‘Ghosts’ drive woman from her home.
Families disturbed at night by mysterious noises.
Do you believe in ghosts? No! Then find some other explanation for phenomena which have driven a Chatham woman away from her own house at night-time, and for the noises here neighbours have heard over 14 years. These two small, four-roomed, terrace houses in Magpie Road, Luton, are one of the last places one would expect to go ghost hunting, yet the owner of one of them, Mrs June Fisher, will not sleep there at night and has asked the Vicar of All Saints’ (the Rev. D. E. Jarvis) to exorcise it for her. Mrs Fisher, tall, well-built and healthy, and the mother of a two-years-old son, Robert, is not the sort of person to take fright easily. She is not afraid of the dark nor of being in a house on her own.
Next door to her, Mr John Tidman and his wife, Doreen, take almost for granted the noises they have heard on and off for 14 years, both in their house and hers. But they are in no doubt about the noises and do not believe they can be explained by anything like mice, tricks of the wind or any of the more obvious causes. Mrs Fisher bought her house last September and was quite content there for seven or eight months, sleeping by herself in the front room, from which the stairs lead directly down to the back sitting room, with a door at their foot. The baby, Robert, slept in the back room, the door of which opens off at right-angles to the stairs.
One night last April, Mrs Fisher awoke with a start to hear a rapping on her bedroom door, quite distinct, like someone knocking to come in. When she switched on the light, the sound stopped and she searched the house, but could find no one and no other possible cause for the noise. From then on, the noises became more and more frequent, never occurring before 11 p.m. and never after 5 a.m., and always stopping as soon as the light was put on. On occasions she slept in the back room, and then the rapping on the door was replaced by rapping on the walls of the room.
On one occasion when she was ill, Mrs Tidman spent the night with her, sleeping in the front room. “I heard the sound of knocking on the wall and thought it was Mr Tidman knocking for his wife,” Mrs Fisher told a reporter. “I called her and we could both hear it, but Mr Tidman was fast asleep next door.”
About two months ago, the door knocking began to increase in violence, although there were many nights without it, sometimes the intervals being as long as a week, sometimes just one night. “One night,” said Mrs Fisher, “it became really violent, as though someone was angry at not being let in, yet it stopped as usual when I put on the light. It got so that I could not go to sleep until after five o’clock in the morning.”
From then on the manifestations began to increase. First a small winding knob off a clock began rolling about under her bed. It had been lying quite securely on her dressing table, from where it was most unlikely to roll by itself. Even if something could have dislodged it from there, it would have only fallen off and rolled across the floor and come to rest. But Mrs Fisher says she heard it rolling to and fro under the bed for five minutes until she switched on the light. The next morning she found it under the bed.
The next development was when she heard the sound as of the door at the foot of the stairs being opened and footsteps walking up to her door, followed by the familiar knocking. Again, putting on the light stopped the sounds, and again, there was no one and nothing about to account for them. Then, the rapping began to sound on the very head of Mrs Fisher’s bed, close to her ear. Finally, she experienced feelings as though a hand were pushing at the mattress beneath her, from below, and she heard a sound as though one of the bed springs were being plucked. “I could hear the sort of note you would get from that and actually feel a sort of vibration from the spring,” she said. “At last I could stand it no longer. It seemed to be getting worse and I got the feeling that, sooner or later, I would actually see something. Ten days ago I stopped sleeping in the house and now spend every night at my mother’s house.”
Whenever Mrs Fisher reported the noises to her neighbours, the Tidmans, they made light of them and suggested she was imagining things. Only recently did they admit to her that they have heard noises ever since they moved into their house when they were married. “We have both lain in bed and heard footsteps come up our stairs and stop outside our door,” said Mrs Tidman. “They can’t be explained by saying that it was the sound of someone walking upstairs in the next house, because our stairs and Mrs Fisher’s are not next to each other. Her stairs are on the far side of her house from us.” Mr Tidman said they had at times heard noises from Mrs Fisher’s house rather like the sound of furniture being moved. When previous tenants lived in her house they heard the noises, although their neighbour was in hospital and her husband and sons living temporarily at Gillingham.
