Pickup Croft was an area of mainly back-to-backs that was demolished for the bus station. https://www.bcthic.org/Articles/Pickup_Croft
The Parker’s Arms: https://redrosecollections.lancashire.gov.uk/view-item?i=278747&WINID=1649593680761&key=QnsiUCI6eyJpdGVtX2lkIjpbMjc4NzQ3XX0sIkYiOiJleUp6SWpwYk1Td3lMRFFzTTExOSJ9&pg=1 – so the house is one of those in the photo.
Mysterious Window Smashing.
An extraordinary and mysterious smashing of windows has been going on for some time in Pickup Croft. The house selected by the secret smasher for the operation – whether to gratify his malice or revenge, or for the mere fun of the thing – is the one occupied by Mr John Robinson, cabinet maker, in Croft-street, next door to the Parker’s Arms. His neighbour on the other side of him, Mr Daniel Higgin, saddler, has come in for a small share of the smasher’s regards; but the extent to which he has favoured Mr Robinson in this way warrants us in concluding that he is of special importance to the operator, and that the attention paid to Mr Higgin has been by the way, and just to satisfy any longing he might have for a share in the notoriety of the affair.
We have spoken of the smasher in the singular number, and as being of the male sex; the truth is, however, we know not whether there be but one, or many engaged in the work, – whether male or female; or both. And we do not undertake to say whether the party or parties concerned be “in the body or out of the body,” as very grave doubts on this point have been entertained among many who have gathered round the scene from time to time.
But to proceed – the back of the premises occuped by Mr Robinson faces into Pickup-street – the wall of the back yard forming one side of the street in the proportion of its length. It is to the chamber and kitchen windows overlooking the yard that the smashing has been directed. It began two or three weeks ago, but, as we understand, only a pane now and then – some few days elapsing between – was shivered. The operator seemed to be trying his hand and aim previous to a regular and grand smash which should astonish the neighbourhood.
Well, when, as we may suppose, the necessary discipline had been gone through, and all preliminaries settled, the projected and grand attack came last Saturday night. On that night there was a regular and continued cannonade – we ought perhaps to say “coal-ade,” as the missiles were from some “black diamond” heap; a few of them, we were told, were hissing hot from —“; we won’t mention the place with which the author of Festus finishes the line, but say, from the fireplace.
Mr Higgin was favoured with one of these warm tokens of esteem. Of course, there could not be a great crash of glass in the street without somebody being apprised of it besides the dwellers in the house attacked. When it occurred, the occupiers of the houses on the opposite side of the street rushed out to inquire what was the “row,” and who had suffered. While they stood wondering and surmising, smash went the windows again; and then the wonder rose to astonishment; for nobody could be seen at the work of demolition. And yet it went on in the presence of a crowd increasing continually from the top and bottom of the street, and from the neighbouring streets, as the news spread, until, at length, Pickup-street was nearly blocked up.
Police constables were sent for, as the breaking went on and nothing could be made of it; and the Peelers when they came looked cunning enough to have caught a weasel asleep, keeping their own eyes as wide open as they could, but all to no purpose. The smasher remained as invisible to their anointed optics – which, according to common report, can see where nobody else and what nobody else can see – as they themselves are said to be whenever there is a case demanding their presence. The constables dodged here and there and everywhere – in the yard close to the shivered windows – on the wall bounding the yard – in the attics of the houses on the opposite side of the street – and then out on the roof to look behind the chimneys in the hope of catching the offender lurking there. But they didn’t.
A piece of coal whizzed past the cheek of one of them, as he stood in the yard on the look out, and smashed the glass; but whence it came he could not make out. Another person who was in the yard declared that he saw a piece rise of itself from the coal heap there and make its way through the window. Here then was a fine mystery, and so if nothing earthly could be found to explain it, recourse must be had to the unseen world. And so the crowd talked of some unquiet spirit who owed the occupier of the house a grudge for some failure in packing him up for his “long home,” and had come back to pay him off.
The male spectators generally were, of course, in joking mood when they talked thus; but many of the women accepted the explanation seriously, and at last between the jokers and the superstitious the mystery grew into a “boggart” affair, and the Pickup-street Ghost became the general topic of conversation and comment through the town. Some few squares have been broken since Saturday night, – one or two in the daytime – and both day and night crowds have gathereed at the place, in the hope of seeing the operator at work, and, some of them no doubt, of being able to solve the mystery and grab his ghostship.
A day or two there was a reprt that all had been found out – the “boggart” bagged, and safely lodged in one of the cells at the police station. We hurried thither in the night time to get a sight of him, or at least to satisfy ourselves that he was taken. We found that the capture was a canard. The cells indeed were not empty; there was one solitary occupant, placed there to ruminate on his having loved “not wisely, but too well”; but no window smasher. We learnt subsequently what had probably given rise to the report of the capture of the offender. Somebody had suspected some other body of having something to do with the smashing, and the police had spoken to the suspected person on the subject. And so the suspicion had become a solution; out of this little truth the great lie of the capture had been manufactured.
The case stands as it did. Nothing is found out. The mystery remains. The smashing, we understand, has not been renewed for the last two or three days. The ghost may be satisfied with what he has done; or he may be meditating some new exhibition still more difficult and astonishing in itself, and still more annoying to his victim, than window breaking. When he comes forth again, in the old, or in a new character, “may we be there to see.”
Burnley Advertiser, 12th October 1861.