The Phantom Bear of the Tower of London

One of the Tower of London’s stranger ghost traditions concerns a spectral bear said to have terrified a Jewel House keeper. The story draws unusual plausibility from the character of the place: the Tower really did maintain a royal menagerie containing exotic animals, including bears, for centuries.

The menagerie is historical fact; the phantom bear is later ghostlore. Its persistence illustrates how supernatural stories borrow recognisable details from a site’s documented past.

Source trail: Historic Royal Palaces and research by curator Alden Gregory on the Jewel House keeper’s ghost.

Related Journal record: Haunted London.