The Terror in the Fog

In the last years of the nineteenth century, something terrible stalked the fog-shrouded streets of London. For about three months in the autumn of 1888, a madman preyed upon the poor women who had, through poverty been forced to become prostitutes. But then, just when the terror seemed at its height, the killing stopped.

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Why was this? The police didn’t have a clue as to the identity of this killer. The press thought that perhaps the killer had moved away to America. Others thought that the killer, filled with remorse, killed himself. But just one man knew what had happened to this madman, and that man was Dr Forbes Winslow.

Forbes Winslow was the son of a Doctor who specialised in lunacy. He followed in his fathers footsteps and became a leading alienist. He was a medical theorist, a practical detective and also a noted occultist. Dr Winslow became engrossed in the Whitechapel murders and after spending weeks living in the slums of Whitechapel, he formed a mental picture of the killer.

Armed with this mental picture, he began to track the man whom he believed was the Ripper, and Dr Winslow is believed to have found him on Friday 9th November 1888, shortly after the Ripper murdered his final victim, Mary Jane Kelly.

However, what transpired on that fateful night, no one knows because Dr Forbes Winslow was found wandering the streets of Limehouse early the next day. The once proud Doctor, his clothes in tatters and hair turned white, was taken to the mental institute founded by his father and where he died in jibbering madness some two years later.

During that time he muttered the same statement over and over again. “He lies below us. Do not wake the earth.”

And so the matter rested until the spring of 1926 when something terrible rocked the city of London. The killings started once more. Within a two week period three prostitutes were murdered in exactly the same way as the Ripper’s victims. London is once more in the grip of a murderer who seems to kill and then vanish without trace...

Possibilities

1 Dr Winslow after tracking the Ripper down rendered the fiend down to his essential salts. He then took these salts, which he had stored in a jar and placed them into a segment of the new Inner Circle Line tunnel system that was opened in 1889. However, when work began on the mid-level District Line extension, the jar was unearthed and passed into the hands of an unscrupulous occultist. The man, George Chapman, not realising who was inside performed the rite of resurrection. The Ripper, after disposing of this fool, has found himself in a world that was so very different yet still the same, and able to begin his reign of terror once more.

2 The being that Dr Winslow tracked down was a Ghoul whose nest had been disturbed by the work on the new underground line. The Ghoul, finding itself trapped above ground, and having no way to return it had killed to feed itself. However, in a strange twist of fate, the work on the new mid-level District Line has disturbed the ghouls once more, trapping one of their number above ground.

3 The present wave of killings has nothing whatsoever to do with Ripper, but are being perpetrated by Dr Thomas Neill Cream, a man who needs the parts of his victim to help feed his need for fresh organs to help his search for a serum that would stop the ravages of time.

© Rik Kershaw

The Toast of London

Anyone with the right connections receives the above invitation. At the meeting, dozens of London’s rich elite will be there. This is an ideal time to establish contacts, and new clients.

Note: Victor Neuberg was a medium and conjuror, and a genuine member of the Golden Dawn.

Possibilities

1 Neuberg is a fabulous fake. He is very flamboyant and every spectacle he produces is designed to milk money from the unsuspecting public. His illusions look to be completely realistic but are accomplished using sleight of hand and expensive magician’s props.

2 The magic tomes offered for sale seem to contain genuine magic formulae but are all flash and no substance. The Psychic Circle does own some dangerous works, but these are kept under lock and key.

3 In his effort to impress, Neuberg accidentally summons something a little too powerful during his act. The demon, happy to be in the material world, pushes Neuberg’s mind aside and takes control of his body. Nobody is aware of this fact. Not at first.

© Perry Okerstrom

The Theatre of Death

It has long been known that Chinese immigrants living and working in London’s docklands have imported their own brand of organized crime.

The Tongs control most Chinese businesses in London and the police have identified at least four different Tongs controlling everything from petty crime to prostitution. They believe that drugs, particularly opium, are directly controlled by the Tong known as the Rising Dragon, its leader the mysterious Doctor Cheng.

However, the police are far from making any arrests and have yet to identify Doctor Cheng. While his activities remain confined to the Chinese community they are not pursuing their investigations that zealously...

Dr Cheng is a woman, a night club illusionist called Lin May and her hold over her Tong comes from her skills as a necromancer. Lin May is extremely beautiful and twice as deadly. Cold and cunning she is the perfect femme fatale. She demands absolute loyalty of her companions but in return will help them any way she can. To her enemies, and those that break her loyalty, she is death.