“The middle stair on our flight squeaks distinctly,” said Mr Tidman, “and you can only make it squeak by treading firmly on it. Every time we have heard the footsteps on our stairs, we have also heard the squeak from that middle stair. We tried to jolly Mrs Fisher out of it when she complained of hearing noises, and it was only recently that we told her that we had heard noises ourselves. We have got so used to it that we don’t take much notice.”
About two years ago, a Mrs Fagan, who has now moved to Southampton, lived in Mrs Fisher’s house. One morning she complained to Mr Tidman that she had heard noises from time to time, and that the night before she thought she had seen something like a form in her room.
Only last Wednesday Mr and Mrs Tidman’s sons, John, aged 14, and Michael, aged eight, were terrified by an odd experience which may or may not have any connection with the other manifestations. “We went out to play in the evening while mother and father were out. We put out the sitting room light, but when we came back it was on. We were frightened and searched all over the house, but there was no one about and no one could have got in the back way,” he said. “We put the light out and went out to play again, and when we came in again, after about a quarter-of-an-hour, the light was on again, and we were even more frightened.” Mrs Tidman said the electric light switch was modern and in good condition, with a strong spring, so that it was unlikely to have dropped on by accident. There was no doubt that the boys had had a fright, she said.
These are not the sort of houses which lend themselves to having a ghost legend built round them, and the only sort of sinister connection with them which Mr and Mrs Tidman have heard from their parents is a rather vague story of a man having committed suicide in their house by cutting his throat in the cellar.
Tomorrow night, Mr Frederick Sanders, the well-known local ghost-hunter, is to spend the night in Mrs Fisher’s home with an assistant, in an effort to find some explanation.
Maidstone Telegraph, 12th August 1955.
The Case of the Frightened Lady.
Vital clue is missing at Luton house.
By Fredk. Sanders.
It all began as a simple ghost-story. Doors opening and closing; footsteps on the stairs; the sounds of knocking on a bedroom door, and the forcible rattling of the lock. The story attaches to a small four-roomed terrace house in Magpie Hall Road, Luton, Chatham, the scene of “ghostly” incidents which began during April and continuing over various lapses of time up to the end of last month, when the supernormal appeared to be getting full command of the normal and so drove Mrs June Fisher and her two-years-old little boy from the house.
Mrs Fisher, the “frightened lady”, spent subsequent nights at her parents’ home in Ernest Road, Chatham, though continuing resident during day-time at her own home. Mrs Fisher, a couple of weeks ago, approached the Rev. D.E. Jarvis, Vicar of All Saints’, Chatham, as to whether he would hold a service at her home to help exorcise the “earth-bound spirit” presumed to haunt the premises. The offering up of suitable prayers and the sprinkling of Holy Water has been found to have driven away unwanted “spirits” from haunted places on many occasions in the past. It is an act of faith of “haunted” persons, through that great mediator, the Church, with their God.
I was approached recently by the Vicar of All Saints’ regarding the matter of the “haunted” lady, with the view that I should carry out an investigation into the peculiar phenomena from the scientific angle and based on some 20 years in actual field-work with psychical phenomena. Later, if the need arises, then a service of exorcism may be carried out by the church.
So on Saturday evening, at 7.30 p.m., four of us took over the house, where we were to spend the night round to at least 5.0 a.m. Sunday morning. Shortly after the scheduled time, Press photographer Mr D. Curling, Mr Duncan Rand, a young student (on his first investigation), and myself gathered in the living room of the haunted house to work out a plan of campaign and to accustom ourselves to the atmosphere of the place. The rooms, including the dampish, musty-smelling cellar, were checke; also doors, windows, and the gas and water-piping systems. A survey of the surrounding buildings was made, including the nearby railway bridge above the beginning of Magpie Hall Road.
