Spiritual cleansing took place at Queen’s country residence

Published in 1950 for the future Edward VII, the estate is the royal family’s Norfolk retreat where they spend Christmas.

Journalist Meredith Blake wrote that two staff members were frightened by unexplained paranormal activity. The royal family attempted to rid the estate of any lingering spirits. High society diarist and royal biographer Kenneth Rose wrote in his journal about a ceremony reportedly held at Sandringham House in 2000.

Mr Rose’s insider knowledge of the aristocracy and other notables was the envy of his contemporaries. When the author passed on in 2014 at the age of 89, he bequeathed the 350 boxes in his journals to Oxford’s Bodleian Library.

He recalled that the ceremony was held after staff complained about strange and unexplained paranormal activity in the room where King George VI passed peacefully in 1952.

The monarch was found by a servant at 7.30 am, having suffered a coronary thrombosis due to a blood clot in an artery, following years of heavy smoking and surgery the previous year. The Queen Mother apparently ordered a “religious cleansing ritual” to rid the room of any possible spirit activity.

“It wasn’t a conventional exorcism,” historian and royal biographer Robert Hardman explained in a recent episode of his podcast, Queens, Kings and Dastardly Things.

“There was no dramatic casting out of demons like you see in films. It was said that the most controlled religious ritual of all was the one that was supposed to cleanse the space.”

Kenneth Rose said he learned that Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother and her lady-in-waiting, Dame Prudence Penn, took part in the ceremony, which consisted of reading holy Communion and saying special prayers.

“No one was quite sure who the ghost was supposed to be, despite it appearing in the room where George VI had died,” Mr Hardman continued. “Several people speculated whether it might be the ghost of Diana, the late Princess of Wales, who had died a few years before. It is unclear if any of the royals who were present believed in the paranormal.”

Hardman thinks their attendance could have been more as a show of support and action for their frightened staff.

“The late Queen had a strong faith, but she was not superstitious,” he insisted. “She did not have time for these wilder theories, but did have a strong sense of the spiritual,” he says.

The Signs experienced at least one paranormal occurrence at Sandringham.

In his 2005 book Britain’s Ghostly Heritage, John wrote that then-Prince of Wales had a frightening encounter in Althorp on the estate, which left him and a staff member fleeing from the room.

John elaborated that poltergeist activity is said to start “every Christmas Eve” and continue for several weeks.

Footsteps have been heard in the deserted corridors of the servants’ quarters. Doors have been known to open by themselves, and lights mysteriously switch on and off. Christmas cards mysteriously moved and belongings found in disarray.

Heavy breathing noises have also been heard in one room on the second floor. John discovered a housemaid working in the house even started to claim she had a serious experience of the phenomenon. A female ghost was seen in the room one morning when the witness saw the apparition of a young boy with a pale face who seemed to be attending to lamps from long ago.

The incidents of strange happenings over Christmas and the New Year were reported by Queen Elizabeth in 1988 noting that all her grandchildren grew up believing in the haunted house.

Paranormal historian Richard Felix said: “When the Prince and Princess of Wales moved into Anmer Hall – it’s near the Sandringham Estate – there was a ghost there. A Catholic priest that lived there was not happy and demanded a cleansing.”

For some reason, he has refused to live there. Richard said that when the couple took over the ten-bedroom Georgian property, they were warned about the apparition, but Prince William simply replied, “No old hall would be complete without a ghost, would it?”

The Prince and Princess of Wales are now based at Adelaide Cottage in Windsor, Berkshire, with their children Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis. However, Anmer Hall continues to be their private country home.