Forget the old drunken pub-tales of haunted statues
Considering the abundance of unsettling statues in England’s churches, castles and streets, there’s a perhaps surprising absence of paranormal stories associated with them, aside from the usual drunken post-pub tales of unnerving glimpsed movement, a feeling that stone eyes were following the ‘witness’, rocky creaking and spooky voices.
But there are a number of accounts of actual phenomena associated with the objects, which I will recall shortly.
In literature and TV, moving statues are an established trope; witness Susannah Clarke’s novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. In the excellent 2015 BBC1 adaptation, "practical magician", Gilbert Norrell proves his skill as a magician by making the statues in York Cathedral move and speak:
Statues inspired Weeping Angels
In the kids sci-fi series Doctor Who, ‘The Weeping Angels’ became a terrifying addition to the show’s list of classic villains:
The Angels were created by writer Steven Moffat. He was inspired by a number of sources, including what he claims was an encounter with a statue in a graveyard, which had mysteriously disappeared when he returned to view it at a later date.
Speaking to the Oxford Union in 2016, Moffat said that he, “walked past this graveyard and it was chained up, with a sign that said 'unsafe structure within’. I thought, ha! I'm going to go and have a look at it’. Inside was a weeping angel, and that's where I got the idea from”.
Several years later, Moffat returned with his son to find that the angel had gone. “There was the sign, that said 'unsafe structure within', but no weeping angel,” he recounted. “There are two possible explanations. One is that weeping angels are real. The other is that I somehow made up the weeping angel and it was never there. And here's the thing that bothers me to the day: I don't think I envisaged that. I think I clearly saw a weeping angel. But I can't find it anywhere, I can't find it in the records.”
The inspiration behind 2024’s BBC2 Ghost Story For Christmas, an adaptation of E. Nesbit’s short story "Man-Size in Marble" billed as "Woman of Stone" can be traced all the way back to the hamlet of Brenzett in the wetlands of Romney Marsh (Kent/East Sussex), and its church St. Eanswith/Eanswythe; the sole one dedicated only to the Anglo-Saxon princess of that name.
Fagge father and son inspired chilling tales
Inside, the pointed archway from the chancel leads into the Lady Chapel, built in the 14th century; the space is dominated by an alabaster monument. Beneath it lay the bodies of John Fagge and his son, who both died during the reign of King Charles I.
The two figures are lying down, the father dressed in armour typical of the period. He died in 1639 and his son in 1642. These figures were Nesbit’s inspiration for her chilling tale of ambulatory sculptures.
Awakening an ancient curse
In an earlier Christmas Ghost Story, 1971’s The Stalls of Barchester, the cathedral prayer desk of Archdeacon Haynes features "three small but remarkable statuettes in the grotesque manner"; a cat; a robed, enthroned, taloned, horned figure of "Tartarean origin"; and a sinister cowled revenant identified as the "King of Terrors".
Haynes’ research reveals that the prayer desk was carved from the local "Hanging Oak", that was found to have many human bones buried around its roots, and which "it was the custom for those who wished to secure a successful issue to their affairs, whether of love or the ordinary business of life, to suspend from its boughs small images or puppets rudely fashioned of straw, twigs, or the like rustic materials."
Haynes had arranged the ‘accidental’ death of his predecessor, the aged Dr. Pulteney, an action which appears to have awakened an ancient curse.
In November 1816, while resting his hand on the cat carving on the prayer desk, Dr. Haynes is aware of, "a softness, a feeling as of rather rough and coarse fur, and a sudden movement, as if the creature were twisting round its head to bite me."
Back to ‘real-life’
Carlisle Cathedral
An effigy of a priest was moved to another location and each night thereafter, he rose from his resting place to float over the original location. The effigy was moved back shortly after and the activity then ceased.
2013: Egypt at the Manchester Museum
The Curator Dr Campbell-Price: “Most Egyptologists are not superstitious people. When I first noticed that one of our Middle Kingdom statuettes (Acc. no. 9325) had been turned around 180 degrees to face the back of its case in our new Ancient Worlds galleries, I wondered who had changed the object’s position this without telling me.
Yet the next time I looked into the case, the statue was facing in another direction – and a day later had yet another orientation. None of the other objects in the display had moved. The case was locked. And I have the only key.
The statuette had always intrigued me; the inscription on the back pillar reads: “An offering which the king gives to Osiris, Lord of Life, that he may give a voice offering, consisting of bread, beer, oxen and fowl for the Ka-spirit of’. As is known for other statues of this date and type, the man’s name – Nebsenu(?) – is inscribed on the front of the statue’s base. What is very strange is that the statue has spun in a perfect circle – it hasn’t wobbled off in any particular direction. The intriguing suggestion that the statuette was carved of steatite and then fired may imply that it is now vulnerable to magnetic forces. But if so, why did it not move on its glass shelf in pretty much the same position in the old Egyptian Afterlife gallery?
The simplest solution seems to be to apply a tiny amount of museum wax to the base to stop the movement. But what if the statue continued to keep moving? What would our explanation be then..?
The mystery solved:
An engineer, called in to look at the statue, found vibrations from a busy nearby road were apparently causing the 3,800-year-old figure to rotate. The convex base of the figure made it "more susceptible" to spin around than the cabinet's other artefacts.
The Talking Statues of Rome
No, not a supernatural occurrence, but still of interest, to me at least.
Beginning in in the 16th century and continuing to the present, The Talking Statues of Rome or the Congregation of Wits (Congrega degli arguti) provided an outlet for anonymous political expression in Rome. Criticisms in the form of poems or witticisms were posted on well-known statues in Rome. The talking statues include: Pasquino, Marforio, Madama Lucrezia, Abbot Luigi, Il Babuino, and Il Facchino.
Some other ‘living’ statues in popular culture:
Stephen Arnell’s novel THE GREAT ONE is available on Amazon Kindle now: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-One-Secret-Memoirs-Pompey-ebook/dp/B0BNLTB2G7
Preview: