Show notes, photos, and further reading for Episode 16: The Haunting of Camden House

Posted on by Natalie Doig
An old colourised post card on the left is a white cottage with bay windows on the first floor and a door with a curved lintel above it. Further down the building becomes a more creamy white. At the end of the road there are large trees visible. On the right there is a brick building and then a grey building with an orange rood. In red writing it says Stratton Street Biggleswade. There are people and a horse and cart in the street.
Post card from between 1908 -18 showing Camden House School on the left and Stratton St opening up to the Baulk. The Red Lion pub is also shown1.

Crab Lane Gardens

Crab Lane gardens stretched from the back of the Stratton House Hotel today through the car park and over the site of Chestnut Avenue from the library and up to just past the ambulance and fire stations. Chestnut Avenue was not added until after the second world war. The gardens had been there for at least 100 years at that time.

These chestnut trees are what remain of the gardens.

Four large chestnut trees covered in creamy candle flowers. On the right is a boxy building with many windows on the left is the timbre framed white building. The sun is shining on to the trees and the sky is blue.
Chestnut trees outside the library on the site of the old Crab Lane gardens.

These flowers were growing up against the side of the old school room on Crab Lane.

Purple star shaped bell flowers on slender green stems against a white wall.
Flowers growing up the old school room walls.

There is now a community garden along Crab Lane which does seem fitting.

Camden House School

The images shown at the top and bottom of this page are postcards from the period the Miss Birds were teaching at Camden House School which is shown on the images with Camden Cottage attached and nearest to the edge of the photograph.

Today Camden House looks like this:

On the right and curving into the centre a large white building with an orange tile roof and art least four chimney stacks. There are four windows set into the roof. The furthest door still has the curved lintel above it.
Camden House today

Below is an photo of Crab Lane looking along it towards London Road. The low single story white buildings on the right are the old school rooms.

Cars parked along a narrow road with a narrow pavement to the right. In the foreground green leaves and tree branches frame the picture. To the right are low single story buildings in white and cream. The sun is very bright and there are two people walking along the street.
Looking along Crab Lane to the school rooms on the right

Fairy Glen

Below is photograph of the fairy tree created outside the library when one of the old chestnut trees was chopped down due to disease.

A tree stump with large mottled brown fungi brackets. These brakets are being used as stages by little pipe cleaner figures. There is a castle, paper flowers and leaves and a ladder. There are windmills and a sunflower along with bunting festooned along the top of the tree stump.
The fairy garden

Biggleswade’s Tunnels

A brick archway set in a cellar wall, in front of the arch there are boxes, Christmas decorations and a vacuum cleaner. Set into the arch is a window with modern handle on it. Behind the window is a bricked up tunnel entrance.
The tunnel entrance beneath Camden House

The photo above shows the archway in the cellar of 95 High Street (Camden Cottage as was part of Camden House.) Set into the archway is a window which behind shows a bricked up tunnel entrance. I’d love to know if anyone has any suggestions as to why there is a window there?

A town centre map of Biggleswade with dots denoting tunnel entrances and ghost sightings. The sites are links along the high street and then up shortmead street with three places along shortmead street next to the river.
Map of Biggleswade town centre which includes purple dots for tunnel entrances and green dots for hauntings. A pink line shows the layout of the tunnels.

The map above is one I have marked with purple dots to denote where we know a tunnel entrance is found. The green dots show where we know there is a haunting. There are only two green dots which don’t have a corresponding purple dot! There is one purple dot that does not have a ghost story attached to it, and that is Dee Dee’s vegan cafe.

Below is the map Beverley drew me I will look more closely at both maps in the next episode.

A hand drawn map showing an outline of Biggleswade town centre with tunnel entrances marked on it with arrows and writing.
Beverley’s map that she drew for me. We’ll look at it in more detail in the next episode.

Annie Bryant

The link to the website below will take you to the site Capture Burnham which includes the photo from 1910 of the schoolgirls and teachers at the school Annie Bryant attended. Annie should be on that photograph. She would have been 16 at the time. There are also images of St Margaret’s school Burnham on Sea which will give you an idea of what Camden House will have looked like, though on a slightly less grand scale.

St Margaret’s School

A sepia postcard showing the same scene as the one at the top of the page: on the left is a white cottage with bay windows on the first floor and a door with a curved lintel above it. Further down the building becomes a more creamy white. At the end of the road there are large trees visible. On the right there is a brick building and then a grey building with an orange rood. In red writing it says Stratton Street Biggleswade. There are people and a horse and cart in the street.
The postcard of Stratton Street and Camden House School on the left this time printed in sepia. 2
  1. https://bedsarchivescat.bedford.gov.uk/Details/archive/110308685 ↩︎
  2. https://bedsarchivescat.bedford.gov.uk/Details/archive/110308680 ↩︎

Unknown's avatar

Published by Natalie Doig

"Science and sorcery." It's a quote from a beekeeper I saw on the TV, about how he sees the work he does keeping bees, a balance between science and sorcery. For me it also sums up my experience of life, my interests and my outlook. I love photography which is a perfect blend of science and sorcery, using light and technology to create magical images. But when I'm not taking photos you'll find me making the podcast Weird in the Wade. I'm also often to be found writing, reading, knitting, riding my mountain bike or drinking coffee watching the world go by. By day I fight for disability rights, equality and inclusion for all.

1 thought on “Show notes, photos, and further reading for Episode 16: The Haunting of Camden House”

  1. This was a fascinating episode, not least for the fact that my mother operated a hairdressing salon “Maison Rosaleen” in the premises on the corner of Crab Lane and High Street, now an eyecare shop. She never mentioned anything spooky or the tunnels. The only tunnel story she used to tell was of the Home Guard thinking that they had cornered some Germans in a railway tunnel somewhere near Old Warden. The Germans turned out to be a lost cow. I’ve yet to listen to the next episode, but I do love your podcasts. Growing up in the area I always thought Biggleswade was so boring! You have shone a very different light on it.

    Many thanks,

    Maggie

    Like

Leave a reply to Maggie Whitaker Cancel reply