TEMPLE OF SHADES

Don’t tell everyone but Temple is surely the quietest public place on the Covent Garden map, nowhere else can you have a stroll uninterrupted by the activity which gives Covent Garden its uniqueness. Sandwiched between the buses and bustle of the Strand and the mighty Thames, Temple stands proud; the land that time forgot. Come rest a while and read of a bizarre epiphany.

In 1898 Judge Hawkins was invested Baron Brampton, in life he was noted for a kindly disposition, in death remembered as an industrious benefactor to the Church, and society at large. The good Baron’s marriage was barren, yet he yearned for a son and heir, he was often to be seen ponderously ambling around the Temple gardens in his judicial uniform of wig and gown, the peace was helpful in clearing his mind of everyday matters; so deep in thought was the Baron that he often bumped into trees or people, he was very much the pensive, old English gentleman.

If there is a phantom of the opera why shouldn’t there be a spectre of the Temple? And if living folk can appreciate the calm serenity why not the undead?

From time to time the Baron still muses in Temple gardens, he only appears when exactly one person is in the gardens, he doesn’t disturb the calm of Temple, rather he adds to it. He doesn’t move; he just glides, and when the living person has felt his presence and sees his spectral form, as in life, the Baron seems oblivious to all but the thoughts in his ghostly mind, perhaps dreaming of that which might have been. Most ghosts are coy and have a habit of suddenly vanishing, not Baron Brampton, he will continue to glide at his leisure until such time as he decides to move on leaving his viewer agape. An encounter with Henry Hawkins is a warming one, his aura of benevolence pervades the garden and his fellow Temple-occupant is left wholly uplifted.