Council House “Ghost.”
A ghost is reputed to walk at Weedon. Mr C.E. Gibbes told Daventry R.D.C. today that he had been given the definite assurance that a council house, built to fill up a very old site in the village, was haunted. On Christmas Eve, he said, a spirit walked the room. Mr D.H. Jelley (chairman of the Housing Committee) suggested amid laughter, that this added amenity warranted an increase in the house rent.
Northampton Chronicle and Echo, 3rd January 1950.
New Council House for Weedon “Ghost”.
Who wants a haunted house? After two alleged visitations by the ghostly figure of a man, 63-years-old Mrs T Bicknell, of 31, Queen-street, Weedon, says she would move willingly if she could find another house. Ghosts are usually associated with ancient manors and moated granges, with their old panelling and secret passages, but this ghost inhabits a modern three-bedroomed red brick council house which was built only four years ago.
“I’ve never seen its face,” Mrs Bicknell told a “Mercury and Herald” reporter yesterday. “It had its back to me, glided through the hall and then disappeared.” Mrs Bicknell first saw the “ghost” three years ago. She had her late husband, Mr Thomas Bicknell – a man with 22 years service in the Royal Artillery and not given to imagining things – had just finished a game of cards when they heard a rustling and tapping noise coming from the direction of the hall. Their dog, a large Airedale-retriever, rose to its feet, raised its hackles and growled. Mr Bicknell went into the hall, but could see nothing. The dog went up the stairs, still growling, and his master followed. Again there was nothing, but as he turned to descend the stairs, he saw a ghostly figure glide through the hall, go into the kitchen and disappear. Mrs Bicknell, sitting in the living room, saw it too.
Mrs Bicknell, who had since lost her husband, again saw the ghost on Christmas Eve. “I was alone in the house,” she said, and had been asleep, when suddenly in the early hours something woke me up. Then I heard a sound like the rustling of paper and I called out, ‘Is that you, Bill?’ thinking it was my son. Getting no reply I got up and put on my dressing-gown, and went to the stairs. Then I nearly fell down them, for I thought there was a man in the hall. It was the ghost again. It glided through the hall, went into the front room and seemed to melt through the wall.”
Mrs Bicknell, who is the only tenant who has lived in the house, says she wishes she had never seen the house. “No-one will want to come and visit me now,” she says. “All the children stop and stare when they go by.”
When Mr C.E. Gibbes, representative for Weedon on Daventry Rural Council, told the council that a ghost had walked in Mrs Bicknell’s house on Christmas Eve, the chairman of the housing committee (Mr D.H. Jelley) commented, amid laughter, “This added amenity warrants an increase in the rent.”
Northampton Mercury, 6th January 1950.