Ghostly Folklore – The Phantom Chicken of Pond Square

You’re Plucking kidding me…

There are a great many ghostly animals in Great Britain, from spectral monkeys to black dogs, but perhaps one of the most unusual can be found in Pond Square, Highgate, London: that of a phantom chicken.

Sir Francis Bacon, who lived from 22nd January 1561 to 9th April 1626, was the 1st Viscount St Alban and 1st Baron Verulam. He was a statesman, lawyer, and philosopher, and has been described as the Father of Empiricism. Empiricism holds that true knowledge or justification comes only - or primarily - from sensory experience and empirical evidence.

Whilst riding home one cold spring morning in the snow, he pondered whether it might be possible to use ice to preserve meat instead of salt. It was these ruminations that led to the infamous chicken incident - and, very possibly, his own death.

The fateful events of that day were described by an associate of Sir Francis’s named John Aubrey. He wrote:

“As he (Sir Francis Bacon) was taking the air in a coach with Dr Witherborne (a physician) towards Highgate, snow lay on the ground, and it came into my lord’s thoughts, why flesh might not be preserved in snow, as in salt. They were resolved they would try the experiment at once. They alighted out of the coach, and went into a poor woman’s house at the bottom of Highgate Hill, and bought a hen, and made the woman gut it, and then stuffed the body with snow, and my lord did help to do it himself. The snow so chilled him, that he immediately fell so extremely ill, that he could not return to his lodgings, but went to the Earl of Arundel’s house at Highgate, where they put him into a good bed warmed with a pan, but it was a damp bed that had not been laid in about a year before, which gave him such a cold that in two or three days, as I remember Mr Hobbes told me, he died of suffocation.”

Whether this account is accurate is open to debate. However, since that fateful night, there have been many reported sightings of a phantom chicken in the area.

Sightings

The spectral apparition of the chicken was reportedly seen one night in 1943 by Airman Terence Long,, as he was walking across the square. He said he heard the sound of hooves and turning wheels, followed by a screeching noise. Expecting to see a horse-drawn carriage, he turned - only to be shocked by the sight of a half-plucked chicken flapping its wings and spinning in a circle before vanishing.

There were further sightings by air raid wardens, who claimed to witness the fowl spectre vanish into a wall.

In 1969, a large white, half-plucked bird was seen by a motorist stranded in Pond Square. Concerned that the creature might be injured, he approached it - only for it to disappear.

In the 1970s, a young couple who were canoodling in the haunted street claimed that a headless, frozen chicken landed beside them, ran in two circles, and vanished.

I hope these tales of avian horror have not put you off your dinner, my friend.

My new book Threads of Shadow is due for release on 1st July 2025. However, Amazon have decided to make it available early on Kindle - so if you fancy early access to a ghoulish treat, click the link below and start reading today.

Until next week - stay spooky.