I spent several nights in the haunted house, but saw and heard nothing of interest during my visits there. In order to check his story, however, I took with me, on three occasions, amateur and professional mediums, to see what their impressions would be. Needless to say they were told nothing as to the house, or its history.
The mediums were never permitted to go downstairs until after the sitting, and they knew nothing of any digging operations. I had rather come to the conclusion that the buried treasure was a pure fantasy, and rather hoped that these mediums would say, “There is no treasure here; stop your digging!”
Instead of this, however, they one and all agreed that there was a treasure buried under the house, and two of them drew diagrams of an alleged tunnel, near which the buried treasure lay, which had led, many years before, to an old Dutch church, about a quarter of a mile away. This was curious, since none of these mediums knew one another, and no one knew of any such tunnel.
This seeming confirmation naturally stimulated the owner of the house to more intense efforts, so that he spent nearly all his waking hours, both day and night, digging. The entire cellar was filled with rocks and earth which he had excavated. He entirely neglected his business, and worked frantically.
The upshot of this bizarre story is something of an anti-climax. After weeks of digging, no treasure had been found, and the authorities somehow got wind of his activities. One morning they visited the house, and stated that he was endangering its foundations. The poor man was compelled to fill in the immense hole he had so laboriously dug, and all ghostly manifestations ceased. Soon after this, I understand, he moved from the house, and I have heard nothing from him since.
One strange occurrence, however, did develop. Inquiries revealed the fact that an old Dutch church had actually stood upon the spot indicated, but that it had been demolished in 1883. This our young friend (an uneducated Sicilian) certainly had no means of knowing. Much of the information given by the mediums was certainly supernormal, inasmuch as they had made statements which were subsequently verified, and had drawn almost identical diagrams of passages, excavations, rooms, and so forth, which they had never seen, but which subsequent measurements proved to be correct!
JOSEPH BRADDOCK, a life-long enthusiast of the weird and the mysterious, was present at a number of the Society for Psychical Research investigations and wrote numerous essays about the supernatural as well as a bestselling book on Haunted Houses (1956). The book is notable for the investigations Braddock made into photography and ghosts – examining hundreds of examples from the crude Victorian fakes with superimposed portraits to contemporary photographs revealing unexpected people and faces on the negatives. Here Braddock describes one of his most unusual enquiries at a haunted house in 1955.
PHOTOGRAPHING A GHOST
Location and date: Abthorpe, Northampton, 1955
On October 27, 1955, I received a letter from Calverton Rectory, Wolverton, Bucks, the relevant part of which read as follows: “I am proposing to go with a professional photographer to take night photographs at the old haunted Manor House at Abthorpe, of which we told you and sent you some snaps. We are making this expedition on Monday, 31 of October (Hallowe’en). Would you be able to manage to join us? If so, will you make for this address on Monday next. The Rector says he will be very pleased if you will stay at the Rectory for the night.” The two gentlemen concerned make a charming pair, an old man and a young man, the Rev. R. Bathurst Ravenscroft and Mr L. E. Stotesbury-Leeson, whose bond, besides friendship, is the Ministry and their common devoted interest in Genealogical researches. Unfortunately, I was lecturing in Bournemouth on the evening of October 31. I let them know my disappointment. The date was considerately changed for me, and I motored to Calverton Rectory on All Saints’ Day, November 1.
Mr Stotesbury-Leeson is a direct descendant of the Leeson family of Abthorpe, springing from those of Whitfield and Sulgrave which appear in the Heraldic Visitations of Northants as far back as the time of Edward I. Not until after the Reformation was the house – called Abthorpe Vicarage for very nearly the past two hundred years, but still to this day known to many as “Leeson Manor” – purchased by the Leeson family from the Ouseleys of Courteenhall near Northampton. It has remained part of the Jane Leeson trust from 1648, when “Mistress Jane Leeson died April ye 1st” as the simple record of the parish register runs. Little is known of “Mistress Jane,” beyond the facts that she built the village school, which bears under one of its gables the inscriptions FEARE GOD AND HONOUR Y KING and JANE LEESON HATH BUILDED THIS HOUS FOR A FREE SCHOOL FOR EVER. 1642; made an endowment to the church to help provide a clergyman; left a charitable trust consisting of various annual bequests to a number of neighbouring parishes, and died a spinster. The payments began in 1649 and have continued regularly, the trustees meeting, until recent times, in the council chamber, as desired by Jane Leeson in her will.
