Couple probe secrets of ‘ghost house’.
Teachers Sharron and Mike Wilks call themselves sceptics but they firmly believe their 18th century farmhouse is the home of a female poltergeist. Sharron, who lives with Mike at The White House, The Gunby Estate, recently saw a heavy wooden pub pew move from a wall in the dining room to an opposite wall in the same room near to the kitchen doorway. A large vase of dried flowers also moved at the same time from the dining room hearth to the kitchen. On that day, Sharron, un-nerved, rang Mike at the Skegness Lumley School. He immediately went to the house and the two heaved the bench back into place. Sharron spent the rest of the day at a friend’s house.
Sharron, who is a supply teacher at the Lumley and hails from Sleaford, admits that the story sounds “absolutely loony” but is convinced that the house has a spirit! Take example the day the plumbed in washing machine moved: “The dog sat there glued to it. When it stopped she fled, shaking, trembling, whining – and two minutes later she was back to normal,” she said. She thinks the poltergeist is female because of the things it moves – the vacuum cleaner, candlesticks, keys and the radio. I
n any case folklore in the area definitely says that whatever is responsible for the unexplained happenings, it’s female. “In the history books it says there is a ghost which walks the Gunby Hall grounds,” said Sharron. “Local people seem to think that the son who lived at Castle Brayton was courting the daughter of the overseer at the Gunby Estate – and also someone, a man, from the hall was courting at the same time. There was a tiff between the women and she got shot.”
The poltergeist is supposed to be the daughter, said Sharron. She was in her twenties when she died sometime in the 18th century. The Wilks’ house, which belongs to the National Trust, was built in the late 18th century and was later added to in the 1800s.
One of the Wilks’ neighbours, Mrs Doris Evison, who lives in a cottage on the Gunby Estate, used to be a maid at the White House for Colonel Hunt. She is also convinced that the house has a presence and can remember how the Colonel used to complain when things moved. The Wilks have come to accept the fact that there is a third person in the house and they talk about the poltergeist quite nonchalantly. They wouldn’t consider exorcising it because at the moment it is only mischievous, but, said Sharron, if it became nasty, she would have second thoughts.
The vicar of the Burgh group of parishes, Richard Ireson has agreed to give a blessing but only bishops are authorised to exorcise a spirit. “Perhaps she wants us to know she is still here,” said Sharron. “Perhaps she wants to be laid to rest but surely if she had she would have created hell.” Sharron is busy delving into th ehistory of the estate. She believes in life after death and has noticed that whenever anything moved, it’s always after she has had an argument with Mike about the decorating. Mike, 39, comes from Derbyshire and teaches environmental science. He finds it irritating when the poltergeist moves, among other things, his beer mugs.
Skegness Standard, 26th March 1982.