Some Haunted Houses of England & Wales.

In selecting a series of ghost stories for this volume I have taken the greatest care to make use of those only which are thoroughly well authenticated.

The result of this discrimination has been that the majority of these accounts of psychic phenomena have been taken from the lips of eye-witnesses and transferred to manuscript in as nearly as possible the narrator’s own language.

First-hand narratives of unfamiliar hauntings, albeit they refer to the meaner class of houses, will, I think, be more welcome to the reader than the mere repetition of such hackneyed stories as those appertaining to Glamis Castle, the Tower of London, &c.

In one other point, too, this work may be said to differ from others dealing with the same subject--viz., it is compiled and written by a very keen psychic--one who has not only investigated (and lectured on) haunted houses, but has himself seen many occult manifestations.

As there have been several libel cases quite recently in connection with the alleged haunting of houses, I have been obliged (save where it is stated to the contrary) to give fictitious names to both people and localities.

ELLIOTT O’DONNELL.

GUILSBOROUGH, NORTHAMPTON.

CONTENTS

PAGE THE GREEN BANK HOTEL, BARDSLEY 9 NO. -- SOUTHGATE STREET, BRISTOL 15 MULREADY VILLA, NEAR BASINGSTOKE 26 NO. -- PARK STREET, BATH 42 THE MINERY, DEVON 53 THURLOW HALL, NEAR EXETER 59 THE GUILSBOROUGH GHOST 73 WOLSEY ABBEY, NEAR GLOUCESTER 97 NO. XYZ EUSTON ROAD, LONDON 106 PANMAUR HOLLOW, MERIONETH 113 CATCHFIELD HALL, THE MIDLANDS 118 BURLE FARM, NORTH DEVON 140 CARNE HOUSE, NEAR NORTHAMPTON 148 HARLEY HOUSE, PORTISHEAD 160 THE WAY MEADOW, SOMERSET 166 NO. -- HACKHAM HOUSE, SWINDON 177 APPENDIX TO ABOVE, THE SCREAMING WOMAN OF TEHIDDY 182 PARK HOUSE, WESTMINSTER 187 GLOSSARY 191

HAUNTED HOUSES

THE GREEN BANK HOTEL, BARDSLEY

THE RACE FOR LIFE

Technical form of apparitions: Phantasms of the dead

Source of authenticity: Evidence of eye-witness

Cause of haunting: Murder

One afternoon in the July of this year I took tea with Lady B---- at her club in the West End. Lady B---- is a very old friend of mine, our friendship dating back to the days when I wore Eton collars and a preparatory school cap. She was in unusually high spirits at the thought of a cruise in the Baltic, whilst I was equally exuberant at being once again in London after a very trying sojourn in a particularly remote and isolated town--a town renowned for pilchards, pasties and Painters.

Now, there is nothing mean nor petty about Lady B----; she is generosity itself: so kind, so courteous, and withal so daintily pretty that to be near her, even, is to be in Elysium.

Remembering the interest I had always taken in matters psychical, she had invited several friends especially to meet me, and it was from one of them--Miss Charlotte Napier--that I heard the following story:

“Chancing to be stranded late one night at Bardsley,” she began, “owing to a slight miscalculation of the time-table, I had no other resource than to put up at the Green Bank Hotel in Russell Street.

“It was a very ordinary hotel; ordinary both in accommodation and appearance. One part of it--that in which I slept--possibly dated back to the Elizabethan period, but the rest--most hideously renovated--was quite modern.

“Outside my room--No. 56--was a long and somewhat gloomy corridor connecting the old and new portions of the house.

“I retired to rest about eleven--closing time--and had been asleep barely an hour before I awoke with a start to find the room flooded with a pale, phosphorescent light.