Leybourne Road was longer than where Leybourne Street is now
The Chalk Farm “Ghost”.
An interview with the tenants of No. 4 Leybourne Road.
For the past three months there has been a rumour afloat that No. 4 Leybourne road, Chalk Farm, was haunted. For some weeks little or no attention was paid to the rumour, but during the past month the house has become notorious as a place in which some spectral visitant has chosen to appear and to play tricks of a kind that are alleged to be unattributable to natural laws.
A representative of the St Pancras Gazette has succeeded in seeing Mr Parker, the tenant of the house, from whom he learned the special forms in which the ghost had disported itself. Mr Parker, by the way, is a railway porter, and his appearance and manner bore out the character that was given to our representative by the neighbours: that he is a steady and industrious man, with little experience of life beyond the path trodden by him in daily work, quite content with his lot, and the last man, apparently, to create a sensation for the sake of publicity. He is about 40 years of age, with a large family, has lived at No. 4 Leybourne road for the last 15 years, and our representative learned on the authority of the landlord’s agent, Mr Martin, 31 Lady Somerset road, that he had regularly paid his rent. We mention this, as unfounded statements have been made in the neighbourhood with a view to account for the supposed phenomenon.
Mrs Parker was present at the interview which our representative had with Mr Parker, and this lady was very communicative on the subject. Both were remarkably cool and collected, and answered the questions put to them by our representative in a perfectly straightforward manner.
When, asked our representative, does this ghost appear? Mrs Parker: At all times of the day. It strikes my children; throws stones at them; keeps them awake at night.
Our Representative: Can you see anything at these times? Mrs Parker: You can see the hand at work under the bedclothes. The stones are thrown from the back, and they are so thrown as to “shave” the faces of the children without hurting them. Mr Cunliffe Smith, the organist of Holy Trinity Church, Clarence road, has seen a bruise on the face of one of the children caused by these stones. Mr Boodle, the Verger, has also been to th ehouse, and one of the curates, and they would tell what they had seen and heard.
Mr Parker hereupon volunteered the statement that he had been struck by one of these stones on the back of the head.
But was it possible, inquired our representative, that the stones could have been thrown by some one in the street? – Impossible! ejaculated Mr and Mrs Parker together.
Mr Parker, in order to strengthen his contention that the hand that threw the stones was a supernatural one, proceeded to a room at the back of the house, and returned with a stone, which he said was a most uncommon one, and must have been brought from a distance. (The stone appeared to our representative to be a hard flint, of a kind largely used in making up the roadways of the parish). A number of the stones, Mr Parker said, had disappeared from the drawer in which they had been placed.
In answer to the question as to the length of time since these manifestations first appeared, Mr and Mrs Parker said two years, but they had been of late much more frequent than formely, until it had become impossible to live in the house. Two of the elder children, they added, had to be sent away from the house, as the “ghost” had “a spite” against them, and was continually striking them. Both Mr and Mrs Parker said they would be delighted to leave the house if the landlord’s agent would let them go.
Our representative here enquired whether the “ghost” had made, as reported, a hole in the ceiling, and whether that hole was in the shape of a coffin. The reply he received was an indignant repudiation of the accuracy of the statement; the “ghost” had done nothing of the kind. True, a portion of the ceiling in the passage had fallen down, but neither Mr nor Mrs Parker believed that this was the work of the “ghost,” although Mrs Parker added, with a significant wink, that the ceiling fell down at the stroke of midnight a fortnight ago.
Have any of the lodgers, enquired our representative, seen any of these ghastly signs you speak of? – Mrs Parker: Yes, they have heard the noises, and one of them saw something – it was standing in the passage, and was in form like a man wearing a tall hat. It suddenly disappeared. It was not dressed in knickerbockers and a tunic, as reported.
Have you been studying the subject of spiritualism, Mr Parker? – Mr Parker: No, not until these things occurred, and then I had one or two mediums come to the house, but they were afraid to stay in it.
Our representative wished Mr and Mrs Parker “Good-day,” and subsequently went to Holy Trinity Church, where he found Mr Boodle actively engaged in his duties as Verger of the church. He admitted that he had been to Leybourne road, and had heard some peculiar noises which he did not think could be attributed to the rats under the floor of the room. This had been suggested, as these noises had only been heard in the rooms on the ground floor occupied by the Parkers. Mr Cunliffe Smith had interested himself in the matter, and this, perhaps, had given rise to the statement that the choir of the church had visited the house for the purpose of “laying the ghost.” This of course, was absurd. One of the curates (the Rev. Mr Smythe) had already visited the house purely out of curiosity. The clergy and all interested in the good order of the parish were most desirous that the story about the “ghost” should be exposed in all its absurdity.