While leaving the mundane world of criminal activities to the other Tong leaders, Doctor Cheng offers a highly-specialized service to the decadent rich in the shape of her Theatre of Death. To thrill hungry little rich kids, the Theatre is the ultimate decadence. A place of excitement and death not available anywhere else. Once a month a huge warehouse is turned into a great theatre to which the cream of Europe’s elite flock. The only way in is by invitation, and invitations are both scarce and expensive. Once there, guests participate in all manners of death, violence and sexual perversion.

The main attraction is Doctor Cheng’s illusory performance, but the audience is ‘warmed up’ first by a vicious display of fighting between newly dead celebrity zombies. The zombies are newly reanimated by Cheng, and the more famous the better. Cheng has connections in very high (and very low) places that supply her with corpses.

After Doctor Cheng’s performance, there are other delights to amuse the guests, including a bizarre game involving taking vagrants from the street and offering them three boxes. In two are death, the other riches. Each box has a glass back so that the audience can ghoulishly watch the poor tramp make his choice.

In other, curtained, sections guests participate in perverse sexual practices both with each other and the staff. Opium taking is commonplace, Doctor Cheng presides over it all. Her guests arrive loaded with money, most of which is spent during the night.

All the staff are dead. Some are almost fresh and barely marked, others are rotting heaps of flesh. All wear simple white aprons and many serve drinks or opium. Necrophilia is common in the Theatre of Death.

Doctor Cheng herself is constantly flanked by two bodyguards. Zombie fighters dressed in ancient, ornate armour in the manner of her ancestors. They protect here against her guests, for occasionally in their opium induced haze they forget themselves. Cheng has no real need for the guards, but it helps to impress her guests.

The guests themselves will discourage investigation into the place. All of them have much to lose should it be discovered that they frequent such a place. Curious individuals can make themselves many very powerful enemies in a matter of minutes. The police will never raid the place, Doctor Cheng’s guests will see to that. Several Scotland Yard Inspectors and prominent members of Parliament will crush any investigation before it starts. The remains of corpses, those that cannot be re-used, are dumped into the Thames and never seen again.

Possibilities

1 Lin May is the head of a small sect of The Corpse Eating Cult of Leng. After the Theatre of Death has finished she, and her cult, fall upon the zombies and feed on them. They chant and worship their foul god for many hours before the Theatre of Death is truly over.

None of the ‘normal’ clientele know of the cult and none would do anything about it. After what they have been doing, are the cult rites that much worse?

2 Lin May’s necromantic and illusory skills have their origins in Chinese black magic. She is aware of the power of the Great Old Ones and their followers but provided they do not intrude on her territory she takes no action. Her arcane arts are more than a match for most cults and if recruited she would make a powerful ally against the forces of darkness. However, making her acquaintance (let alone recruiting her) is not easy.

3 Doctor Cheng worships Nyarlathotep. During her illusory act she works her audience into such a frenzy that the Outer God is summoned to the Theatre of Death. From the moment he appears the Crawling Chaos – in the form of the black man – sits by her side. Her dream is to become Nyarlathotep’s bride, something which the god has promised many times. He has yet to deliver, but Lin May continues holding the Theatre of Death in his name. Perhaps soon he will make her dream come true.

© Garrie Hall

The Second Circle

Should anyone with experience of the Dreamlands visit the exhibition then one painting, The Second Circle, catches their eye. Painted about ten years ago by an obscure German artist, the picture is quite ordinary. It shows a peaceful beach with waves lapping at the sand. A bird is perched on a rock in the foreground.

The bird is, as any investigator familiar with the Dreamlands will identify, a varchine. These are birds of prey unique to the Dreamlands. What is one doing in this picture?

The artist has evidently painted a picture of the Dreamlands. Such pictures can sometimes be used as gates through to the Lands themselves. Particularly skilled Dreamers can dream their way straight to the locality pictured.

It is possible that the artist has painted other scenes, other doorways direct to the world beyond sleep. It is also possible, if the artist was a powerful Dreamer, that she is still in the Dreamlands. Somewhere.

Possibilities

1 The picture leads to a mist covered island. Wandering through the mist eventually brings the Dreamers to a stone circle, the ‘second circle’ of the title. This is an exact replica of a megalithic stone circle which can be found somewhere in Europe. The area is a place where the realities between the two worlds mix, allowing passage at certain times.

2 The artist is quite mad and is kept in a Bavarian asylum. There she paints scenes from her dreams; gugs and ghasts, Ulthar and Celephais, and more. If the investigators track her down in the Dreamlands they find her lucid and sane.

