Sophia Strand

[Phoenix]

A friend of best mate's daughter is "seeing ghosts".

Best mate's daughter has decided that the only person this can be is Sophia Strand.

Why?

http://www.bexley.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=10380

This woman would appear to be named in about 1812 as a landowner.

The "ghost" sounds high Victorian and, in a decidedly gothic twist, was beaten to death in the middle of woods, in the Northumberland Heath area.

Two strands to this query:
Can we bury Sophia Strand?
Is there any murder connected with Northumberland Heath?

This all smacks of over-fertile imaginations. Can we inject a bit of reality?

[kiterunner]

West Kent Guardian 14 Feb 1846
SUDDEN DEATHS - During the last few days the following sudden deaths have taken place in this neighbourhood; viz.;...A child, burnt to death, at Northumberland Heath, Erith.

But I should think this was probably an accident rather than a murder.

[Phoenix]

Now, if I pass that on, there will doubtless be smoke swirling round the ghost!

The touch I particularly like is that the hem of the dress is edged with lace. If you have lace on your dress, you want it round the throat or wrists, so you can draw attention to your wealth. Not only can nobody see its quality if it's on the hem, but it would get very dirty.

[Olde Crone]

Oooh gawd, Phoenix, it's a nightie! You aren't supposed to go out in your nightie (well, not back then anyway) so lace on the hem is fine. Lots of ghosts wear nighties, it's a well-known fact.

OC

[kiterunner]

Baron Eardley's will is on ancestry if you want to read through it just in case there is any mention of Sophia Strand? (He is the main landowner named on that Bexley information page.) I started looking through it, but it must surely hold the record for highest number of codicils, and I gave up (though I only skipped through the bits that I did read anyway):

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&db=CanturburyPrerogativeCourt&h=522312

[Phoenix]

Oooh gawd, Phoenix, it's a nightie! You aren't supposed to go out in your nightie (well, not back then anyway) so lace on the hem is fine. Lots of ghosts wear nighties, it's a well-known fact.

OC

Silly me, of course she is. And were we in the 1960s, she would doubtless have a lot of mascara and one curl from her bouffant hairstyle resting on a snowy bosom.

[Mary from Italy]

:) :)

[Kit]

Did the ghost mention she was murdered?

If not how do they know how she died?

If yes, why not simply ask her name? Whodunnit, wouldn't go astray either. :p