Friday Hill House, Chingford

Mark Killiner mentioned the potential haunting of Friday Hill House in an article dated 29 August 2005 which appeared in the East London and West Essex Guardian Series, ‘Five years ago [2000] the Guardian reported on former local woman Mavis Fisher’s efforts to find out more about the ghostly apparitions in Friday Hill House, Simmons Lane, that haunted her childhood. Ms Fisher claimed a Stan Laurel lookalike, dressed in Edwardian costume and a bowler hat, and a weeping woman in a flowing white veil inhabited the old building.’

Friday Hill House is a Grade II listed manor house dating from 1839/1840 and was until recently used by the Adult Learning Service. It was designed by Vulliamy and built by Rev Robert Boothby Heathcote, replacing an earlier Jacobean manor house. Rector of the local church, Rev Heathcote was also the Lord of the Manor, a title passed down through the Heathcote line of the family since 1774 and remained so until the death of his daughter Louisa. Louisa Boothby Heathcote (1854 -1940) was the last resident of Friday Hill House and during her time it was nearly destroyed in a fire (1925). London County Council bought the estate following World War II and built a housing estate on the land. At some point the house was lived in by a family of American Quakers called Pearsall-Smith.

I came across a reference to Friday Hill House being haunted by a maid seen in the dining room carrying a tray of drinks. Appearing on a Friday, she would also apparently go across the road in front of the house.