3 The coastline belongs to a deserted island in the Southern Seas. It is a regular stop for the black galleys that trade with Dylath-Leen and Dreamers waiting there are in danger of being captured by the men that crew such vessels. The circle refers to what appears to be either a dormant volcano, or a meteor crater.

© Steve Hatherley

The Old Church

Possibilities

1 The floor of the church is the roof of a very old crypt. The crypt is full of the remains of bodies, all well preserved in the cool, dry environment. All the bodies show signs of being bled to death.

But one of the bodies is not yet dead, and after such a long sleep it is very thirsty.

2 Further information comes to light in original translations of the Bible. The place is very unholy indeed, devil worship was actively carried out and only after the place was cleansed was the church built. A ward against evil (similar in design to similar wards found on Neolithic megaliths) has been carved upon one of the flagstones, but it has been removed by the University for study.

Without the ward, it is only a matter of time before evil returns.

3 Removing the flagstones reveals a narrow, unpleasant tunnel. Entering the tunnel reveals a complex of narrow, winding passages. Although clearly ancient, the tunnels are structurally sound and are relatively safe to explore.

When mapped, they form a strange twisting complex of no obvious design. And despite clearly having been constructed long before the modern city above, they loop around foundations, sewers, pipelines, and other modern contrivances as if the original builders knew to avoid them.

They, and their builders, are a complete mystery.

© Steve Hatherley

Tropical Death

Possibilities

1 One of the plants in the greenhouse is a form of nocturnal triffid and has just reached maturity. Until now it has been crawling around the greenhouse looking for prey before returning to its place.

2 One of the plants in the greenhouse is a four foot tall Very Young Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath. It has only just become mobile, and has been looking for prey. It was given to Kew after explorer Horatio Barnett returned from an expedition to darkest Africa. He died shortly afterwards and the strange plant was donated by a member of the family.

3 Smale died from contracting an exotic tropical disease. The source of the fast-acting disease is the pollen of a particularly beautiful orchid which has just come into bloom. The disease requires a large quantity of pollen to be inhaled before it can overcome the body’s defences. Smale had been breathing it for several hours before the swift acting disease took hold. Smale’s corpse is a wonderful supply of nutrients and soon it will sprout small green tendrils – new orchids.

© Steve Hatherley

Gargoyle's Watch

Every old building has its custodian, often a caretaker, who watches over it. They take care of their ward, undertaking repairs and maintenance and ensuring that the building doesn’t fall into ruin. Custodians know their charges like the backs of their hands.

And old buildings have gargoyles. Often grotesque, always ornamental, gargoyles are everywhere. Custodians can tell you all about the gargoyles - who they are, what they represent, why they are there.

But there’s something the custodians of these old buildings rarely admit to themselves, let alone to other people: sometimes the gargoyles change...

Possibilities

1 When John Dee, the queen’s astrologer, formed the Royal Council of Magii, he did so because he was worried. London was changing. He could sense forces gathering: sidhe, Templars, witchfinders, and others. There was a power struggle looming, and Dee formed the Royal Council of Magii to advise the crown as to the best response.

One of the first commands the council was given was to provide more information. More knowledge. So the Council began to develop a network of eyes and ears.

One small part of that network was known as the ‘stone maiden’, an upright coffin-sized device that, when used correctly, allowed anyone inside it to ‘inhabit’ any gargoyle within a radius of about five miles. The subject’s face would replace the gargoyle, and they would be able to watch and listen.

The ‘stone maiden’ is still in use by the Royal Council, and they are still watching as the forces are still gathering and the true power struggle has yet to begin.

2 The ‘devil’s stone chisel’ is the name given to a stonemason’s chisel found in an unmarked grave uncovered in Wapping in 1782. According to eyewitnesses, the body in the grave was horned and hoofed, and the chisel was clutched in its withered hands. The body and the chisel were quickly removed from the site.

Nobody knows what became of the body, but in 1892 the chisel was used in a series of brutal murders committed by Thaddeus Shrike. Although only three bodies were found (each of them ritually mutilated using a chisel-like implement), Shrike claimed to have killed ten people across London using the ‘devil’s stone chisel,’ which he claimed contained dark magics.

Shrike’s victims, killed by a powerful magic item wielded by a madman, are now restless spirits, their terrified features appearing intermittently as gargoyles.

The chisel itself was never found.

