs is a room known as the roman room, in this room staff have claimed to have seen the apparition of a girl called emily dressed in clothing perhaps from any of the great pests, but the most horrible thing is the possible explanation for their frequent appearances in this room, according to the current staff, most of the bones discovered during construction were actually found one floor below this room, maybe we will see it tonight, I'm sure you'll do.
What happens if you see her? So what are you going to do if I see her? Then I will believe in ghosts forever. You heard it here first. This is your chance, Emily, to make history by finishing the show. You know how boring this show would be if I was as crazy as you, I'm not crazy, I just believe in a different truth than you, okay, but it would just be two people saying I'm scared and the other saying I'm even scared, That's what every ghost show out there is like, right? really okay, right now we have motion lights at the foot of that door, at the foot of this door and where the spirit of where the spirit of the girl is seeing you, okay man, I saw something there, what do you have to pick up? something's up those of us who are going to see who we're approaching here as Romans no, that's just because it's a Roman theme doesn't mean there are actually Romans oh, this isn't just remember the backdrop of this place this guy looks so sad Sack Why are you bothering me?
Who is here? Can you say your name? Do you see why you are here? Is there anyone here with us right now? Emily Are you here? Even your name was just given to you there. There's uneasiness in this room, you don't like it, I don't know, it's pretty quiet in here, yeah, why don't you come a little closer? I did it in the last room, okay, so I'm talking to Emily, oh, what is that? the light came on maybe i moved no you didn't move your arm there no i didn't oh things are going tits up ryan shut up shane could you move your foot again? move your foot out, move it out like you did, you left one this one here doesn't light up Ryan, okay, I'm going to walk over to that one, why did it light up?
I just saw something there because you've tried them and they have the cone of influence, if we can call it that. It's really narrow, yeah, let me walk over here, yeah, I mean, look at that, yeah, you got pretty close there, we might have gotten caught like a ghoul Ryan, okay, just in case, yeah, I want to leave zero, since this one is in front of the cone it is actually smaller. in this little cone, okay, it's a little cup rattle, I'm going to pull myself together, okay, gather your wits, gather your wits, this is going to be all over the news, this is because it's not a ghost if they're doing the macarena .
We're not going to have anything convincing for the skeptics, uh, but it's strange that it lights up. You can see there's nothing there when I move, but I'll give it to you. I knew you would say that too. we replicate the movement we jump up and down, yes, it doesn't light up very well, you have a ghost, say at least strange, give at least something strange, that is very strange with plague pits and merciless executions, it is not known what dark story sleeps within the confines of this labyrinth in an attempt to awaken this story let's finish this by walking individually and investigating the entirety of this zigzag nightmare oh my god, it's okay, I'm in, this is over, it's fine, I'm already lost these we've seen all of these I don't know if I'm supposed to stop and occupy each room just enjoy it we didn't spend much time with this guy before but I love him these are these are kind of ghosts we should be talking to funny train conductors okay I met to an old man once whose name was father thomas and he told me there is nothing to be afraid of, I mean I won't do it, I'm very afraid, but don't do it. afraid if something happens just don't be afraid that's all you have to keep repeating it was said a bunch of times in the bible don't be afraid don't be afraid and we'll make progress here ryan is really going to lose his mind here once again I ran into a pastor, he is a certified exorcist from the Vatican and he told me: don't be afraid because nothing can hurt you and I have nothing to fear, don't be afraid, don't be afraid, this is where I saw something before, but it's okay, I'm shaking hands. and I feel like I'm about to have a nervous breakdown oh okay don't be afraid ryan you know there's a certain respect for the macabre in this country that's not always seen in other cultures say with me father thomas come on .
This involves a lot of death in their story and they just have a funny way of dealing with it, I mean look this is that spectacular or what I can't hear you, maybe I'll hear you later, oh god I heard it. something, oh god, I heard something, this is the hall of shadows, we're supposed to see strange figures moving there, actually I'm going to walk through it in the dark or wait, no, maybe I'll use a strobe, yeah, that's fun, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid there's a shadow man here maybe who knows I don't know I'm not going to say it and find out because I'm not afraid I'm afraid but I'm not going to be afraid I'm losing control oh ghosts, now it's just me who doesn't believe in you It's just a maze.
What are mannequins? Yes, it's a pretty complicated situation. I know it's the best time to take a good leap. Anything from you to there, sir, no. nothing's going to happen I'm not going to die now we're getting to the part that's a little more on the nose we've got some heads hanging oh I'm here yeah I'm afraid of you I'm no good I'm not afraid to admit it but you know what I could have scared and okay, okay, here's a big spider. What am I doing? I'm recoiling against my arm. I have nothing to fear. Did you know?
I have nothing to fear, you can't do anything to me, what's the reaction supposed to be to this spider, it's a big ass spider, holy, oh come on, clown land, it has to be me, okay, I'm not going to pretend I'm not afraid of this because I am, oh I hope there aren't any creepy clowns, oh it's a clown maze, folks, we have a clown maze, throwing clowns in here doesn't make any damn sense, they're already creepy just like that. are, oh this. it's good this is whoa what is this this is like a giant guar monster don't be afraid what was that there was a cranky creek creek creek creek on Mondays I'm right oh look it's the exit oh if any of you try to sneak in Accept me, just know that you I'm going to catch it on camera and expose everyone to your little game.
Okay, oh God, seriously, sir. Why, damn it? I almost kicked your nutsack. Okay, Christ with a crutch. Holy, yeah, I told him to keep an eye on you, yeah, I figured so. I think we both knew that's what happened, don't tell it, I told him to go check on you, just tell it how it is. I was worried. I wanted him to leave. Look, no, you didn't, I didn't know it was going to scare you, yeah, you know what you did, what I did, oh, thank you Jesus Christ, thank God, how are you? I'm so happy here, you didn't throw up or anything.
That's good though, Father Thomas really helped me down there, that's going to lie. I found cookies. The London Tomb lies beneath one of London's biggest tourist attractions, burying the misery and tragedy of London's past, far from the hustle and bustle of the city above, in our experience. Tonight it is clear that the unfortunate story may still be alive and waiting, but it will remain unresolved whether the London tombs are definitively haunted or not. Hi Ryan, I like your shirt, thanks. I like yours too, thanks. Buy it here.
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