Alleged haunted house in Cathles Road.
Amusing letters at Wandsworth County Court.
Considerable merriment was caused at the Wandsworth County Court on Monday, during the hearing by his Honour Judge Harlington of a claim brought by Thomas Henry Wrensted, a solicitor, of 63, Queen Victoria-street, E.C., against William Atkinson, of 109, Borough-road, S.E., for £10 13s. 4d. for rent in respect of 14, Cathles-road, Balham. Defendant’s wife appeared.
Mr Hanne, for the plaintiff, in opening, said the defendant’s wife objected to pay the rent of the premises. She alleged that the place was haunted by an old grey headed man and so she left the house and declined to pay the rent. She took the house for 12 months, but on Nov. 26, 1910, she left, alleging that she had been driven out by the old grey headed man.
His Honour (to Mrs Atkinson): Is he very disturbing to you? Mrs Atkinson: It was an old gentleman. He made it impossible for us to remain in the house.
What happened? I should rather like to know.
Mr Hanne interposed and said Mrs Atkinson had made the matter clear in two letters to the plaintiff. The first ran: I have been looking out for a house to suit me, as it is impossible for us to live in this house, it being haunted by an old grey-headed man. Some nights we have no rest for the noises in th ehouse. We have tried all the rooms to sleep in, but they are all alike. Big bangs come at the head of the bedstead and wake us up. One of my daughters had her face slapped one night. Some brass poles were thrown across the room. There was terrible banging at the head of the bed and pattering up and down stairs, and brass rods were put out of place one morning. When we have been quite quiet in more than one of the rooms big bangs have come at the door and frightened us all, especially my invalid daughter. Our dog is at times very restless, and last week she was let loose from her chain, the door unfastened, and she was let loose into the house. How, we do not know. We are obliged to light the gas and keep it on till daylight. I thought we might stay if we let to strangers. We have had some, but they could not rest in the place. I have not told anyone about it. Our nerves are all unstrung and we cannot live in it.
The second letter, written just after defendant left the house, ran: I forward the key and give up possession of that terrible, troubled house of yours. We left on Monday. We have had two good nights’ rest and we feel much better for it. It is a terrible loss to me as I had done so much, in fact everything to make the house comfortable, but it is impossible for anyone to live in it. Our experience has been something terrible up to the last night of our being there, and people we have had staying with us have complained very much at the terrible noise. The shadow of a man and woman have been seen by more than one person. Our dog has ceased howling. She is quiet at night. She howled from the first of our taking her into the house but she is all right now.
His Honour: Has the landlor investigated these mysterious appearances? Mr Hanne: We say we have never heard anything about these mysterious noises at all. These spirits might exist in the imagination of the defendant or they might be an acquisition to the house.
William Henry Lowe, a clerk in the employ of the plaintiff, gave formal evidence. The house, he said, was let at a yearly rent of £32 and was left empty by the defendant on November 26. The rent was due from November to March. Mr Hanne: Have you had trouble with previous tenants with these strange, mysterious appearances? Witness: It was empty from November to June.
Is it let now? Yes.
Have you had any complaints about spirits or ghosts? No.
No trouble at all? No.
Mrs Atkinson, questioned as to the whereabouts of her husband, said she did not know where he was. She had got him to sign the agreement when she took the house, as they would not let it to a woman. She was living apart from him. His Honour informed her that the plaintiff could not claim against her. She had no locus standi. They must claim from her husband.
Mrs Atkinson: I want to know if I can claim damages for annoyance. His Honour: You cannot claim damages at all. Mrs Atkinson: I have had to sell the things I put in th ehouse – the last things I had. One room was dreadful one night. We never used it. His Honour: I am sorry you should have been so much disturbed. His Honour gave judgment against Mrs Atkinson’s husband for the amount claimed.
South Western Star, 27th October 1911.
Ghosts in Balham.
No excuse for not paying rent.
At the Wandsworth County Court, Thomas Henry Wrensted, of Queen Victoria-street, London, E.C. sued William Atkinson, of Borough-road, S.E. for £10 13s. 4d., rent due for a house in Cathles-road, Balham. Mr Hanne, solicitor for the plaintiff, said the defendant alleged the house was haunted, so he left the house and declined to pay after taking the premises for twelve months.
Mr Hanne read a letter from Mrs Atkinson to the plaintiff, in which she satated that it was “impossible to live in this house, it being haunted by a an old grey-headed man. Some noises we have heard,” continued the letter, “give us no rest. We have tried all the rooms to sleep in, but they are all alike. Big bangs come at the head of the bedstead and wake us up. One of my daughters had her face slapped. One night some brass rails were flung across the room. There were terrible bangs at the head of the bed and patterings up and down stairs. Our dog whines, and it is very restless, and last week he was let loose, the back door opened, and the dog admitted to the house, by whom we do not know. We are obliged to light the gas as sson as there is the slightest doubt and keep it on till daylight. I think we might stay if we could get some strangers to live with us. The people we have here will not rest in the place. We have not told anybody about this. Our nerves are all unstrung, and we cannot live in it any longer.”
