St Botolph's Church Aldgate

Infamous ghost photo taken here in 1982.

Location: St Botolph's Aldgate, London, EC3N 1AB

Description: In 1982, photographer Chris Brackley took a photo of the interior of London's St. Botolph's Church, but never expected what would appear on the film.

High in the church's loft, seen in the upper right-hand corner of his photograph, is the transparent form of what looks like a woman. According to Brackley, to his knowledge there were only three people in the church at the time the photo was taken, and none of them were in that loft.

Mr. Brackley was later contacted by a builder who recognized the face as one that he had seen in a coffin inside the church previously.

There has been a church on this site for over 1000 years and it houses the oldest church organ in London.

Chaucer lived in the parish; and in 1734 Daniel Defoe was married here (in a novel of his he depicts an horrific account of the Great Plague of 1665, when over 5,000 bodies were buried in a pit dug in the churchyard).

Themes: Church Church Theme