A Kennington mystery!
For some time past mysterious showers of small, blackish stones have fallen in Kennington, near the Oval cricket ground and Kennington Green, both in daylight and after dark. Several persons have seen the pebbles strike the ground, the brickwork, and roofs of houses, and heard the smash of glass. Some have been struck by them without discovering any person being near enough to throw stones or account for this phenomenon. Windows have been broken to an alarming extent, and in some places the entire glass has been demolished from the window frames.
Opinions differ on the subject. Some suggest that the pebbles may have fallen from the moon; others that they may be meteoric stones, or of volcanic origin. Up to the present time it has baffled the sagacity of the police, and they appear unable to obtain any satisfactory clue to the origin of the mysterious occurrence. They may have been thrown by the ghost of a workman who was accidentally killed during the construction of the great gas-holder near the Oval cricket ground, and is now benevolently using his spare time by creating work for the unemployed.
Or have the pebbles been shot from a reputed haunted house, where two of the former tenants committed suicide? It is said in this connection that at certain intervals – only one being present at each time – a ghostly figure appears at an open window holding an old-fashioned spring pistol, looks carefully around, and then discharges this pistol. Then a smashing of glass is heard, the ghostly thing disappears from the open window, jumps into the chapel yard, and has been seen rushing from Montford place towards Kennington Green, and there vanishes. At certain periods near midnight piercing screams have been heard in the vicinity of the Oval. Perhaps the Cock-lane ghost is revisiting the glimpses of the moon. Anyway, there are the pebbles, and there’s no accounting for them.
South London Press, 28th February 1903.