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Brown Lady of Raynham Hall
Comparison Page with Correct Exposure
This picture was taken in 1936. It is said
to show the ghost of the 'Brown Lady' who haunts Raynham Hall in
England. The image is widely believed to be one of the best and
most convincing of all the known photographs of ghosts.
According to legend, the Brown Lady of Raynham is the ghost of
Lady Dorothy Walpole Townshend who was married to Charles
Townshend, a man known for his fiery temper. When Charles
learned of his wife's infidelity, he punished her by imprisoning
her in the family estate at Raynham Hall, located in Norfolk,
England. He never allowed her to leave its premises, not even to
see her children. She remained there until her death, when she
was an old woman.
Over the next two centuries Lady Townshend's ghost was
repeatedly sighted wandering through Raynham Hall, suggesting
that she never left its premises even after her death.
For instance, in the early nineteenth century King George IV saw
her while he was staying at the hall. He said that she stood
beside his bed wearing a brown dress, and that her face was pale
and her hair disheveled.
In 1835 Colonel Loftus sighted her. He was visiting the house
for the Christmas holidays and was walking to his room late one
night when he saw a figure standing in the hall in front of him.
The figure was wearing a brown dress. He tried to see who the
woman was, but she mysteriously disappeared.
The next week Colonel Loftus again saw the figure. This time,
however, he got a better look at her. He said she was an
aristocratic looking woman. She was wearing the same brown satin
dress, and her skin glowed with a pale luminescence, but, to his
horror, her eyes had been gouged out.
Colonel Loftus told others of his experience, and more people
then came forward to say that they too had seen a strange
figure. An artist drew a painting of the 'brown lady' (as she
was now known), and this picture was then hung in the room where
she was most frequently seen.
A few years later the novelist Captain Frederick Marryat was
staying at Raynham Hall. He decided to spend the night in the
room in which she was most frequently seen. He studied the
painting of her and waited to see her, but she never appeared
that night.
However, a few days later he was walking down an upstairs
hallway with two friends when they suddenly saw the brown lady.
She was carrying a lantern and glided past them as they cowered
behind a door. According to Marryat she grinned at them in a
'diabolical manner'. Before she disappeared, Marryat leapt out
from behind the door and fired at her with a pistol that he
happened to be carrying. The bullet passed through her and
lodged in a wall.
The brown lady continued to be sighted by various people over
the next century. However, the most remarkable sighting of her
occurred on September 19, 1936.
Two photographers, Captain Provand and Indre Shira, were on
assignment at Raynham Hall for the magazine Country Life.
According to Shira, this is what happened:
"Captain Provand took one photograph while I flashed the light.
He was focusing for another exposure; I was standing by his side
just behind the camera with the flashlight pistol in my hand,
looking directly up the staircase. All at once I detected an
ethereal veiled form coming slowly down the stairs. Rather
excitedly, I called out sharply: 'Quick, quick, there's
something.' I pressed the trigger of the flashlight pistol.
After the flash and on closing the shutter, Captain Provand
removed the focusing cloth from his head and turning to me said:
'What's all the excitement about?'"
When they developed the picture they report that they had
captured the image of a ghostly woman, apparently the famous
brown lady, drifting down the stairs. The picture was published
in Country Life on December 16, 1936.
Skeptics, however, argue that the picture is a fake. Often this
image is shown underexposed which makes the "figure" appear as
if it is glowing. The original was taken around 4pm in the
afternoon. A comparison with correct exposure and one image
increasing the underexposure are shown here:
Brown Lady Picture
Comparison
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