Early on in my occult career I was something of an adventurer. Spurred on by a love of Hellblazer and the unusual exploits of Mulder and Scully I spent many an evening exploring abandoned and supposedly haunted sites all around London. Perhaps, in hindsight, it was inevitable that I would seek out urban legends in the shadows between the streetlamps. The Highgate Vampire, Spring-heeled Jack and the Goose at Crossbones Graveyard, England’s capitol has more than its fair share of tall tales spread from west to east like bloody footsteps upon the age worn flagstones.

While there may be truth hidden like diamonds in the mountains of coal that formed the capital’s folklore, the Beast of Berkeley Square is sadly one of the least believable. For a long time it was my one that got away, a terrible supernatural horror that had killed on multiple occasions and unless confronted may well do so again. Erroneously believing myself skilled enough in the occult arts to try and banish the entity in those heady days when I first began dabbling in the necromantic, I kept an eye out for a ghost hunting group that would be allowed into the antiquarian booksellers then occupying the building.

This quest ultimately failed, however, as it seemed that Maggs Bros. Ltd were not only disinterested in the paranormal aspects of their weekday home but also hostile to any talk of ghosts and ghouls on the premises too. While this attitude was ridiculous to me at the time it is understandable in hindsight, especially in light of the research others have done towards debunking the case. Plus it would be unseemly for a company that specialised in procuring rare documents by appointment to the Queen herself to allow commoners to tramp around the premises by torchlight after dark.

There is more of gravy than of grave at work here. As a result it seems less and less likely that an aristocrat died of fright in the master bedroom, nor can any evidence of a maid having a nervous breakdown when something conveniently indescribable tried to pry beneath her petticoats be found outside of the penny dreadful magazines of the period. There is little in the way of Lovecraftian horror to be found within the walls of number 50 it seems, and yet the location continues to appear in low effort lists of the most haunted houses in the world even now. A couple of tales relating to the property may have a small basis in fact, however.

First, we have the sad case of a Mr Myers who, having been jilted by his wife to be mere days before their marriage is thought to have became unsound of mind, living like a recluse in the upper floors of the building and admitting no visitors. During this period the ramshackle state of the property as well as his candlelit walks around the darkened structure would likely have sent a chill down the spine of any but the hardiest of Dickensian gentlemen and kept the tall tales flowing along with the gin in East End tap houses way after sundown. And then, perhaps more spectrally, there is the account of the Lord Lyttleton of that era.

Staying in the supposedly fatal room on a bet during the tenancy of a Miss Curzon, the scholar insisted upon bringing a pair of blunderbusses loaded with a mixture of normal shot and silver sixpences to his midnight vigil. It was the talismanic contents of these firearms that is said to have saved his life when, later that same night, he fired both weapons directly into the centre of a jet black shape that jumped across the room at him. Accounts vary as to what happened next, of course, but it is safe to assume from his later political exploits that he did indeed survive the encounter relatively unscathed despite what some books claim.

A man described in contemporary sources as of wide and cosmopolitan learning, and not assumed to be given to flights of fancy, he outlined his brief involvement in the case via letters to Notes and Queries. This was an academic magazine, a publication not unlike a pre-digital message board of sorts that catered to the intelligentsia of England in a time when being upper class was said to reflect both scholarly intellect and the right to be believed in all matters of social commentary. Yet his word is no better than that of anyone else, and as such we do need to take the uncorroborated account with a whole circle of salt.

Everything else that is said to have occurred beneath that once leaky roof in Berkeley Square is equally, if not more, questionable than even Lord Lyttleton’s account. Window jumping sailors impaled on railings or found dead with necks broken at the basement door. Caretaker couples willingly locked in the parlour for the evening while the actual owner visited the building and did who knows what in an upstairs room. The aforementioned maid gasping pleas of ‘don’t let it touch me’ before the light died in her eyes. Author Elliott O’Donnell happily fanning the folkloric flames for profit, or just to keep the old tales alive.

As for the monster itself, it has always been multiple choice. A ghost is the preferred culprit, usually misty black with snaking tendrils of shadow. Demons get a mention, especially in relation to the ritualistic intentions of that occasionally visiting owner. Poltergeists are cited, as are particularly annoyed owls. Some claim that the beast was a squid like cryptid living in the pipework of the house, killing to protect its territory and in doing so bringing a whole new meaning to the term ‘Thomas Crapper’. And while I no longer believe in the validity of the case from a paranormal point of view I do still find that last idea highly amusing.

Ultimately what we have here is hearsay weakly supported by the testimony of a few learned men, paperback authors and unscrupulous potboiler journalists too. Remember this was a London that, while yet to witness the horrors of Jack the Ripper, was still terrified from living with the ever present fear of Spring-Heeled Jack. Undeniably fertile ground for the imagination, regardless. Maggs Bros. Ltd left the building a while ago, and there is talk of turning both 49 and 50 Berkeley Square into a wellness retreat in the heart of the city now. Just how relaxed an environment the new owners manage to create remains to be seen.