It’s said that the ghost of a 13-year-old girl still haunts Farringdon Station
If you think life was tough for the average person during the eighteenth century, spare a moment’s though for the children of one of London’s many workhouses. Made to live in appalling conditions, children—often orphans—as young as 12 would be sent to work in one of the area’s; ostensibly as apprentices but in reality as little more than slave labourers. One such girl was Anne Naylor who, with her sister, was entrusted to the care of Sarah Metyard and her daughter Sally as apprentices in their millinery (or women’s hats) shop.
I say “care” lightly, because the Metyards were complete and utter sociopaths. They derived great pleasure in inflicting pain upon the girls they employed, dishing out beatings like they were going out of fashion, yet dishing out considerably less often the one thing the girls really needed: food. Young Anne was a sickly child, and her inability to keep up with the demands of her work singled her out for particularly nasty abuse. Eventually this became too much and Anne tried to escape. But she was soon apprehended by a boy who worked there and brought back to face the Metyard’s rage.
Anne was beaten and consigned to the attic, where she was given just enough bread and water to survive. Again she tried to escape, but again she was unsuccessful. Sally caught her roaming London’s streets, and after dragging her home had her tied to the attic door where she was beaten mercilessly with a broom. On the fourth day of Anne’s sadistic ordeal, one of the apprentices noticed she wasn’t moving. Thinking she was faking it, Sarah administered another beating (this time with a shoe), but still nothing. At some point during her horrible torture, Anne had died.
The Metyards tried to cover up the murder. They hid the body in her room, and leaving her door slightly ajar continued bringing bread and water. However, Anne’s sister noticed something was amiss and shared her suspicions with a lodger (for which she paid with her life). Two months later, with Anne’s body going putrid, the Meynards disembodied it and dumped it near a sewer on Chick Lane. They would have gotten away with it, but an argument between the two resulted in Sally confessing to the authorities (thinking she wouldn’t be incriminating).
They were arrested, tried, and hanged on July 19 1768. Sarah Metyard passed out on the way to the gallows at Tyburn, but was hanged unconscious to the gleeful jeers of the crowd. As for Anne Naylor, her ghost outlived her tormentors, haunting the grounds on which her earthly remains had been unceremoniously dumped. Legend has it that her cries can still be heard by unfortunate commuters taking the underground from Farringdon station…