Chelsea FC Director 1905-26

Wealthy local publican Alfred Janes was born in Blackfriars in 1857. He
ran the Rising Sun, opposite the main gate of Stamford Bridge. Alfred is
also the only Chelsea director who was thought to have haunted a
building. In the late Twenties he lived in one of the last remaining big old
Victorian properties, ‘Chesterfield’, on Streatham High Road. He was
pressured to sell for years, but refused. In his dotage in 1929, Janes
finally – and reluctantly – sold up and moved to Clapham. An Astoria
cinema, one of London’s first talkies, was built there (it stands to this day)
and opened in June 1930. Late on Christmas night three years later the
cinema’s fireman was doing his rounds when he saw a figure in the
darkness. His torch revealed an old man in a white hooded gown. All at
once the figure moved through two heavy fastened doors, floated over
the orchestra pit and stood in front of the curtains wailing, in a strange
husky voice, ‘I won’t sell, I won’t sell!’ When the story broke, the spectre
was ‘identified’ as Janes, who had died in July 1930 – though the Chelsea
connection was only discovered in 2004.

Bio by Rick Glanvill

Chelsea FC Director 1905-26

Wealthy local publican Alfred Janes was born in Blackfriars in 1857. He
ran the Rising Sun, opposite the main gate of Stamford Bridge. Alfred is
also the only Chelsea director who was thought to have haunted a
building. In the late Twenties he lived in one of the last remaining big old
Victorian properties, ‘Chesterfield’, on Streatham High Road. He was
pressured to sell for years, but refused. In his dotage in 1929, Janes
finally – and reluctantly – sold up and moved to Clapham. An Astoria
cinema, one of London’s first talkies, was built there (it stands to this day)
and opened in June 1930. Late on Christmas night three years later the
cinema’s fireman was doing his rounds when he saw a figure in the
darkness. His torch revealed an old man in a white hooded gown. All at
once the figure moved through two heavy fastened doors, floated over
the orchestra pit and stood in front of the curtains wailing, in a strange
husky voice, ‘I won’t sell, I won’t sell!’ When the story broke, the spectre
was ‘identified’ as Janes, who had died in July 1930 – though the Chelsea
connection was only discovered in 2004.

Bio by Rick Glanvill