Spooks in the Cowcaddens.
Presence of boy sets up tattoo.
Woman declares evil spirits haunt her.
Spooks are abroad in the Cowcaddens district of Glasgow, and even the holding of seances has not brought forth the explanation. A “Telegraph and Post” representative learned today that strange noises have been heard in a room and kitchen of a house at 163 Cowcaddens Street for the past three weeks. The noises come in the daytime as well as at night, and they resemble tappings on tin boxes, two of which are in the room of the dwelling.
The occupants of the house – a family named Brown – are alarmed, and the “Telegraph and Post” man was told by Mrs Brown that sometimes the noises last the greater part of the night. The strange part of the story is that the tappings are loudest and most frequent when a twelve-year-old son of the family goes into the room. Immediately he crosses the room the tappings begin, and seem to come from beneath the flooring.
Many of the neighbours have listened in to the strange happenings, but no explanation has been forthcoming, and the result is that many of the neighbours are much alarmed. One girl this forenoon stated that they were all terrified and that she would not sleep in the place. The aid of the police was called in, and two constables investigated the matter. They asked the boy to cross the room floor, and when he did a tattoo was heard.
In another house in West Russell Street about a hundred yards off “spirits” have appeared. The woman occupant here declared today to the “Telegraph and Post” man that she understood what was happening. An evil spirit had been following her since she was a young woman. There had been an upheaval in the spirit world, and spirits of dead as well as living persons had come to her. The spirits left the living persons when they were sleeping. She held conversations with the spirits, and in these gossip was brought up.
The happenings in the house in Cowcaddens have aroused much interest among the residents of the neighbourhood.
Dundee Evening Telegraph, 26th October 1923.
Rappings in a Glasgow Tenement.
Glasgow police have been asked to assist in laying a ghost which is said to be troubling the northern district in the city, but so far are baffled. The “ghost” is said to haunt a house in Cowcaddens-street, a working-class locality, and, while it has not yet been seen by anyone, it certainly has made itself heard. It announces itself by a series of knockings, which have now been going on for about a fortnight.
When first heard the tappings were attributed to a loose board, but investigation has dispelled that theory. Curiously the tappings only occur when a twelve-year-old boy is in the house.
The house consists of a small room and kitchen, and the tapping seems to come from under the floor. The family are greatly upset by the phenomenon, and have sought the company of neighbours.
Two policemen made a thorough search of the house, but can find nothing tangible. The services of a clergyman have also been enlisted, and spiritualists have held seances in the house without, however, relieving the minds of the tenants of their fears.
The tenant declines to have the floor lifted in order to have a more thorough investigation made.
Nottingham Evening Post, 27th October 1923.
House of Mystery.
Spiritualists fail to lay the ghost.
Glasgow, Saturday. – Great excitement has been created in the Cowcaddens district of Glasgow by reports of ghostly visitations at a house there. For upwards of a fortnight the nightly rest of the tenants has been disturbed by the sound of naked feet pattering across the floor and knockings on the upper parts of beds and tables. The house consists only of two apartments, which are occupied by seven persons. They are almost at their wits’ end, and are desperately anxious to get another house. Neighbours sit with the family throughout the night.
Local Spiritualists are interested in the mystery, and already a seance has been held in the house, without, however, laying the ghost. But another seance has been arranged.
Reynolds’s Newspaper, 28th October 1923.
Weird Apparition in Glasgow House.
Family terrified by witch-like old woman.
Tappings and moving of furniture unnerved children.
By our special investigator.
Glasgow, Saturday night.
All day and up till a late hour this evening, great crowds assembled in the Cowcaddens district of the City in the hope, apparently, of seeing ghosts walking or being laid!
Glasgow’s “haunted house” is situated at 163 Cowcaddens Street, and, owing to the constant increasing stream of curious people who assembled outside the tenement, it was found necessary to guard the entry, two policemen being stationed in front of the close. Other officers were kept busy dispersing the crowd, which threatened to interfere with the tramway traffic.
The apparition which, it is stated, takes the form of an old, haggard woman, with all the features of the traditional witch, hovers about a dark room and kitchen house situated in a back land at the end of an alley.
Cowcaddens Street is one of the most congested areas in Glasgow and on account of its dark environment provides a suitable setting for ghostly sights and sounds. The story of the ghost is soon told. A few weeks ago a family named Brown entered the dwelling, which is adjacent to a bakery, the former occupants having removed to a more modern house at Hamilton Hill, near Possilpark. For the first weeks of their occupancy nothing untoward disturbed the Browns, who have a family of seven children, the greater proportion being of tender years. But houses at low rent are at a premium in the Cowcaddens district, and thus the Browns had to make the most of the accommodation at their disposal.
When retiring to rest a few nights ago, however, the Brown family were startled during the early hours of the morning by weird sounds resembling at first a gentle tap repeated three times. These tappings continued periodically at various corners of the room, the strange sounds being accentuated until they became akin to three loud hammer knocks on the table.
