Spooked out! Mum flees home.
Haunted house built on site of old gallows.
By Andrew Kellock.
A young mother fled her council home because of spooky goings-on. The X-Files-style happenings struck at a house built on the site of an old gallows in Fraserburgh. Housing chiefs today admitted they were baffled by the claims – but people who have lived in and viewed the home say it left them spooked. Young mum Deborah Smith fled the Duke Street flat to live with relatives started screaming after her toddler son went rigid with fear and started screaming for [no] apparent reason. The 20-year-old had already been terrified by lights being switched on and off, doors being locked and the sound of furniture being moved.
Another person who considered moving into the property says she changed her mind as soon as she viewed it. Avril Lippe, 39, of Moray Road, Fraserburgh, said: “There is definitely something creepy about the place. It’s hard to explain the feeling I got when I went in, but it wasn’t pleasant. My sister was with me and she felt exactly the same way. People say that it is on the site of an old gallows and that a witch used to live there.”
Previous tenant Robert Cowe, 53, of St Andrews Drive, Fraserburgh, said he wouldn’t spend another night in the house even for a thousand pounds.
Aberdeenshire Council’s area housing manager, Bill Patterson, said: “There have been no complaints about the house. It’s the first I’ve heard of one of our properties being haunted.”
Aberdeen Evening Express, 18th December 1996.