Throughout the night and the early morning hours the muted sounds of occasional cars and lorries from nearby highways were heard within the house. Now and again the passing of a train over the bridge filtered into the darkened house. From the time we entered this “ghost” residence, until we left at six o’clock Sunday morning, nothing happened – except on the STAIRS!
Here, in the quiet darkness, the normal type of super-normal happenings was transcended by a new phenomena. The stairway of the house was our focal point, the place where we hoped to “lay” the ghost. For when the stairway door leading from the living-room is closed, adn the two bedroom doors shut fast, each situated upon the tiny landing, the stairway is fully enclosed, and up these stairs the “ghost” MUST ASCEND. Once again the taking of temperature readings played a great, and, I must say, very significant part.
Let me state here and now that the whole of this house appears to be happy and friendly and far removed, apparently, from being the haunt of some unseen presence of which only its footfalls are heard and the sounds made by the alleged opening of the stairway door and the knocks upon the front bedroom door atop the stairs. At seven minutes after midnight a first reading showed a temperature of 70 degrees halfway up the stairs. At 25 minutes past it was the same. At 12.30 Mr Rand went into the darkened front bedroom, while Mr Curling and the young student stayed in the blacked-out living room. I took up my position halfway up the stairs, everything being in total darkness.
From 12.30 until 1.34 a.m. this vigil continued. During this time traffic noises filtered through. The first reading for temperatures was checked at 12.45 and it showed a rise of half-a-degree above 70. Five minutes later it was at 71.0. At 12.55 I became aware of a very light flow of air up the stairs upon my face and arms and hands. I was sitting without my jacket, with arms exposed. From 12.59 up to 1.34 a.m. the temperature on the stairs rose from 71 degrees to 72.5. So in 35 minutes, and at a time when normally the temperature should have been dropping, it rose by 1.5. In the last 12 minutes it went up by 1.3 degrees. During this session on the stairs I had not, as might have been expected a feeling of depression or of chilliness, but one of friendliness, comfort and a very definite mental clearness.
Usually, a “ghostly” presence, whether seen or not, brings about a fall in temperature, but here I had a gradual rise and, towards the end, a sharp increase. Here was phenomena transcending the “normal” as applied to things psychic! The “slight movement” of the air current was steady until 1.29, when it became colder for a short while (this when the temperature was at 72 degrees). After this it became cool but not cold, and the air-flow alternated from cool to slightly warm over the last five minutes, when a break was called and we all gathered in the living-room.
Mr Rand reported all quiet in the front bedroom. It had been normal for sound on the stairs. The two occupants of the living room stated that all had been well. From three o’clock a.m. until 5.0 a.m., when the investigation ended, Mr Rand and the youngest member of our party remained in the living-room, in darkness, and had nothing out-of-the-ordinary to report.
During this spell I was in the front bedroom and nothing untoward happened – BUT ON THE STAIRS – Mr Curling, who took the temperature recordings during this final phase, heard, as if coming from the house next door, a female voice call, “Joe, Joe!” and a gutteral male voice answering, of which no words could be made out. This was at 4.30 a.m. Might the “gutteral” sound have been made by a noise in the water pipes system? The words “Joe, Joe!” must be left on the record, though no-one named “Joe” lives either side of the “haunted” house.
The temperature underwent a change from 71 degrees at 3 a.m. to 70.5 at 3.20, remaining at this figure until 3.50 when it was up by half a degree and continuing constant until 5 o’clock, when the “hunt” was called off. The stairs had been our agreed “pin-point” and it was upon those stairs where very peculiar phenomena happened.
Is this house haunted? If it is then the “evil” is far out-weighed by the “good”; so much so that it is is hard to define anything of a frightening nature about the house. It is a very friendly atmosphere which pervades this little terrace house.
