Ghosts in Gray’s Inn.
Some weeks ago strange pranks began to be played in certain houses of Field Court – it was when workmen commenced to busy themselves with the wall of an old house adjoining in the Rents. There nocturnal disturbances, due to human agency, are not unknown; but in Field Court an almost ghostly quiet reigns at night. Lately the stillness has been broken by weird sounds – groanings, and the straining of timber and the moving of heavy weights. Then all the clocks stopped in every room, whether occupied or empty; not altogether, but with a few minutes’ interval between some, as if a ghostly hand had touched each pendulum in turn. Doors flew open, almost without sound, to admit – nothing, and refused to close; while one night, in the small hours, came such a loud report through the still house as brought every soul from bed.
It was a week after this that a tenant was confronted one morning by a small and early Cinderella, located in an attic, who, having retired to rest on one side of the room, awoke next morning in the opposite corner – the bed having, as she averred, travelled the entire distance in a single night – and who now proposed leaving that very minute in consequence.
The matter began to be serious, the bed had plainly moved, and no light allusions to the “Transit of Venus” and other irreverent talk would allay queer fancies about such a house. When, two nights after, a certain glass cupboard full of china (including, alas! some priceless Sevres) fell to the floor with a resounding crash, even these ceased to be heard. The house became of one mind – and that a very nervous one.
Now this is all proved to be the outcome of the mechanical humour of certain lawyers in the time of the Stuarts. The method of it, as explained by an expert, is agreeably simple. The houses were built in such a way that the displacement of a wall (which had apparently nothing to do with the structure) loosened some underpinning and set them askew from floor to ceiling. As in most buildings so old, the floors were already a little “out of plumb,” and the increase being the same on each storey made this difficult of detection. In this way a joist had slipped from its supports, thus causing the report and the after subsidence of the stone.
The moving furniture and other disasters are explained by the shifting floors. All the timbers have been loosened by the deflection, so that Field Court is doomed. While the wall stood the houses were as firm as if built yesterday. Without it they are dangerous shells, which have now been emptied of tenants and condemned, and are to be wrecked forthwith.
Worcestershire Chronicle, 15th December 1894.
I suppose some of the Field Court buildings still survive – whether this one did or not is another matter: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1113074