Does a ghost filter through the House of Bewley?
Strange things have been happening at the House of Bewley, the tobacconists, in Eastgate Street, and now the firm are to seek the help of a medium in an effort to exorcise the spirit which they believe has been disturbing the peace of the shop. Manageress, Mrs L. Jones, said she and her staff first became aware of unusual goings on about 12 months ago when they simultaneously turned to serve a customer they thought had come into the shop. “There was no-one there, but it was uncanny that we all experienced the same reaction,” she said.
The next day a picture crashed to the ground and it was discovered that the screw had been cut in half. Then a huge stud from the old-fashioned door fell out. These incidents were followed by sequences of bad luck in the personal lives of the staff, but then it seemed the atmosphere lifted and all was well.
But about the same time this year – a fortnight ago – the “spirit” was once more moved. The same picture fell and it was again found that the screw had been cut, the same stud fell out of the door and a peculiar wailing noise came from the centre of the shop. Customers, as well as staff, have heard it and no rational explanation can be found.
Mrs Jones said the staff have become very frightened and two assistants were terrified when stamping started int he room above. The matter has been reported to the firm’s head office and they are hoping a medium will be found who can rid the shop of its mysterious trouble maker.
Cheshire Observer, 24th January 1969.
Clergyman called to a shop ghost.
A Chester clergyman is to be approached in a bid to exorcise a spirit which has terrorised members of staff for the past twelve months at a tobacconist’s shop. An investigation by two experienced mediums at the shop, in Chester Eastgate Street, has established the existence of a psychic phenomenon.
Miss Lilah Jones, the manageress, said yesterday: “The situation has become progressively worse over the past few months. My staff are terrified to go anywhere alone in the store, and even my customers have heard noises.” Mrs Jones and her staff have explored every possible explanation in an attempt to solve the problem.
A Chester vicar commented: “The Bishop would have to be approached before any action could be taken, but there have been instances where the Church has been called in to exorcise a spirit.”
Staff at the House of Bewlay shop first became conscious of the spirit’s existence when they turned to serve a customer they thought had entered the shop but found no one. This was followed by a series of unnerving “happenings”, including a picture crashing to the floor, bolts popping out of an oak door and repeated wailing and stamping sounds throughout the building.
Liverpool Daily Post (Welsh Edition), 31st January 1969.
Ghost customer terrifies salesgirls.
A Bishop is to be asked to banish a “phantom customer” from a city tobacconists. The phantom is terrifying salesgirls in the shop in Eastgate Street, Chester, said Mrs Lilah Jones, manageress of the shop, which is built on the site of an ancient burial ground.
“The girls are terrified to go to the store room on their own. I got head office permission to call in a medium who says there is a strong presence. They have advised me to ask the bishop to exorcise the ghost. The girls have several times heard a customer come into the shop, gone to serve him – and there has been no one there. At other times heavy metal bolts have popped out of an oak door and there have been wailings all over the building. It’s very scary,” she said.
A diocesan spokesman said yesterday: “There is a service designed for this purpose and we are having an increasing number of calls. The thing for the ladies to do is to get in touch with the rector of their parish who will consult the bishop.” The Bishop of Chester is the Right Rev. Gerald Alexander Ellison.
Newcastle Journal, 3rd February 1969.
Bishop will talk about Sarah.
A senior representative of a tobacco firm is to meet the Bishop of Chester, Dr Gerald Ellison, shortly, to discuss Sarah, the spirit which has been frightening the all-women staff of the House of Bewlay at Chester. A spokesman at Bishop’s House said yesterday: “I can only comment that a meeting has been arranged between the Bishop and the area supervisor.”
North West area supervisor, Mr B.D. Crump of Finlay & Co. Ltd, owners of the tobacconist’s, has said he was not prepared to take any further action about exorcising the ghost until the Bishop had been consulted.
Sarah, the nickname given by the staff to the phenomenon, is said to have thrown a picture frame to the floor and repeatedly kicked a bolt out of an oak door. The staff have also heard stamping and wailing sounds from various parts of the Eastgate Street store.
Liverpool Echo, 7th February 1969.
“Hail to thee, blithe spirit…”
Witch offers to confront ghost.
Efforts by the House of Bewlay to rid their Eastgate Street shop of its ghost, include approaching the Bishop of Chester (Dr G.A. Ellison) to exorcise the spirit and an offer from a witch to tackle it.
But there may be a more rational explanation for the wailings, stamping sounds, and unusual happenings which have been upsetting staff at the shop. For building work being carried out to the rear of the premises and alterations at Chester Cathedral (linked to St John’s Church by a tunnel which runs under the shop) could, it is felt, cause some of the disturbances.
As well as the noises, unexplained incidents include pictures falling from walls and studs falling from the door.
Chester housewife and self-styled consultant witch, Mrs Marjorie Barrett, of Chichester Street, offered her services after reading about the ghost, which she believes is an elemental that acts like a child. And the best method of dealing with them, she says, is to get them to manifest and “give them a good telling off.” Then she would make the spirit, which she believed was a girl aged about 13 or 14, return its yet “undiscovered realms.”
Cheshire Observer, 7th February 1969.
How a ghost is exorcised.
The next move in the strange affair at the House of Bewlay (a tobacconist’s at Chester, not a creaking mansion) will be to ask the Bishop of Chester for his advice about the ghost known as Sarah. She first made her presence felt a year ago in the shop in Eastgate Street when three members of the staff were sure someone came in. But there was nobody there. The next day a picture fell off the wall. And noises as if someone was walking and crying about the place from time to time.