The noises Mrs Fisher has heard in her bedroom at times between 11 o’clock p.m. and 5 o’clock a.m. have always been immediately dispelled when she has switched on the electric light. With the light has come comfort and a feeling of security – the “companionship” of things under normal circumstances. Light, it appears, drives away the dread “something.” My casebook notes show conflictions, doubts, fears… fears beginning to increase to the border-line of the morbid.
There is a vital clue missing and we have been unable to find it. Mrs Fisher has been unable to supply the one link to connect up a simple ghost-story with its psychological background. This has turned a seemingly normal “haunting” into a baffling little mystery. Perhaps this investigation, and the break Mrs Fisher has had recently from her presumed “haunted” house may set things back to normal and put events into correct perspective. Something, during last April, caused the effect. What was that “something”? It is this missing vital clue – the key to everything that has happened from then until a few short weeks ago. Only this clue is needed and it seems lost in that vast hinterland loosely called the subconscious – only “the frightened lady” can supply this clue and she, so far, has been unable to recall it.
Footnote – Mrs Fisher has now returned to sleep at her own home every night – not because she believes the mystery to have been solved or the ghost dispelled, but simply because it is no longer convenient for her to stay at her mother’s home. She still keeps th elight on at night as a safeguard against the knockings, not yet feeling ready to face the idea of sleeping in the dark, in case they are resumed. “Perhaps when I have been back for a while,” she said, “I will try being without the light, but not just for the present.”
When the Vicar of All Saints’ (the Rev. D. E. Jarvis) returns to the parish from holiday and before he retires, Mrs Fisher will ask him to hold a service in the house in an effort to “lay” the ghost.
Chatham, Rochester and Brompton Observer, 19th August 1955.
‘The Case of the Frightened Lady’.
New line of investigation into Luton mystery.
A dramatic note on the recent alleged mysterious happenings in a tiny dwelling house at Magpie Hall Road, Chatham, comes this week from Mr Frederick Sanders, well-known local psychical investigator. Mr Sanders, who investigated the happenings at the house concerned, now says that a new line of inquiry has brought him up against the Unknown Quantity, or “X” as he prefers to label it. The outcome of these inquiries, he says, “may prove that which I have diligently sought over the past 20 years of psychical research.” Here is his report in full on the latest aspect of his inquiries into the Magpie Hall Road mystery.
Since the ghost-hunt of the night of August 13th-14th, very little has happened regarding the noises and footsteps in a terrace house in Magpie Hall Road, Luton, Chatham. Mrs June Fisher, who lives in this reputedly haunted house, has only heard knockings on one subsequent occasion. These occurred at about 11.30 p.m. on August 18th. Since then no more manifestations have taken place up to the time of writing. Everything at the moment can be said to be “All Quiet” in this dwelling of mysteriously weird happenings.
Yet something, unable to be included in the report of the ghost investigation recently published in the Observer, on account of its being under examination, has now turned the “simple little ghost yarn” of a few weeks back into one of the most baffling and highly interesting investigations of my career. It has now swung from “The Frightened Lady”, to bring the uncanny into th elives of people in this district, in London, and even outside England. At the moment this “something” I am labelling “X,” the Unknown Quantity. Private research has not ceased since “X,” the unknown, was made apparent, and I am continuing with these probings until I have satisfied myself one way or the other that “X” definitely is “something” from outside that which we call the realms of mortal existence. The outcome of the findings now in hand and those that may be found in the very near future, may prove that which I have diligently sought, helped by scientific investigation, over the past 20 years of psychical research.
Chatham, Rochester and Brompton Observer, 16th September 1955.
New clue in “frightened lady” case.
Mysterious noises may have psychic explanation.
By Fredk. Sanders.
