As has been recognised since the early Seventies, ghosts are no longer confined to spooky castles and mansions but may be found in more mundane premises. Tales of haunted supermarkets remain comparatively rare, but what may be the first case of a haunted Tesco has arisen from enquiries into a haunted site in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

	A white breezy figure ran across the road and disappeared

 

A Tesco store was constructed in 1997 and recently expanded – reportedly without the requirements of proper planning permission, a matter that is still under investigation. The store stands close to the remains of the mediæval St Saviour’s Hospital, which is traditionally haunted on 24 February each year by an apparition known as the Grey Lady.

One story that has been in circulation since the Victorian era is that she was a nun who murdered Humphrey “the Good”, Duke of Gloucester and brother of Henry VI, at St Saviour’s in 1447, in part of a power struggle within the aristocracy.

The story is, however, no more than a glorious forgery by the teenage daughter of a Victorian printer (a small riot was provoked when the truth emerged during a mass ghost hunt by expectant townspeople in February 1861).

Nonetheless, generations of Bury St Edmunds townsfolk have believed in the Grey Lady, who is also reputed to haunt the cathedral churchyard, the cellars of Cupola House, buildings on the Angel Hill – and even to vault over the wall of the local Priory Hotel. Certainly, there have been reports in houses close to St Saviour’s Hospital since the Fifties of ghostly phenomena. In 1954, for instance, a grey shape against the darkness, attributed to the Grey Lady, was seen by Bury resident Mrs Joyce McColl, who was babysitting in a house close to the ruin. Other nearby properties have had strange incidents since the late Nineties.

The trouble at Tesco has been occurring in the cafeterias. Initially confined to incidents witnessed by staff in the early hours (it is a 24-hour store, open six days a week), in the last two months it has seen poltergeist phenomena, including the unexplained knocking over of cups for soft drinks in front of customers.