“Haunted Mansion.”
The story of “ghostly manifestations” in a 400-year-old Highgate Hill mansion, Fairseat, published in the “Journal” the other day, was read with particular interest by two Nottingham sisters who some years ago were students at the neighbouring Channing School, the governors of which own the mansion. One of the sisters, calling at our office yesterday, gave her own reminiscences of days spent at Fairseat before the war, when it was used for the schoo’s domestic science classes and kindergarten, and also provided dormitory accommodation.
“When we were there,” she said, “it was not so much Fairseat as the Channing School buildings on the other side of the road, that were supposed to be haunted. They were alleged to be haunted by the ghost of Arabella Stuart, but so far as we know no-one ever saw a ghost. We students sometimes lost things, but hardly put it down to supernatural causes! There was a tradition that a secret passage once connected the school and Fairseat, and that this again was haunted. We never saw the passage, although there is what might be evidence of the blocking up of one end of a passage. Many buildings in that neighbourhood are of great antiquity and historical interest. Nell Gwyn once lived there.”
Nottingham Journal, 24th December 1942.
St Pancras Haunted House Mystery.
A ghost is reported to be haunting a 400-year-old Highgate Hill, St Pancras, mansion, which is being converted into an L.C.C. British restaurant. When our representative called there he found himself in a magnificent house. He was shown extensive cellars, with blocked-up passages, false ceilings, walls which for no apparent reason were seven feet thick in parts, trap-doors and scores of deep, dark cupboards.
A disembodied previous occupant, it was alleged, was interfering with the conversion of the houses and was, in fact, making things very difficult for the workmen. Mr Annesley, the foreman, told of tools and materials which were spirited away as soon as they were left down, only to turn up subsequently in out-of-the-way and unfrequented corners of the old house. Weird noises could be heard and doors inexplicably stuck at awkward moments, and, strangest of all, a fire-alarm in an upstairs room rang shrilly at times when it could not possibly be set in motion by any human agency.
“When I arrive here early in the morning,” said Mr Annesley, “I have a most peculiar feeling that I am unwanted. The place seems very queer and we are glad when it is time to finish work.”
Mr Pavey, a workman, also said to our now very subdued representative, “The noises are most weird at times. Perhaps they are caused by the wind, but you can hear them even when there is no wind.”
In the dead of one dark night a policeman heard the bell ringing shrilly and persistently – the house should have been empty. He had the building surrounded and searched – sleeping peacefully in a downstairs room was a man, who was taken to the police station. He had heard nothing, though the noise was enough to awaken the dead and could be heard hundreds of yards from the house. Nobody was ever traced who could have rung the bell – it was found to be in perfect order.
[… some more seeming nonsense about a chicken’s ghost]
Holloway Press, 25th December 1942.