Exorcism is the Church’s ultimate answer to such occurrences. Mr Barry Crump, area supervisor for the firm which owns the tobacconists, says: “I just want the Bishop’s advice. But if he feels exorcism is warranted we will be happy.” Exorcism is a comparatively rare event although as more than one clergyman has tol dme it is less rare than is generally believed. Still most clergymen reach the end of their careers without ever being called upon to perform the ceremony. At one time people were exorcised too. But what Roman Catholics call “solemn exorcism” of people – the casting out of devils which was standard treatment for the mentally ill in medieval times – is virtually never practised in England to-day.
Neither the Church of England nor the Roman Catholic Church has an official service for exorcising a place. The usual procedure is that the house or building is blessed and prayers are said for the people who live or work there to be safeguarded from evil. The Church of England borrows or adopts the prayers used by the Roman Catholic Church, although they are also used by other churches too. Usually Scriptural passages are read and prayers offered for the deliverance of the people in the house from any spiritual manifestations there might be. But, as the Bishop of Liverpool, the Right Rev. Stuart Blanch, says: “The form the service takes rests almost entirely with the person who takes the service.”
Canon Edwyn Young, Rector and Rural Dean of Liverpool, who has performed services which might be regarded as exorcism ceremonies – cases where there has been a sense of unhappienss in a place rather than flying cups and saucers and strange noises – said: “I have gone there quietly and said some prayers and sprinkled some holy water three tiems. There is no guarantee that in each case there was a ghost there .I have never actually seen a ghost. My cases have been occasions where there has been a sense of great unhappiness, perhaps a house where someone has at some time, committed suicide.”
It is not actually a sense of unhappiness that bothers the women at the House of Bewlay. It is more unnerving, frightening. There is the walking and, most of all, the crying – “like a woman in despair,” says Mrs Lila Jones, the manageress, who doesn’t believe in ghosts.
There seems to be one clue which is worth investigation. There is a picture, a 1926 reproduction showing a 16th-17th century family standing at the front of a house. It has, says Mr Crump, been found wrenched off the wall three times. “I moved the picture and it started off a high-pitched wailing noise which came from the other side of the shop. There is no logical explanation for the noise.”
Harold Brough.
Liverpool Echo, 8th February 1969.
The Chester tobacconist’s shop that is haunted by a restless and mischievous invisible spirit, has received offers from several people, including a “consultant witch”, to help exorcise the ghost. But there may be a rational explanation for the strange and mysterious sounds which make up part of the haunting. It is thought building work being carried out to the rear of the premises, and alterations at Chester Cathedral (which is linked to St John’s Church by a tunnel that runs under the shop) may account for some of the wailing and stamping sounds that have been frightening the staff.
Chester housewife and self-styled consultant witch, Mrs Marjorie Barrett believes the spirit is that of a girl aged about 13 or 14, however, and has offered her services in dealing with it. She may be right, about the identity of the spirit, and if so, how sad. The poor ghost is doomed to haunt a tobacconist’s – and yet is below smoking age!
Runcorn Guardian, 13th February 1969.
When Sarah comes for Christmas.
by Derek Whale.
The staff of a tobacconist’s shop in Chester are receiving a Christmas present which they fervently wish they could lose. Each winter, particularly around Christmas time, for the last three seasons, “Sarah,” a ghost or poltergeist, haunts the neat little shop in Eastgate Street, near to the old Roman Wall. One of the staff left because she was so terrified.
Sarah has again been heard by Mrs Lilah Jones, the manageress, and her colleagues, Mrs Evans and Mrs Davies. Doors open mysteriously, iron studs from a solid oak door pop out, a picture gets dashed to the floor, footsteps are heard and so are the sounds of a woman sobbing.
Customers, too, have heard the noises. Even Mrs Evans’s little dog has detected a ‘presence’ and has run about badly frightened. “An American lady was in the shop one day, when we heard Sarah walking on the landing,” Mrs Jones told me. “The customer was interested and went to the back of the shop to listen at the door. When the door opened of its own accord, she had a terrible shock. We had to give her brandy.”
The decorative door studs, Mrs Jones said, were often pulled out and left on the floor. She said that on one occasion the area supervisor for the shop had firmly fixed one of the studs in position, saying, “that will never move again.” But it did. “I always used to say I did not believe in ghosts. Now I do,” said Mrs Jones.
Mr Kenneth York a window dresser has also heard the strange noises and felt the room go ice-cold when Sarah was at large. He told me how cigarette packets on display were disarranged and thrown on the floor. And how Mrs Jones’s paper work, left neatly on the table on leaving the shop, would be scattered on the floor the next day.
A framed picture, a 1926 reproduction of a 17th century family standing at the front of a house, has been wrenched from the wall a number of times. “Even when we fixed it in different places, it was still pulled down,” said Mr York.
At one stage, a self-styled consultant “white witch,” Mrs Marjorie Barrett, who lived at Chichester Street, Chester, offered her serices to remove the restless spirit. She believes this to be an “elemental” which acted like a child. “And the best way of dealing with these,” she said, “is to cause them to manifest and then give them a good telling off.” Mrs Barrett said she would have protected herself with a mountain ash sprig and a five pointed star.
Meanwhile, Sarah, the Ghost of Christmas Past, is now apparently playing the role of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, for so far she has failed to materialise.
Mrs Lilah Jones (left) and Mrs Elizabeth Evans, with the picture which falls from the wall.
Liverpool Echo, 10th December 1971.