Here is the latest information on the “haunted” house occupied by Mrs J. Fisher, at Magpie Hall Road, Chatham:
After the “ghost hunt” and investigation of Saturday night, August 13th, and the early morning of Sunday, 14th, Mrs Fisher took up full residence again as from Sunday night, August 14th. From then until 11.30 p.m. Thursday night, August 18th, all was normal.
At 11.30 of the 18th, while in her front bedroom, and awake, Mrs Fisher heard two very distinct “knocks” upon the wall dividing this room from the smaller back bedroom. The “knocks” came from the back room. Mrs Fisher spent the rest of the night in the living room. Friday night was a normal night.
Beginning as from last Saturday night, Mrs Fisher will keep a record for the next few weeks of anything presumed to be supernatural that may occur in the house. The day, the time, and as near as she can define the noises or other phenomena that might possibly take place.
After hearing the two “knocks” alluded to, Mrs Fisher had a sense of “suffocation.” It is now revealed that Mrs Fisher tends towards being “psychic” in that she has feelings at times of tragedy, illness and good luck regarding friends and relatives that will happen “some time” in the future. Mrs Fisher’s mother is also of “psychic” tendancies, similar to her daughter. These have been mostly to do with illness. On one occasion Mrs Fisher’s mother “felt” that something was the matter with her daughter. This was several years ago, when Mrs June Fisher was serving in the W.R.A.C. and she wrote to her Commanding Officer about it. She was informed that her daughter was very ill and in hospital just at that time.
A very useful clue has come to light. Mrs J. Fisher now recalls that when she heard the knocks upon her bedroom door for the first time (shortly after 11 o’clock one night in April), she took no particular notice of them except as a “psychic” warning. Can it be that since then, this now quite frightened lady has (unconsciously) unknown to herself “waited” for further knockings? If so, then any form of “knock,” tapping, presumed footsteps, movements of all kinds, have been made fully aware to her conscious mind happenings of which she would not have noted normally.
If so, then these have gradually built up a high state of nervousness, and after dark even normal sounds have taken on the cloak of something weird and out-of-this-world.
Mrs Fisher is definite in her own mind that if a service of exorcism is held the restless spirit will depart from her home. She is also definite that the “haunting” is caused by a “him” not a “her,” or by what is generally termed “by it,” to describe something not quite describable.
I think that all who have been on this case are looking forward to the service of exorcism and its effect. Putting everyday psychology and the abnormal to one side, this does look as if intervention on the part of the Church can bring about a spiritual miracle. There is a good case for the casting out of “devils,” if this unnatural phenomena this lady has so long encountered can be summed up under that heading.
Chatham, Rochester and Brompton Observer, 26th August 1955.
The “Frightened Lady” Again.
More mysterious happenings at Luton house.
Taps, knockings, lights, and the loaf that stood on end.
Mysterious noises and happenings are reported to have again manifested themselves in the house at Magpie Hall Road, Chatham, occupied by Mrs June Fisher. Mrs Fisher is the central figure in what has become known as “The Case of the Frightened Lady.” Mr Frederick Sanders, well-known local expert in psychical research, has carried out investigations at the house, and Mrs Fisher has asked that the premises shall be exorcised by the Church authorities. Here is Mr Sanders’ latest report on the case:
The small, terrace house, in Magpie Hall Road, Luton, where the “Frightened Lady” of this case, Mrs June Fisher, resides, is gradually becoming a place of accumulating psychic happenings. After a break of several weeks, knockings again resumed their peculiar manifestations. The lock on the front bedroom was again violently shaken. These events occurred at two o’clock in the morning of October 2nd. Both Mrs Fisher and a woman friend who is staying with her heard these knockings, and also some continuous light taps. Then there appeared, in the bedroom on one side, a large patch of pale light, about five feet high and 18 inches in diameter. It suddenly disappeared, only to reappear, all at once, on the opposite side of the room. It was in the room, not being upon the walls or polished furniture, as a reflection. Afterwards, smaller patches of ghostly light flickered around the small fireplace, to disappear at the same time as the noises ceased.