This pre-Elizabethan Manor, empty and derelict, had fallen into a sad state of disrepair. On pushing open the warped gates, one stepped into a wilderness of undergrowth, the drive over-shadowed by yews. Neglected lawns ran up to the worn stone walls; and, as one entered through the low Tudor doorway, one saw the long hallway, with dust-strewn rooms to left and right. The right-hand wing consisted of the Monastic Grange, the oldest part of the house. Here, in the council chamber Mr Stotesbury-Leeson discovered in 1954 through the crumbling of the inner wall from damp, a curious chamber or cavity reaching down to the ground-floor, which looked like a “priest hole.” From an attic a collapsed wall gave another view of the “priest hole” and the false wattled wall of the council chamber. Certainly the space within the wall could have concealed a man and might have been used, in times of religious persecution, as a refuge. The council chamber has its own eerie atmosphere. In this room there has been seen by one of the trustees and by others, the apparition of a Franciscan Friar. He is generally seated, reading a book; but on being disturbed, he glides across the chamber and disappears into the wall near the “priest hole.”
Mr Stotesbury-Leeson told me that very few of the villagers cared to pass by the house after sunset. On Sunday, October 31st, 1954, Mr Bathurst Ravenscroft and he had taken some photographs of the outside of Leeson Manor in the middle of the afternoon. They made a tour of the house, ascending a narrow oak staircase to obtain a view of the “priest hole” concealed within the thickness of the walls. Mr Stotesbury-Leeson writes:
“While I was investigating the inside of the ‘priest hole’ my companion, who was standing behind me, experienced the chill of some unseen presence, which passed off in a few moments but gave him the feeling that ‘it’ was there.
“We descended the stairs to the hall and went into the garden, intending later to return and make a further search of the house. Taking up positions on the lawn for photographing the exterior, I clearly sensed that something flashed past me, which quite startled me; and turning my head, I exclaimed ‘What was that!’ After about a minute (the front door being open) a door within the house, previously closed, opened and closed again with great violence. We sensed a feeling of psychic strain, so much so that we refrained from returning to the house. The sale of the property is in question and we had been discussing this topic.
“As the first member of the Leeson family to enter the house for three hundred years, I was photographed by Mr Ravenscroft in the Tudor doorway. On having the photographs developed, a figure is clearly to be seen standing on my left-hand side, partly in the shadow and partly with the sun shining through it upon the stone lintel. I have three of the photographs in front of me. The first was taken at approximately 3 p.m. and shows the doorway quite clear. The second, taken at 3.10, reveals a figure on the right of the print, half on the sun-lit stonework, half in shadow. In the third photograph, taken a few minutes later from further away, the figure has moved a little more to the left but is not very distinct.”
When I reached Calverton Rectory on the night of November 1, 1955, the first thing I learnt was
that the professional photographer had been prevented from coming, or perhaps had thought better of the expedition! However, he had lent his up-to-date camera and photographic equipment to Mr Stotesbury-Leeson, who used an Ilford H.P.S. film, with a flash gun fitted to the camera. After supper we drove some fifteen freezing miles in brilliant moonlight to Abthorpe. Altogether we spent three full hours, from 9.15 p.m. until almost 12.30 a.m., making our investigation in the derelict, abandoned, yet not wholly forsaken, Manor House.
I may as well say at once that the photographs were a failure and revealed nothing paranormal. But Mr Stotesbury-Leeson makes this comment: “Curiously enough the long exposures are mysteriously blotted out, in spite of the special film, the clear moonlight night, and the great care we took to adjust the camera each time we used it. These are the ones on which we set our hopes, and even now I feel that had the stills taken of the Tudor doorway been successful, you would have had at least one good photograph of a spectre.”
