The Spooky Story of HMS Asp

By ghost hunter STEVE PARSONS

It’s not often that a ghost story is contained in an official account from the Royal Navy, but the haunting of HMS Asp is one such case.

HMS Asp was a small survey vessel purchased by the Navy in 1850 and based at the Pembroke Royal Navy Dockyard. Formerly, the paddle steamer had been used as a small cargo and passenger vessel plying back and forth between Britain and Ireland.

Prior to the vessel beginning preparation for its new role, the dockyard superintendent approached the captain, informing him that the ship was haunted and that he might find it difficult to locate men willing to undertake the repair and refitting work. Captain Alldridge was sceptical, remaining resolute, even after several of the shipwrights suggested that he should give up the ship as it would only bring bad luck. Nonplussed, the captain insisted that the refit be completed.

The refit was uneventful and upon completion of the work HMS Asp began its new role as a survey vessel in the waters around West Wales and Ireland. But, almost immediately, strange things began to be noticed by both the crew and the captain. Loud banging and other inexplicable sounds were heard coming from an empty aft cabin. This cabin was not in use and could only be reached by means of the companionway which passed directly by the captain’s own cabin. The captain could easily see that the aft cabin was deserted but nonetheless the disquieting sounds continued without any apparent cause.

From time to time HMS Asp would put into an Irish port, and it was during one of these visits to Ireland that the captain, after going ashore, returned to his ship to hear more strange noises. This time the sounds were coming from inside his own cabin. The captain, thinking he at last might capture the errant ghost or more likely the perpetrator of the troublesome noises, burst open the door and rushed inside.

He found the cabin empty and silent, save for the gentle creaks of the ship at her moorings. Captain Alldridge stood in the silence, perplexed and not a little afraid. Shortly, he heard a commotion in the companionway and after a few moments the quartermaster arrived with news that the lookout had seen a figure of a woman standing atop the paddle box, her hand raised to the sky. The lookout had been so terrified that he had gone into convulsions and had been overcome. The captain’s fear gave way to anger and he took the remainder of the watch himself, determined to get to the bottom of the troubles that were plaguing his vessel.

The remainder of the trip passed uneventfully, except for the continuing sounds from the deserted aft cabin. HMS Asp arrived back in her home port of Pembroke Dock and was soon laying peacefully at anchor in the Milford Haven waterway at Lawrenny. It was a Sunday afternoon and all seemed quiet.

Suddenly, the peace was shattered as the ship’s steward rushed up to the captain in a state of extreme agitation. He had been spoken to by a mysterious disembodied voice and was now so terrified that the captain was forced to release the man ashore to recover. One by one, the other members of the crew also began to come forward with their own accounts, some of them requesting to be transferred to other ships.

HMS Asp became a vessel that few men wished to serve aboard, and even fewer remained on board for very long before applying to be transferred. Captain Alldridge however remained. He was not a man who would retreat from the presence of a ghost, even though he himself had many unusual experiences. He was often woken at night by the sound of the lockers in his cabin being slammed. He was several times disturbed to feel a cold invisible hand being placed upon his forehead, and all the while the sounds from the adjacent empty aft cabin continued, despite his many attempts to discover their cause.

Eventually, HMS Asp returned to the dockyard at Pembroke Dock for a further refit and for routine repair work to be carried out. As the ship lay alongside, one of the dockyard sentries reported that he had seen the figure of a woman climbing up onto the paddle box, her arm and hand raised skywards. As he watched, she turned and approached the man. He challenged the figure, but on she came relentlessly until she passed straight through his outstretched musket. The brave sentry dropped his musket and fled to the guard house.

As he ran, he called to a second sentry who also saw for himself the apparition of the woman. He raised his musket and fired at close range but the shot had no effect; the figure continued silently moving along the dockside. A third sentry, alerted by the shot, rushed over just in time to also witness the ghostly figure. Huddled together, the three men watched the ghost enter the old Pater churchyard. She paused for a moment, remaining motionless above one of the graves before finally she disappeared.

On the following nights, the dockyard sentries were doubled as men refused to stand guard alone. However, it seems that this remarkable event marked the end of the haunting of HMS Asp and no further events were reported. All became quite normal aboard the vessel, the noises from the aft cabin ceased and the woman was not seen again.

Some short time later, Captain Alldridge decided to try to seek an explanation for the strange events that had plagued his ship. He already knew that prior to its service with the Royal Navy it had been used as a passenger cargo ship between Britain and Ireland but he had been unaware that during that time a female passenger had been murdered while aboard. Her throat had been cut and her body discovered in the aft cabin amid signs of an obvious struggle.

Steve Parsons is an outstanding investigator of ghosts, hauntings and related phenomena whose background, peer recognition, experience and knowledge separate him from a domain full of pseudoscientific amateur ghost hunters. He has hunted for ghosts since childhood and has been a full-time investigator for more than 25 years. Peers and leading academic parapsychologists currently acknowledge him to be one of the best paranormal investigators in the UK.

In 2012, The Wall Street Journal called him “the gold standard of ghost hunting”.

To contact Steve Parsons, email: steve@theghosthunter.co.uk

or call +44 (0)74 6869 0065