So in this, now quite possibly “most-haunted house in Luton,” we have had ghostly knocks, tappings and rattlings; the sound of spectral voices and the appearance of seemingly supernatural “forms” in the shape of weird lights. Mrs Fisher has also experienced “choking” sensations and the dread that “something” might manifest itself in some supernormal shape or after-life form.
On my first visit to the house, with the Rev. D.E. Jarvis, my fully-wound wrist watch stopped as soon as I crossed the threshold of this uncanny residence. Last Friday evening, while taking notes on the latest disturbances, as given to me by Mrs Fisher and her friend, a loaf of bread, in its wrapping, on a nearby table (in the living room) moved, then stood lengthways on end and dropped with a dull plop back upon the table.
A full report will shortly be ready that may not only amaze but keep the people of the Medway Towns guessing, and given them food for speculation for a long time to come, concludes Mr Sanders.
Chatham, Rochester, and Brompton Observer, 14th October 1955.
Mystery of the Opening Door
And ‘ghostly’ fingers in the night
Are latest phases in the Chatham ‘haunting’.
If you are sitting in an ordinary living room, listening to the broadcast of an international football match, and a closed door suddenly opens for no reason, the obvious reaction is to imagine that it could not have been properly shut, and to get up and close it firmly. Even if this happens in a house reputed to be haunted, you are not likely to be very disturbed – at first. But what if the performance is repeated exactly two minutes later and you close the door even more firmly and check to see that the latch has caught properly? And if this happens in exactly the same fashion yet another two minutes later? Wouldn’t your flesh begin to creep?
On Wednesday evening, writes a reporter, I met a young woman – who wishes to remain anonymous – to whom this had happened only an hour or so earlier in the ‘haunted’ Magpie Hall Road, Chatham, home of Mrs June Fisher, where mysterious manifestations have been going on for nearly eight months. “I was listening to the football match (Scotland v. Wales) and was not looking at the door any of the times when it happened,” she said. “Each time I just heard the door open and looked up to see it swinging open. It opened about four or five inches and then swung back again until it was almost closed. Each time I got up and shut the door I made quite sure that the catch had caught. I didn’t take any notice the first time, but when it happened twice more I got really scared.”
The door which was opening was that which leads out of the sitting room up to Mrs Fisher’s bedroom, opening directly on to the stairs up which Mrs Fisher has previously reported the sound of footsteps, preceding a furious knocking and rattling at her door.
I examined the lock on the door on Wednesday evening to see if there was any possible chance of it opening accidentally. The spring is strong and the catch moves easily. A dozen experimental attempts showed that it is impossible with this lock for the catch to jam in any way and later allow the door to swing open. In addition, the hanging of the door is good so that in any position it stays where it is put, unlike some doors which will swing open or close owing to bad alignment of the hinges.
The young woman was spending the day with Mrs Fisher, who was out at the time, and had hitherto been quite sceptical about any ghostly manifestations. For Mrs Fisher herself, these have become far less frequent, but have also changed their character.
One day, about a fortnight ago, she felt what seemed like a cold hand touching her face as she sat in an armchair and which went on as she moved from chair to chair in an effort to escape it. This occurred late in the evening, and when she went to bed the ghostly touch followed her there and she felt it several times on her back before it desisted. Another recent manifestation was the sudden clashing of a row of saucepans hanging from hooks in the kitchen as they swung violently against each other for no apparent reason. “Sometimes I can sense a presence in the room even if there is nothing to see or hear,” said Mrs Fisher. In the meantime, she goes on living in the house, frightened as she is at times. Would you?
Chatham, Rochester, and Brompton Observer, 11th November 1955.
‘The Most Haunted House in Kent’
says Mr Sanders of Mrs June Fisher’s Chatham home
But he has a new theory to account for some of it.
