To raise money to maintain the Court Hall in Winchelsea, the charity Friends of the Ancient Monuments (FOAM) are planning a very special (and quite spooky) event in December. On each of three evenings, in one of the town’s famous medieval cellars, four talented readers will each be presenting a ghost story written by EF Benson.
Today the author is chiefly remembered for his Mapp & Lucia novels portraying social rivalry in the 1930s. However, it was for his ghost stories that he was best known, during his own lifetime. Creating tales that featured vampires, homicidal spirits, monstrous spectral worms and slugs and other entities of nameless dread, while at times having a comic dig at charlatan mediums.
We have chosen a selection of the most chilling (and fun) stories, and to create a suitable atmosphere, the cellar will be specially dressed and lit for the occasion. The event will take place at 7:30pm on Friday December 8, Saturday December 9 and Sunday December 10.
On each evening guests will first assemble in the Lower Court Hall, they will then be led by lantern light to the cellar, where our four readers will be waiting with their scary stories. The event should finish at approx. 9:30pm.
At each performance we have room to seat just 25 people, so please book early. The price is £22.50 (plus booking fee) per person and includes a glass of mulled wine, (or non-alcoholic equivalent). Tickets can be booked online at https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/foam scroll down and select the date you would like to attend.
In the forward to a collection of his ‘spook’ stories, Benson wrote:
“These stories have been written in the hopes of giving some pleasant qualms to their reader, so that before they go to bed, when the night and house are still, they may perhaps cast an occasional glance into the corners and dark places of the room, to make sure that nothing unusual lurks in the shadow. For this is the avowed object of ghost-stories and such tales as deal with the dim unseen forces which occasionally and perturbingly make themselves manifest. The author therefore fervently wishes his readers a few uncomfortable moments.”
If you need any further information, please contact any member of the FOAM committee.
Image Credits: FOAM .