Thorndon Hall, an elegant Georgian mansion located in Brentwood, Essex, is the setting of our chilling folklore tale. Erected in the mid-18th century, it has a long and dramatic history. It’s best known for its eerie sighting of a ghostly figure donned in an 18th-century green dress—an enigmatic woman popularly known as the ‘Green Lady.’ The prominent Petre family, a lineage of Catholic nobility, owned the mansion. Legend suggests that the Green Lady is none other than the seventh Lord Petre’s mother, who crossed over to the afterlife under mysterious circumstances and was last seen in a gorgeous green dress. Our tale dates back to the late 1700s, when the mansion was still new and Lord Petre was known for his obsession with alchemy. Ripe with envy and curiosity, his mother stole a box from her son’s cabinet, containing materials necessary for a certain forbidden alchemic process. When she opened the box, an iridescent green smoke engulfed her, ending her life instantaneously and painting her spectral figure a ghastly green. Lord Petre, distraught, could not free his mother’s spirit, and so she was fated to eternally wander the perimeters of the mansion, wearing the same green dress that coloured her final moments. Stories of sightings of this ethereal figure are still shared among locals and visitors alike, and the Green Lady of Thorndon Hall, mantled in her spectral glow, remains a preserved aspect of the area’s folklore.