3 Chittern are solid, stonelike creatures of the fae Wildwood. They are ambush predators, waiting patiently for their prey.

Their favoured prey are fae younglings, who are cast into the Wildwood by their unfeeling fae parents. Most fae younglings never survive their first year, eaten by chittern or worse. Those who survive are tough, careful and resilient.

Some fae younglings even make their way out of the Wildwood, crossing where the boundaries are weak. In London, those places include the untidy corners of parks and gardens.

And where the fae younglings go, so chittern have been known to follow. Chittern are drawn to old buildings, with their ornate stonework and decorative gargoyles. They are ideal places to wait in ambush...

© Steve Hatherley

Snuff

Dear Montagu,

 I hope this reaches you as I am not sure I have your current address and I'm not sure what a stranger will make of this.

  

Do you remember Great Uncle Sebastian? We were finally permitted to declare him legally dead. He had been missing for 15 years after all, and he had been 87 when he went missing, but his will had been contested and... Anyway, to cut a long story short we've now had The Reading of the Will.  

It turned out that Great Uncle Sebastian had three houses that none of the Family knew about. All of them in Blackheath, all of them boarded up and hadn't been lived in in decades. So obviously we've had to clear them out.

Which brings me to the parcel accompanying this letter. In the attic of one of the houses we found a collection of snuff boxes - and remembering your collection of antique pipes, I thought you might be interested in them.

I hope you can use them and that this letter finds you in good health. Do let me know your latest news.

Sincerely, Miriam

Along with the letter, the package contains a small wooden box with a mahogany veneer, brass fittings and a family crest inlaid with mother of pearl on the lid. Inside the box are a dozen or so small containers - each exquisitely hand-decorated and no two the same.

They are snuff boxes.

Possibilities

1 The snuff boxes contain the cremated remains of Burnt Yates (so named because he famously singed his fingers once when cooking toast), a south London undertaker. Burnt Yates was notorious for breeding emperor rats in a bid to create a rat-king. Nobody knows if he succeeded or not.

The crest on the box is a family crest that Yates invented for himself. The box contains (apart from Yates' dusty remains) a secret compartment and in that compartment is Yates' last will and testament.

2 The snuff boxes all contain fine black crystals - a little like obsidian sugar granules.

The crystal are known has "hadgh" and are a dietary supplement required by body thieves. Without regular doses of hadgh the body thief starts to lose control of its host - hadgh is used to supress the victim's spirit. Extended possession can lead to the victim developing mental illness when the body thief finally moves on.

3 The snuff is a set of experimental Victorian snuff, lovingly collected by Sir Cromwell Higgins, the eccentric hunter-explorer.

The bottles are labelled in Sir Cromwell's spidery handwriting and are now rather faded. Deciphering his handwriting reveals titles such as "extract of duck", "scrapings of a Belgian church pew" and "essence of the Kilimanjaro elephant". What they really contain is another matter altogether.

© Steve Hatherley

Seven Woodcut Blocks

It's an online auction for seven woodcut blocks by Thomas Kilner. The seller's username is bugman666, and the starting bid is £100.

Thomas Kilner (1803-1831) lived in London and was an artist of minor repute. He was a member of the occult Order of the Silver Thistle, and illustrated the order's only publication with a series of 35 woodcuts. He was savagely attacked with a knife while sleeping. The murderer was never found.

The Order of the Silver Thistle was an occult society formed in 1820 by James Pinkney. The order broke up in 1831. The order published one book, Light of the Seven Orders of Truth, a 128 page volume written by Pinkney. No volumes are known to remain intact.

Possibilities

1 The auction is a lure. Bugman666 is an avid collector of magical esoteria and artefacts. He knows that the order was involved in powerful occult rituals, and hopes to lure other magically-inclined individuals to bid. His plan is to sell the woodcut blocks and get a postal address (he'll insist on a real address, not a mailbox). Bugman666 will then make a personal visit to rob the seller not only of the blocks, but also any other artefacts, books or ephemera he can find at that address.

2 The winner of the auction is Colin Jessop and he has been fascinated in the Order of the Silver Thistle for the last five years. Colin has collected anything and everything to do with the order that he has laid his hands on, and he would love to meet some like-minded individuals to reform the order.

3 Bugman666's real name is Thomas Kilner and he is now nearly 200 years old.

The order's last ritual in 1831 was livelier than they could have anticipated. Through powerful magics that they never really understood, Kilner underwent some fundamental physiological changes. Nobody else survived.

