Ghost Wainfleet Magdalen Museum

By Angela Gooch on December 22nd, 2007

Source: Skegness Standard 1997

Grey Lady Haunts Museum Library

THE past came all too vividly to life for a startled visitor to Wainfleet Museum recently when she encountered its legendary ghost - The Grey Lady.
According to Bess Smith, librarian for Wainfleet library which occupies the same 15th century building, the ghost has haunted the museum and library for many years, and her presence is often felt, although sightings are more rare.
“She is perfectly harmless. I have been here 14 years - until 7pm on some night, in the winter, too, when it is dark - but I am alright,” she said.
school mistress wainfleet magdalen museum However, over the past two months readers have certainly noticed something. They have gone very cold and come up in gooseflesh. One said “I am cold to the marrow -something went right through me.”
Footsteps
“Although I have never seen anything myself I once heard footsteps that came from a comer, where there was no door, and crossed the room.

Some of the staff refuse to work in the building.”
The previous sighting of the Lady in Grey was in the 1950s.
The latest incident occurred when a woman visitor entered the empty library in the afternoon and glimpsed the lady, who then silently disappeared. The woman fled the building.
Nobody knows who the Lady in Grey is - although according to Mrs Smith, she is reputed to have been a schoolmistress at the Magdalen college which occupied the site.

Photo: Old school mistress at the Wainfleet Magdalen Museum.