Abandoned places have a strange kind of magic. They stand as monuments to decay but, also, a reminder of the people that once worked or lived in them. Modern trends like urban exploration have helped many of these crumbling buildings live again, if only in the imagination, but some continue to hide in plain sight. Graveyards, in particular, can go forgotten for tens or even hundreds of years.

Spring-heeled Jack

There’s a secret cemetery in southwest London. Barnes Old Cemetery, as it’s known today, is situated on Barnes Common, a thickly wooded area and the location of an early sighting of Spring-heeled Jack, according to Flickering Lamps. The Old Cemetery closed to burials 55 years ago, in 1966, and it promptly vanished from the public consciousness. This lonely place sits by Rocks Lane, hidden.

Over a century’s worth of burials were conducted at Barnes Old Cemetery. The local authority had hoped to transform the area into a new graveyard but, for some reason, these plans were shelved. Perhaps because of the financial investment required to renovate such a large area. Or because of the ghosts that are said to walk among the headless angel statues and moss-covered trees.

Ghosts and spirits are a universal part of the human experience, going back to our earliest ancestors. While they may just be a means of explaining things we don’t understand, it’s hard to deny the appeal of a good ghost story. We’ve all seen the likes of Ghostbusters and The Haunting of Hill House or read a classic like Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black but even music and video games sometimes take their cues from the denizens of the night.

Julia Martha Thomas

The Fatal Frame series, which leaves the player with a camera as their only form of defence against a haunting, is popular in Japan, as is the Nintendo game Luigi’s Mansion. Pac-Man arguably started it all though, featuring the four ghosts, Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde, as foils of our yellow hero. Ghost games are otherwise fairly rare in traditional gaming but casino slots have picked up the spooky slack.

Ghostly Towers, a five-reel game that features among the experiences at the Captain Spins website, has a mustachioed spirit as its mascot, against the backdrop of a haunted mansion. Captain Spins was the casino of the month for May 2021 on the BonusFinder website, which provides a comprehensive guide to online entertainment. Captain Spins also has the games Ghost Slider and Ghost Glyph.

Barnes Cemetery is reportedly the home of an unnamed ghost who haunts the grave of one Julia Martha Thomas. Julia died in 1879 at the hand of her maid Catherine Webster. The case attracted a great deal of attention at the time due to its grisly nature and was immortalised in song. Thomas’ head wasn’t found until 2010, underneath a plot being renovated by one Sir. David Attenborough.

The cemetery’s other claim to fame involves a person called Jeanette Pickersgill, who was cremated in 1885. She has the dubious honour of being the first person to undergo the treatment in the UK.