The Rose Garden | A Ghost Story by M. R. James | Narrated by Simon Stanhope

Mrs Anstruther desires to plant a rose garden in a neglected corner of the grounds of her home, Westfield Hall, so she directs her husband and the gardener to clear the site in readiness; but it soon becomes apparent that the selected spot has a sinister history... The story starts at 00:01:16. Narrated/performed by Simon Stanhope. If you enjoy this content and would like to help me keep creating, there are a few ways you can support me (and get access to exclusive content): Occasional/one-off support via Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/bitesize... Monthly support on Patreon:   / bitesizedaudio   Donate via PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted... Visit my Bandcamp page to hear more of my performances of classic stories, and you can purchase and download high quality audio files to listen offline: https://bitesizedaudio.bandcamp.com/ Become a Bitesized Audio Classics member on YouTube, from $1 / £1 / €1 per month:    / bitesizedaudioclassics   00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:16 The Rose Garden 00:31:58 Credits, thanks and further listening This is one of a series of the ghost stories of M. R. James I've narrated for this channel; you can hear the others on this playlist:    • M. R. James Ghost Stories   Or for a selection of Victorian ghost stories by various authors, including Charles Dickens, Amelia Edwards, Edith Nesbit, H. G. Wells, and many more:    • Victorian Ghost Stories   About the author: Montague Rhodes James (1862–1936) was a medievalist and scholar, and is probably the best known and most celebrated English ghost story writer of the 20th century, although he actually began composing supernatural tales in the late Victorian era, beginning with 'Canon Alberic's Scrapbook' and 'Lost Hearts' (both 1893). He was born in Kent, but spent most of his childhood in Suffolk, a county which features prominently in many of his stories, including 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'. Several of James's protagonists also reflect his own antiquarian interests, with academics and historians featuring regularly. James published four volumes of ghost stories in his lifetime: 'Ghost Stories of an Antiquary' (1904), 'More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary' (1911), 'A Thin Ghost and Others' (1919) and 'A Warning to the Curious and Other Stories' (1925). During a long academic career which encompassed several positions at King's College, Cambridge, and Eton College, M. R. James developed a tradition of reading his ghost stories aloud to a group of friends, most famously on Christmas eve, and the majority of his published stories were first heard in that setting. The Rose Garden was first published in More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary in 1911 and has been regularly anthologised ever since. Several people have noted some similarities between this story and R. H. Malden's The Sundial, which I recorded last autumn. The Rose Garden was written earlier (so far as I can tell) and it certainly seems to have inspired some aspects of Malden's tale. It's one of James' more elliptical stories, where the reader (or listener) is left to fill in some gaps, to come to their own conclusion about what may have happened. Do share your thoughts/theories in the comments, if you feel inspired to do so! The Latin tag quoted by the rector at the end of the story, "quieta non movere", can be roughly translated as "do not disturb things which are settled", or more colloquially via the English expression "let sleeping dogs lie"... Several real-life candidates have been suggested as the inspiration for "the Lord Chief Justice of Charles II of England, who retired to Westfield Hall in disgrace", referenced in the story. The reference certainly seems to bear a surface similarity to Sir William Scroggs, who was indeed Lord Chief Justice of England from 1678–1681, who famously presided over the "Popish Plot" trials. Scroggs was dismissed by Charles II after being impeached for summarily dismissing a grand jury, and retired to Weald Hall (an abbreviation of Westfield?) in Essex, where he died in 1683. This recording © Bitesized Audio 2026