For several nights this disturbing noise rendered sleep impossible in the little room, and so alarmed did the younger members of the family become that it was deemed expedient to vacate the room, the entire household taking up their abode in the kitchen. This arrangement, it was hoped, would serve to restore tranquility among the children, and thus secure for the distracted father and mother a peaceful sleep.
Although the gas was kept burning in the kitchen the last state of things proved worse than the first. The knocking not only continued with renewed force, but various articles of furniture were seen to move, and from underneath the floor there emerged the sound of slow, shuffling movements not unlike that of a woman walking to and fro in her slippered feet.
The Browns became distressed, and concluded among themselves that the house was haunted. They accordingly resolved to seek the assistance of two neighbours, an ex-soldier and his wife, who consented to sit up with them, and if possible fathom the cause of the phenomenal sounds. With Mr and Mrs Brown and a daughter the two neighbours took up their vigil around the bright kitchen fire. When all was still the tapping was repeated, and this time the noise was so weird and awe-inspiring that the waiting, watching women and men became speechless, while two cats, snugly curled up in front of the fire, scurried away beneath the bed.
I have just visited the haunted house, and from the lips of Mr Brown, a sturdy working man, heard a remarkable story concerning the apparition. “Until I came into this house,” he said, “I have never been troubled with nervousness, nor have I believed either in spectres or ghosts. Now it is otherwise. In this kitchen I have seen visions that would in time drive a man off his head. I went to have a sleep in that bed the other night. Only a few minutes elapsed until the couch began to move like a ship at sea, the sensation being that of some person or persons moving back and forward below the floor. This was not the end of the affair, however. What should meet my gaze next but the revolting figure of an old, haggard woman, with all the sharp features of the witch, a shawl over her head, who stalked across the kitchen floor, disappearing out of the door in a cloud of smoke and vapour. The vision of that unearthly figure made me cold, and for fully a quarter of an hour afterwards I was dead to my surroundings. My two lads, who are in their teens, have witnessed the spectre in various forms, and are unnerved by the experience. One is in bed ill, and the other is suffering from acute nervousness. I am now convinced that an evil spirit is abroad in the house, and the sooner we are out of it the better.”
Equally amazing was the tale told me by the neighbour woman, who took part in the vigil around the fire in the haunted house. “The first time I came here, ” she remarked, “I heard a strange scraping noise at the corner of the fireplace. This was followed by loud knocks on the kitchen table, and then all of us were startled by a horrible shuffling under the floor and weird murmurings, as if two women and a man were quarrelling. I listened breathlessly to the strange noise, and then there was a movement that filled me with dread. It was that of a lifeless woman being dragged across the floor. When I tell you that these strange sounds have even mingled with our devotions you can understand how nerve-racking they have proved to the Browns.”
A watch was kept on the dwelling this evening, but nothing phenomenal is reported. The police attribute the strange sounds to the freak of an elbow-shaped water-pipe, or to some woodwork below the floor affected by a current of air.
Sunday Post, 28th October 1923.
163 Cowcaddens street: http://discuss.glasgowguide.co.uk/Cowcaddens-t7828.html&st=75
Scottish newspapers of the week-end are devoting considerable space to descriptions of “scenes” connected with ghostly apparitions in Glasgow and Edinburgh respectively. The phenomenon in Glasgow has it seems, stirred a large section of the population into semi-fearful semi-jocular curiosity, and talk of the strange doings at the “haunted house” is general.
Extraordinary scenes were witnessed late on Friday night and early on Saturday morning outside the house of 163, Cowcaddens Street, Glasgow, where manifestations of a “ghostly” nature are said to have taken place recently. Groups of people collected in the neighbourhood just before midnight, when, according to report, the first tappings had been heard on previous occasions. Before long the crowd had increased in numbers, and the entrance to the “haunted” premises was so congested that police officers were required to dismiss those who were not resident in the tenement. Except for occasional brief spells of quietude, when the crowd had been driven from the tenement door, the noise of talking and shuffling continued far into the early hours of the morning. On one occasion the occupant of the house, Mrs Brown, came out to ask the people to leave. She declared that she would appeal to the police against such persons, who added further annoyance to those she already suffered. This, again, had little or no effect on the behaviour of the crowd in the immediate vicinity, and a great number continued to hang about in preference to retiring to rest.
A Glasgow reporter who visited the house on Friday night confesses disappointment that no manifestations of the spiritual stranger’s presence were given. Although spending the hours between 11.30 p.m. and 1 a.m. in the immediate vicinity of the “spook” frequented house, nothing of an unusual nature was heard, and, according to later information, it would appear that the “ghost” had taken a night off. Unfortunately there are children in the house, and those of an age able to comprehend the situation are terror-stricken. The most affected is a young lad of about 17 years of age.
A watch was kept practically all Friday night, but it is not definitely known whether anything was heard or not. Generally the attitude of the residenters in the locality is jocular, and the ghost, if there be a ghost, would have his work cut out to convince many of his existence. While many of those admitted to the house support a spiritual explanation, the majority prefer to entertain the belief in a human agency.
Derry Journal, 31st October 1923.