Last week we reported the latest unusual happenings in the “haunted” house at Magpie Hall Road, Chatham, occupied by Mrs June Fisher. A visitor to the house last Wednesday afternoon told of the unaccountable opening on several occasions of a door that had been securely fastened. Mrs Fisher herself told of experiencing what seemed like a cold hand touching her face as she moved about the house.
Mr Frederick Sanders of Chatham, an expert in psychical research, who has been investigating the case for several months past, now says that this is “the most haunted house I have ever encountered in some 20 years of ghost hunting in all parts of Kent. It has everything known to scientific psychical research.” The most recent happenings (of the door and the hand) add complexity to the already accumulated “ghost” phenomena that has manifested itself during the past eight months, he says.
These, Mr Sanders details as follows: Knocks, bumps, thumps, bangs, scratchings, scrapings, sounds of footsteps and voices, rattlings, whirrings, shakings, the unaided movement of pots and pans and a loaf of bread, the opening of a door, the touch of freezing fingers, the plucking of bed mattress springs, the violent handling of the lock of a bedroom door, the glow of small, swiftly moving lights.
The appearance of a human-like form derived from a phosphorescent emanation, and the extraordinary appearance of two different “spirit” faces captured by flashlight photography. To these, says Mr Sanders, must be added the movement of small objects from the dressing table in Mrs Fisher’s bedroom, and the weird feeling that some unseen presence moves about from room to room, as if in permanent residence.
Since August, Mr Sanders has been carrying out “back room” research into the phenomena encountered in what he describes as “this home-from-home of lost phantoms.” To check up on his “boffins” conclusions he consulted last Saturday morning, the Borough Surveyor’s department at Chatham Town Hall. His object was to correlate the theories he had formed about the house. He was able to examine maps showing the position of houses and underground flood-water and sewerage systems in the Magpie Hall Road area. He was also able to glean certain technical information relative to these systems. From this, he says, he was able to form a very good understanding of much of the phenomena made apparent in Mrs Fisher’s home.
He had hoped that an explanation would lie in the sudden passage of a great volume of flood water through a very wide pipe route below the area. This theory was abandoned when he learned that the great flood-water conduit installed many years ago runs nowhere near the “haunted” house. And such underground pipes as there are in the vicinity would not carry water in such a way as to cause movement by vibration. But this apart, continues Mr Sanders, water can play a very great part in the “haunting” of houses.
“In older properties, such as that at Magpie Hall Road, where foundations may be sinking or damp courses almost destroyed, the downward movement of the foundations causes the house to sink, thereby putting terrific pressure on the framework of doors and windows. The passing of heavy traffic, such as large passenger buses in a narrow thoroughfare, will set up strong vibrations, cuasing rattling and creaking of such windows and doors. Where these vehicles, at speed, pass over depressions in a road, the resultant shocks will cause house brickwork to ‘jump up’ , thereby allowing doors and windows under compression, when the tension is momentarily taken off, to open of their own free will. In the case of old foundations, where damp courses are almost destoryed, prolonged periods of stormy weather tend to absorb moisture and to swell, so causing peculiar structural movements throughout a house. If this should occur in only part of the foundation, then that particular side of the house will be slightly higher than the rest. This is evidently what has occurred at Mrs Fisher’s ‘haunted’ house,” says Mr Sanders.
“The rattling and shaking of doors and windows and the sudden mysterious opening of a door is due to sinkage and extra vibration. The roadway here is not too wide, and the passage of heavy vehicles causes much of the ‘ghost’ phenomena. In 1908 it was said of Louis de Rougemont’s amazing adventures that ‘Truth is stranger than Fiction, but de Rougemont is stranger than both.’ We can now say that the ‘House of the Frightened Lady,’ at Chatham, is stranger than all three!”
The Fisher House in Magpie Hall Road, Chatham, where many strange happenings have been reported in recent months.
Chatham, Rochester and Brompton Observer, 18th November 1955.