Kilner is now an ageless vampire, and hates his pathetic existence. He has few vampiric powers but must drink human blood once every few years or so. The rest of the time he spends in his increasingly dilapidated house, feeding from rats and spiders. As his resources and finances dwindle, he finds new ways of raising money - including selling his work online.

© Steve Hatherley

The Plated Skull

The high-ceilinged, oak-panelled entrance hall of The Whitstable Reserve, an exclusive Knightsbridge gentlemen's club, is lined with artefacts gathered from across the globe. The artefacts comprise various tablets of stone, a few ancient tribal weapons, some mysterious urns and jars - and in the pride of place, a hideous plated skull. In front of the skull is a faded handwritten label: "Plated skull, Thebes 1936, circa 500BC."

The artefacts have all been donated to the Whitstable Reserve by members, either in the course of their membership or as part of their will.

However, there is something strange about the hallway - it is reportedly haunted and cleaning staff refuse to clean after dark. At least, not without a full member of the Reserve present to watch over them.

Possibilities

1 The plated skull isn't human. The skull has been taken from one of the skeletal warrior-guardians of the legendary Fleece of Gold. The bronze plating is etched with celtic designs and appears to have been added to the skull much later. It is quite battered - neither the skull nor the plating is in good condition.

The original guardians of the Fleece of Gold were magical warriors, and skull still contains magical reserves. That energy sometimes leaks out, giving the hallway its haunted reputation. Should the skull somehow regain mobility, it will unthinkingly try to carry out the last orders given to it - to kill all those aboard the Argos.

2  The plated skull is a gregori, or "Witness". The creation of a gregori requires a ritual sacrifice. During the ritual the victim's soul is trapped into an object (often the victim's head or skull - sometimes some other object). The ritual is difficult and expensive, and gregori are prized items as a result.

The gregori itself has only limited consciousness, but perfect recall. With the right ritual, the gregori will reveal everything that it has witnessed since it was created. The plated skull was created in Ancient Greece, and it has 2500 years worth of memories to reveal.

3  The plated skull belongs to the club's founder, Sir Wilberforce Whitstable. Sir Wilberforce had two great loves in his life - the occult and exotic wines. He founded the Reserve in 1880 so that he could and other like-minded gentlemen could combine their interests in civilised oak-panelled surroundings.

Sir Wilberforce died in 1916 and he left his skull to the Reserve. The Reserve had it partially-plated in silver and put it on display in the Reserve's hallway. During the war, the Reserve moved its prized possessions to a country estate in Shropshire to escape the Blitz. When they returned to Knightsbridge in 1945 (the club had survived the war largely unscathed), many of the Reserve's records had been lost and the skull became labelled as an archaeological find.

The wine cellars of the Whitstable are fully stocked and extensive. Some of the wines even date back to Sir Wilberforce's era - although they are now largely undrinkable.

© Steve Hatherley

Mr Feste's Old Curiosity Shop

London is dark, mists are swirling around cold feet and the street is deserted. Deserted, that is, except for a soft glow from the lights of a small shop halfway down the street. In its doorway stands a small, portly man who, despite his baldness, has the appearance of a child. In his hand is a steaming mug of soup. He waves and beckons to passers by to take shelter on this cold and dismal night.

Once inside the investigators will find that Mr Feste (as he introduces himself) is an affable, eccentric old man. The shop itself has the appearance of a rubbish tip with all manner of items strewn about tables and shelves. However on closer inspection the rubbish turns out to be an impressive collection of antiques and curios from around the world.

While examining these the investigators may discover something of particular interest, maybe a book or an effigy or even a stuffed and mounted Zoog. Mr Feste can give a brief but intriguing history of any item in his shop and will negotiate with the investigators if anything takes their fancy. Payment may take many forms.

Mr Feste himself is very much like his Shakespearian namesake. Outwardly he is a bumbling eccentric but this only masks the wise and shrewd man within. He is a fine judge of character, it is almost as if he can see into their very soul. He talks in riddles but these often disguise important and enlightening information.

Possibilities

1 Mr Feste is a servant of Nodens and the shop exists outside of normal time and space. He assesses his guests and if he thinks they are capable, presses them into service as investigators. Because of the nature of the shop there is no guarantee that the investigators will leave the shop where, or even when, they entered it.

2 Mr Feste's shop is located in a hidden, forgotten part of town. It is practically impossible to find but relatively easy to stumble across when lost. The whole area, close to Crouch End, is dimensionally unstable and on occasion unwary travellers are lost forever. Sometimes terrible things and places are superimposed onto our reality. Mr Feste is its appointed guardian, a 'Watcher at the Gates' and will gladly direct any lost souls to safety.

