What should one do if one encounters a ghost? Speak to it, suggests John Broughton, new owner of Thurnley Abbey. During a Mediterranean crossing, Broughton's friend Alistair Colvin recounts to a fellow passenger his experience visiting Thurnley...

A new, original recording of a classic public domain text, read and performed by Simon Stanhope for Bitesized Audio.

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Perceval Landon (1869–1927) was an English journalist and travel writer, little remembered today except for this one story, which has regularly featured in anthologies for over a century and frequently appears in "Top 10" lists of great ghost stories. He was born in Hastings, Sussex, to the Reverend Edward Henry Landon and his wife Caroline, nee Perceval; fans of historical trivia may be interested to know that, through his mother, he was apparently distantly related to Spencer Perceval (1762–1812), the only British prime minister to have been assassinated. He travelled widely and constantly in the course of his career, principally as a journalist, spending time in South Africa during the Boer War, India and Tibet, amongst many other places. He was a lifelong friend of Rudyard Kipling, and at one point had the use of a cottage on Kipling's estate in Sussex. He died in January 1927, aged 58, from (according to Kipling) "exposure and over-work", after a lifetime of travel.

Thurnley Abbey was apparently first published in McClure's Magazine in 1907; however it was subsequently expanded and published in Landon's collection, 'Raw Edges', which was published in 1908, and the revised version is the text which we know today.

Recording © Bitesized Audio 2020.