Hypnogoria: THE GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS ADVENT CALENDAR - Door 15

Close to Rochester Castle, on what used to be part of the moat, lies an old burying ground for the parish of St. Nicholas. This ancient churchyard is said to be haunted by the figure of a bearded man. And therein lies a tale concerning a famous figure very much associated with Christmas...

Now the great writer Charles Dickens had made it known that when he died, he wished for no lavish funeral honours, and wanted to be buried modestly in a quiet spot of his own choosing. And one of the places he initially selected was this cemetery by Rochester Castle.

However at the time of his death the site wasn’t accepting any more new burials and so alternative plans were made. As it was, in the end, the exact opposite came to pass, and Dickens was buried with great pomp and circumstance in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey.

But while his body may lie there, his spirit seemingly does not. For in the old burying grounds of St Nicholas, a bearded elderly man has been seen contentedly wandering through the ancient tombs. And according to local lore, he most often can be seen upon Christmas Eve.

And that’s not the only place where the ghost of Dickens has been seen in Rochester. In his final unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Dickens sets a scene at the Old Corn Exchange in Rochester. And not long after his death, folks reported that at Christmastime, when the famous moon-faced clock of the Old Corn Exchange strikes midnight, the ghost of Charles Dickens appears.