“Not wholly forsaken” – because we both heard quite unaccountable sounds. There had been a full moon the night before: from a bitter cold clear sky, that brilliant dead world of dry terrible mountain-peaks looked down on us. As to the possibility of movement and any consequent noise, the air was as still as it could be. I am certain that there was not a breath, not a twig; and, no, not a rat nor a mouse stirring.
Mr Stotesbury-Leeson heard more than I did, but this was probably my lack or defect. I felt no psychic chill or sense of unease when I crossed the threshold and entered the first room on the left of the hall. Neither did I feel fear nor discomfort in any other part of the house, only a detached but intense curiosity about what might happen next. I was hoping for proof; to see something.
My companion walked to the door and stood outside. I shone my torch, though the moonlight coming through the broken windows made this almost unnecessary. Suddenly I heard a noise, like a thump or muffled bark; but Mr Stotesbury-Leeson, who heard it also, has described it as a “sort of scraping rushing sound.” For a long time we heard nothing more, except the loud clang of a row of rusty bells that my friend set jangling with his walking stick!
Now we went upstairs into the Leeson council chamber where all seemed peaceful as we took several photographs, the camera pointing towards the “priest hole.” We invoked Mistress Jane to reveal herself, with no result whatever. We then made separate circuits of the house, shining our torches everywhere, finding nothing unusual. But afterwards, on account of the noises each of our movements produced, we decided to keep together.
It was in a small room in the north-west corner of the first floor that we both heard the oddest sounds of all. I stood by the dusty mantelpiece, Mr Stotesbury-Leeson closer to a half-open window of diamonded glass. It was bitterly cold and we drew our scarves and greatcoats tighter round us. Moonlight broke upon the diamond panes, faintly adulterating the room’s darkness, light and shadow shafting down on walls and floor. We stood, for perhaps fifteen minutes, calm, transfixed, neither of us speaking or wanting to speak. The moments seemed long and it is difficult to be positively certain of what one heard. My ears, of course, may have built up imaginary noises, but I don’t think they did. Whenever we had stopped talking, the silences could almost be heard. Then a sibilant sound came to me, like a small lisp, a lament, the whimper of water. A strange feeling tingled through the nerves of my skin.
Mr Stotesbury-Leeson heard this, too, and something more; but he shall speak for himself: “I became aware of a noise like a dull groan with a roar, similar to a strong wind blowing through a small hole, which seemed to come from under my feet. The room below was the one where I had heard the first scraping rushing sound. I went downstairs, but now had the impression of hearing the same sound above me. I returned to the small north-west room upstairs and resumed my old position. After I had requested whatever spirits there might be to make themselves known, I noticed a faint sound as of running water which gradually increased in volume and seemed to come closer. It was only afterwards that I remembered that Mistress Jane Leeson had stated that she hoped her Charity would last ‘For as long as the sun shines and the water flows,’ a play on the family coat of arms.” Mr Stotesbury-Leeson thinks that his after-thought and theory about the water hits the nail on the head. Could that faint approaching Presence, if she was trying to make herself known to us by the sound of flowing water, have been his ancestor, Jane Leeson? As in so many occult matters we should be content to say we do not know. We must begin and end with a question mark, while we go on seeking.
But now it is time to set a term to our small inquiry about ghosts, which could be extended indefinitely. Maybe the strictly scientific lines upon which the S.P.R. today is working, with its praiseworthy aim of making psychical research respectable by drawing it into the laboratory, will prove most fruitful for man’s advance into the Unknown. We live in a universe far more wonderful than any of us can fully contemplate, and the next stage of man’s evolutionary development might well be – like wing from chrysalis – that of his psychical unfolding. Wise scientists have always recognised the limitations of science: in a subject so linked with spiritual, not to mention diabolical, knowledge we need not neglect other direct approaches, such as the mystical and the religious. If we are studying the whole of Reality, surely there need be no antithesis between spiritual and material existences, for they may interpenetrate. The scientific approach to these profound mysteries, though most valuable, is not the only one.
