The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall

The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall reportedly haunts the great house in Norfolk is one of England’s most famous hauntings primarily due to the captured image of the ‘Brown Lady’ (pictured) on the staircase. The photograph, which would become one of the most famous paranormal pictures of all time, was taken by photographers from the Country Life magazine.

The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall is widely believed to be the ghost of Lady Dorothy Walpole (1686–1726), the sister of Robert Walpole who is generally regarded as the first Prime Minister of Great Britain. Lady Dorothy Walpole was the second wife of Charles Townshend, who was notorious for his violent temper. According to legend, when Townshend discovered that his wife had committed adultery with Lord Wharton he punished her by locking her in her rooms in the family home. Dorothy remained at Raynham Hall, a prisoner of her husband until her death in 1726 from smallpox.

The first recorded sighting of the apparition was made by Lucia C. Stone during a gathering at the Hall at Christmas 1835. Stone claimed that various guests to the Hall, including a Colonel Loftus and another guest named Hawkins said they had observed the Brown Lady one night as they approached their bedrooms. They each noted the dated brown dress she wore. The following evening Loftus claimed to have seen the Brown Lady again, however this time he found himself drawn to the spectre’s empty eye-sockets, dark in the glowing face.

The next sighting of the Brown Lady was made in 1836 by Captain Frederick Marryat. The Captain in an attempt to prove a theory about the ghost requested to spend the night in the haunted room at Raynham Hall, he was not disappointed when the Brown Lady appeared. After this paranormal experience he vowed never to interfere with the ghost of Raynham Hall again.

On September 19, 1936 Captain Hubert C. Provand, a London-based photographer working for Country Life magazine, and his assistant Indre Shira were taking photographs of Raynham Hall for an article to appear later in the year. The two men’s account claims that they had already taken a photograph of the Hall’s main staircase, and were setting up to take a second when Shira saw “a vapoury form gradually assuming the appearance of a woman” and moving down the stairs towards them. Under Shira’s direction Provand quickly took the cap off the lens while Shira pressed the trigger to activate the camera’s flash light. Later, when the negative was developed, the famous image of the “Brown Lady” was revealed. The account of Provand and Shira’s ghostly experience at Raynham Hall was published in Country Life magazine on December 26, 1936 along with the photograph of the “Brown Lady”

The famous Country Life photograph is the last sighting of the Brown Lady to be reported.

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