In another letter, in which she said she had given up possession of the house, Mrs Atkinson said: “Our experiences have been something dreadful. The shadows of a man and a woman have been seen by more than one person.”
The Judge said that a plea of ghosts could not be a successful reason for not paying the rent, and gave a verdict against the defendant.
St Pancras Gazette, 27th October 1911.
Ghosts and rent.
A landlord is not to be taken as giving an implied guarantee to the tenant that his house is free from ghosts. Upon that important principle the judge acted at the Wandsworth County Court. Otherwise we can be sure that the Atkinson’s family plea that they should not pay rent for the Balham house would have succeeded. For the old, grey-headed man who haunts the premises is quite a nasty old man. He makes terrible midnight bangs at the head of the beds, throws brass rails across the room, slaps the face of one of the Misses Atkinson, lets the dog in by the back-door at night, brings the shadow of a woman along with his own, and altogether behaves, as these venerable, grey-headed ghosts will, as if he were in his second childhood.
The point, however, obviously is that there is no proof that the ghost belongs to the landlord, or even to the premises. The Atkinsons signally failed, we gather, to prove that they did not bring him with them. There may be some evidence of a negative kind in the fact that the grey-headed spectre does not appear to have migrated with them from th ehouse to their present address in teh borough. But the landlord clearly could not be expected to know that Balham and the Atkinsons would produce such an explosive compound. What will happen if the next tenant is similarly plagued, we forbear to anticipate. – Pall Mall Gazette.
Belfast Telegraph, 27th October 1911.
A retiring sprite.
Balham is afflicted with ghosts. The grey-headed spook who was said to have treated the tenants of a house in Cathles Road with undue familiarity has retired to the Never Never Land in a pet, and refuses to give “manifestations” even to appealing spiritualists. The supplications of a handful of believers in spiritualistic phenomena have gone unheeded, though a dark room was specially prepared for his reception, and promises were given in ghostly language that his identity would be respected. there is, at any rate, no doubt that he has left the house which he never inhabited; but he will not be wooed by seekers of his ghostly acquaintance.
In a certain house in Cavendish Road a party of enthusiastic and intrepid spiritualists sat down on Wednesday evening round a table in a dark room muttering incoherent formulas to attract the attention of passing spirits. The prime object of the gathering was to get in touch with the grey-haired, homeless gentleman, but evidently it was not his night out.
A policeman standing on the kerb outside the house looking steadily at nothing promised to make a note of it if any one bearing a resemblance to a ghost came along, and, with this assurance, the company filed up the steps into the gloomy chamber.
A young lady with soul informed the gathering, when all were seated, that she had “come into contact” with a spirit suspiciously like the wanted one. “My bedroom door, which I had locked before retiring to sleep, was not opened during the night; yet I knew there was a presence in my room,” she said, pleasantly. “Let us attract this Balham ghost.”
Then some one turned out the light, and a voice at the head of the table chanted an incantation specially prepared for the occasion, and every one sat silent. After some minutes one of the circle fidgeted in his seat, but denied that he had any “symptoms” when questioned. One of the male sitters expressed the wish that he could have a smoke, but the remark was followed by a silence so terrible that he was sorry he had spoken, and was not heard to utter another word for the rest of the sitting. If the alleged Balham ghost did not come, however, another citizen of the unseen world made his presence felt.
His “appearance” was heralded by a statement from a member of the group that the form of a man was to be seen. “Has he a grey beard?” asked the company eagerly. “No, he is bald,” was the chilly answer. No one claimed the acquaintance of the hairless gentlemen, and he was allowed to pass as silently as he had come. By ten o’clock several spirits had been interviewed, but still there was no sign of the spook whose presence was called for. Every sitter strained his mental powers to the uttermost to attract him, but there was no response. A suggestion was put forward that perhaps Mr Stead’s “Julia” could find the spirit, but this was overruled, because Mr Stead was not at present in England, and it was held that in any case it was more likely that the desired presence would be in the neighbourhood of Balham.
Two more hours were spent in trying to locate him, but either because he was shy or in a huff the grey-headed one did not arrive, and when the lights went up the attempt ended, for that night at least. There is, however, a hope that if he lingers in the vicinity he may one night give to the patient watchers an explanation of his identity. Some sceptics who attended the circle were unconvinced, but they forgot that the night was chilly, and even a ghost does not care to rattle his bones in a fog.
Linlithgowshire Gazette, 3rd November 1911.