CORAL LORENZEN owes her fascination with the unknown – and her career as a writer and investigator of the occult – to a high school teacher who sensing her interests, urged her, “If you’re curious, Coral – inquire!” Later, while studying journalism and English, she was encouraged to read the books of Charles Forte and realized there was nothing so weird it was not worth careful investigation. Lorenzen’s numerous books have ranged across a wide variety of subjects from Unidentified Flying Objects to Monsters of the Deep and any number of American ghost stories. However objective she tried to remain in the face of the inexplicable, Coral Lorenzen could still be surprised as she reveals in this episode from The Shadow of the Unknown (1970).
THE BREAK-IN FROM BEYOND
Location and date: New Mexico, USA, 1958
Although I have been extremely interested in poltergeists for the greater part of my life, I had always rationalized the intriguing stories of flying bottles, stones, rappings and tappings, and was not really firmly convinced of the reality of the phenomena until I myself had an unnerving experience. It happened this way.
A summer evening in 1958 ended as usual. We were living in our home at 1712 Van Court, Alamogordo, New Mexico. The weather was very hot and, although the desert in that area cools considerably at night, a house does not lose its heat until the early hours of the morning. The house, only two years old, had a large evaporative cooler on the roof which sent damp cooling air through the house. The heat from the roof, however, made sleep difficult.
We had been in bed for some time and, trying to get even a little more breeze, I pushed the sheet down and pulled up my pajama top to let the air blow across my midsection. I was going through a mental exercise to hasten sleep, as our waking time was six a.m. and it was drawing close to midnight, when I felt icy fingers pass across my stomach. Immediately thinking my husband Jim was trying to play a joke on me, I turned toward him. But he was lying in his usual place, his back toward me and, if he was not asleep, he was at least quiet.
It didn’t take long for me to chalk the whole thing up to my imagination; I pulled up the sheet, turned on my side and took up my sleep-inducing exercise again. Then a sharp sound startled me. It was as though someone had dropped a very thin china piece on a hard cement floor. There was the initial sound of the object striking the floor, then a tinkling sound as the pieces apparently came to rest.
Thinking that one of the children (we had two – a boy of 8 and a girl of 13) had gotten up and broken something in one of the bathrooms, I slipped my
feet into my slippers and set out to investigate. The bathroom shared by the children was dark and empty; I turned on the light and looked around anyway. There was nothing to account for what I had heard. I then went to the children’s rooms where I found them both asleep, and nothing amiss. Deciding at this point that perhaps something had somehow fallen in our private bathroom I investigated there too but nothing was wrong; everything was in its place.
By this time I was extremely curious and set about a methodical tour of the house and even the patio, turning on lights as I went. I even examined the children’s rooms, and they didn’t stir. The patio was as devoid of any broken china as was the house and eventually I decided that the whole thing had been my imagination, as had the incident with the “icy fingers,” and went back to bed.
The next morning I arose as usual, made my husband’s breakfast and sat down with him to have my first cup of coffee. All thoughts of the events of the previous night had completely left my mind, so when Jim looked up from his eggs and said, “Did you find what broke last night?” I almost jumped out of my shoes. I asked him how he knew that something had broken and he said that he had heard it also. Not believing that I couldn’t find the cause, he himself made an inspection of the house and grounds before he left for work, but he found nothing. The final disposition of the affair was a curious look between us because we both knew that something outside our understanding had taken place.
At about this time, both my husband and I had been indulging our curiosity about psychology and had been reading extensively from the works of Carl Jung. We found that Jung had formulated a theory to account for such things and had, like some other psychic researchers, found that when poltergeist phenomena are manifested, there is usually an adolescent child in the affected house. Jung felt that an “autonomous particle system” exists, wherein a part of a developing child’s personality splits off during puberty and becomes an independent spirit for a while, retaining a form of “psychokinetic energy” capable of the many feats attributed to “noisy ghosts.” In other words, the energy causing the poltergeist problems actually originates from a splinter of personality in an adolescent child.
The Mammoth Book of True Hauntings Page 23
