Henrietta Street, Bath

John Ingram in his ‘The Haunted Homes and Family Traditions of Great Britain’ (1897) gives the following description of a haunting realated to a murder in Henrietta Street. ‘Other tales, more or less circumstantial, have been related to us of houses in Bath, including one in Henrietta Street, Great Pulteney Street. In this house, some years ago, a man murdered his wife, and left her bleeding corpse on the hearth-stone in the kitchen. With foresight rarely displayed by murderers, he locked the front door previous to escaping by the back, which he pulled-to after him. Getting into Great Pulteney Street, he made his way to his residence in Henrietta Street, and attempted to open the front door, or rather pretended to. The door was, of course, locked, so he called a policeman, who forced his way in and found the dead body of the wife. Notwithstanding the man’s cunning, the crime was ultimately brought home to him, and, doubtless, he suffered the punishment awarded by law for his crime. The fact, however, which causes us to allude to this conventional story of assassination is, that the tragedy left ineffaceable traces; ever since the ghastly body of the murdered wife was flung upon that hearth the stone there has had stains which cannot be got out. Even new hearth-stones have been put down, but the bloodstains force their way through, and cannot be eradicated!’