3 Mr Feste is an aspect of Nyarlathotep. He finds brief distraction and slight amusement in the games he plays with his customers - although his information is both reliable and useful and his books and artefacts are genuine. Secure in the knowledge that any gains made by the investigators are ultimately insignificant, he throws his knowledge around quite liberally, while steering them away from where they might do most harm.

© Garrie Hall

The Book

Following a successful tour in the SAS, Jim Book started a private security business (Book and Templeton Security) with an ex-colleague, Mark Templeton. They set up office on a business park in Redhill, south of London and prospects, initially, looked good.

The business was only in its fourth month when they were hired to protect Dr Michelle Crompton. Crompton’s enemies sent a werewolf – which killed Templeton and Crompton, and hospitalised Book, scarring him for life.

Possibilities

1 Book and Templeton Security now specialises in occult and preternatural security. Following the incident with the werewolf, Book investigated Dr Compton and found himself in a world of the supernatural and occult that he initially found hard to believe.

Once he overcame his scepticism, he pursued a crash course in the occult and mystic and has developed a niche in the security business – providing occult and preternatural security services to discerning clients.

Book runs the company alone, hiring in specialists as and when he needs them.

The business is now doing well (good occult security services are hard to find), and has moved from its original office in Redhill to a converted Islington town house.

2 The werewolf and its master are still out there.

It was three weeks before Book left hospital and the trail was then too cold to follow. With the business in ruins, Book vowed revenge. Starting with Dr Crompton, Book is slowly, methodically, patiently tracking the werewolf and its master. And when he finds them, Book will kill them both.

Book’s single-minded pursuit has led him to research and document various means of killing (or protecting oneself from) preternatural creatures. He is becoming quite an expert, and his documented research is now a valuable store of knowledge.

3 Following his near-death encounter with the werewolf, Book was rescued by Mr Broach, one of Dr Compton’s associates. Mr Broach brought Book into his carefully protected home and nursed back to health.

Mr Broach is a warlock, and a member of one of several factions battling for occult control of London. He plans to recruit Book, arm him with weapons and knowledge, and send him into battle.

© Steve Hatherley

The Witch Tree

In North Dulwich, London, there’s an imposing three-storey Victorian house with a large garden set back from the street. In the garden is a curious, stunted oak tree. Leaves never grow on the tree, although flowers bloom each year and it produces curious blackened acorns that never germinate.

The tree is known locally as the witch tree, and according to a local ghost story Eliza Halfpenny, a witch, lived on the site of the present house. Eliza was tried for witchcraft in 1642 by the Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins and burned at the stake in her garden. From the ashes of the fire the oak tree grew, and according to the story, if the oak tree ever dies Eliza will return.

The owners of the house now work in the City. They have a gardener and pay the tree no attention at all.

Possibilities

1 Although Eliza was burned at the stake she didn’t die. Instead she entered a torpid state to recover from her wounds. To the inexpert eye she appeared to be dead. Eliza’s charred remains were buried where they lay, and she remains there to this day.

Normally Eliza would expect to recover from her injuries within a year or so, but before she could recover fully an acorn was planted by Hector Speight (Hopkins’ alchemist). The acorn grew into an oak tree that draws nourishment from Eliza (its roots are entwined around her body) and prevents her from making a full recovery. As a side effect, it produces no leaves and its acorns are infertile.  If the tree is removed or dies, then Eliza will heal and she will return.

2 Eliza died when she was burned at the stake. As the fire died down a rainstorm washed her ashes into the soil. Into this rich fertile soil an acorn fell and, affected by Eliza’s magical residue, grew into the twisted, stunted, leafless oak tree present today.

Although infertile, the acorns produced by the tree do have unusual properties and are harvested each year (without the knowledge of the property’s current owners) by Eliza’s descendants.

3 Nobody knows whether the story about Eliza Halfpenny is true or not (although there are records that Matthew Hopkins was present in Dulwich in 1642) and nobody knows what has caused the oak tree’s peculiar appearance. And certainly nobody believes in witches.

Nobody except the gardener.

The gardener is the latest in a long line of watchers, responsible for caring for the tree and ensuring its health. The line of watchers can trace their existence back to the trial of Eliza Halfpenny – and three other witches in the Dulwich area. The gardener is responsible for all four trees and, thankfully, all are in excellent health.

© Steve Hatherley