Haunted Village.
The devil at work in a crockery shop.
During the past week the Durham mining village of Howden-le-Wear, near Bishop Auckland, has been reduced to a state of positive fear by a series of inexplicable occurrences. Late on Sunday evening people passing the china shop of Mr Joseph Patterson, one of the oldest villagers, were startled by hearing terrific noises and explosions, and the old folks, who were at the time worshipping in the village chapel, were summoned.
On entering the shop, Mrs Patterson was startled to see china and glassware toppling from the shelves and crashing to the floor without any apparent cause. A large bottle of sweets tottered as if bewitched, and crashed against the plate-glass window, splintering it.
By this time a crowd of villagers was in the shop, and four lamps being lighted and hung from the ceiling, they watched. As surely as their gaze was concentrated on one side there would be a smash from behind, and on looking round a heap of broken crockery met their astonished gaze.
A neighbouring builder, who was the contractor for the shop 30 years ago, paid a visit of inspection to the cellars with a view to seeing if there had been any subsidence from adjacent colliery workings, but he was unable to find the slightest trace of a crack. He stood in the shop for nearly three hours, and though not given to superstitious fears, he confessed, as he saw crockery topple over without any apparent cause, and crash on the floor, that there was something decidedly uncanny and mysterious about the whole affair.
Mrs Patterson, who is nearing her 90th year, and has always been a devout worshipper, confided to a Press representative that “the devil had a bit of work in it.”
One young man was watching a particular shelf when he noticed a dinner tin roll over and fall to the floor. He picked it up and placed it safely back on to the shelf, but before he had turned round the tin again toppled over. Then he left it alone.
Outside quite a crowd of some two hundred persons had collected, and one man commenced to pray and preach and exort those around him to heed the warnings that were going on inside. Towards midnight the strange disturbances ceased, but the floor was completely covered with wreckage, and the damage is estimated at £30. [c. £3845 today]
Leominster News and North West Herefordshire and Radnorshire Advertiser, 17th January 1908.