Our representative afterwards had an interview with Mrs Martin, the wife of the house agent, who admitted that the rats had been a source of trouble, and that these peculiar noises might be caused by them. She thought that Parker was the victim of some designing person, and was sorry for him. She had taken a practical plasterer to the house to see the ceiling which had fallen down, and he was most strongly of opinion that it had been cut deliberately with a knife. It had been cut so as to resemble a coffin. She believed that there was a very simple explanation to the whole matter.
Many explanations are given in the locality, where Parker is well-known, and has a good record. In past years he has attended St Paul’s Chapel, Hawley road, Kentish Town, and several of his children, we understand, are scholars in the Sunday School attached to that place of worship. Two years ago his wife died, leaving him with five children, one of them deaf and dumb and mentally deficient, and very shortly after her decease the second Mrs Parker, who is many years younger than Mr Parker, appeared on the scene. The more ignorant of the neighbours firmly believe that the “ghost” is that of the first Mrs Parker, who has come from the dead with a message for her former husband. The second Mrs Parker has also several children by a former husband, and she has had a child since her union with Mr Parker.
These circumstances are much dwelt on by those who gather nightly round the house in hundreds, to the dread of the shopkeepers and peaceable citizens. It has been estimated that as many as 2,000 people have congregated on several nights in the Leybourne road and adjacent thoroughfares, and the presence of a strong force of police has been required to preserve order. As might be supposed the excitement intensifies after midnight. None of the neighbours, so far as we could ascertain, are prepared to say that they have seen the “ghost” or any of the outward signs of its visitations, but they all think there is “something mysterious” in it, although none of them have been permitted to enter the house and see for themselves. One is glad to find that in such a neighbourhood as that of which Leybourne road is a centre so much common sense prevails on a subject upon which the poor and ignorant are so likely to be led astray.
From our own investigations we are inclined to think that Mrs Martin hit the right nail on the head when she said that Parker was the victim of some designing person playing upon a simple and sensitive nature. We also came back from our enquiries strengthened in our conviction that in the spiritual domain, as in the natural world, great, harmonious, and beneficient laws prevail, and that, to harbour any belief that the spirits act in such an absurd manner as that described by Mr and Mrs Parker is as opposed to the teachings of common sense as it is to the teachings of science and of the Christian religion.
St Pancras Gazette, 1st July 1893.
A North London Ghost.
The “Sun” of July 3rd is responsible for this:-
I have not seen a ghost, writes a ‘Sun’ representative. But as I unfold my tale you will find that I have been brought face to face with as much evidence of the existence of a ghost as is usually granted to persons of a lower spiritual organisation. Leybourne road, where the ghost is said to be holding high revel by night, is certainly a dingy, commonplace region. The ‘haunted house’ itself is one of the usual three-storeyed, dull, bare brick and plaster edifices that make miles of London street as ugly and dreary.
If there be no ghost in Leybourne road I should be very glad to have an explanation of all I saw. The occupier of the house that may yet become famous is a decent-looking average type of a workman, shaven on the upper lip, with rather a hard face, and a thick brick-coloured beard. His wife is a quiet, inoffensive woman, whose chief care in life is evidently her domestic concerns. When I arrived she was beating the dust out of some well-worn mats on the doorstep.
The first thing that struck my attention was that several window panes in the front window had been broken, and apparently not from the outside, nor could I gain an explanation, save on the ghostly theory, as to how this damage had occurred. Not long ago a large portion of the ceiling in the passage fell down “at the stroke of midnight,” and next morning the hole as produced was found to have the exact shape of a coffin. Missiles are, I was told, continually being thrown about in the house by some unseen agency, but the intention in these manifestations seems to be less that of injury than of warning. The stones, or whatever they may be, are so cast as to pass close to the faces of the children of the house without hurting them. The tenant himself, however, received a severe blow from a stone which couldn’t possibly have been hurled at him by anyone in the street. Naturally he and his family are very much perturbed in mind over these matters, and though he will not commit himself to any guess as to the meaning of the mystery, Mr Parker – for that, I believe, is his name – by no means relishes the sceptism of some of his visitors. Naturally the news of these manifestations has caused a certain excitement in the spiritual world, and numbers of mediums have hastened to the scene with the intention of gaining some striking evidence of the existence of the ghost, or possibly some form of message. One of the neighbours, indeed, offered the opinion that it was not a ghost at all, but a “spirit.”
Mr Boodle, the verger of Holy Trinity Church, Kentish Town, is said to have prayed in the house for some explanation, but the opinions as to the results of his seekings are very contradictory.
The inhabitants of the entire district have had their keenest interest aroused by the mysterious occurrences, and night after night thousands congregate in and about Leybourne-road looking for a “sign” and seeking an explanation. The most wild, absurd, and contradictory theories are afloat, but my own mind is very far from being decided. At any rate, come weal or woe, I am determined, says the “Sun” representative, to “tear the heart out of the mystery,” and in the hope of a better opportunity for spiritual and apparitional manifestations being afforded in the stillness of the night have resolved to visit Leybourne-road unaccompanied, and as quietly as possible, this evening.
Light, 15th July, 1893.