Will ghost die when house is demolished?
Mystery of the doors that unlock themselves…
Now that Brookhurst, former headquarters of Leamington Golf Club, is to be demolished, people are wondering whether the ghost which is alleged to have haunted the place for years, will also disappear. Dozens of men and women claim to have heard the ghost. Echoing footsteps which have passed through locked doors have been heard by groups of people on many occasions. Doors have opened by themselves and unlocked themselves – although the keys have always been in the safe keeping of one man. Lights have been switched on and off and the front-door bell has often rung unaided. Swift and thorough searches have always revealed that mischievous children, burglars or practical jokers could not have been responsible for the pranks. Several people claim that the ghost actually combed their hair as they walked down a certain passage. Others have heard something fly past them in the house, and they have each compared it with the noise of a huge bird flapping its wings.
A 12-year-old boy – who was not aware at the time that the house was supposed to be haunted – said that he actually saw “the thing” fly round the room one night. The boy’s mother, Mrs Hilda Heffer, was then manageress of the Golf Club, and lived on the premises. She said that her son, Ronnie, who is now 18, woke her up in the middle of the night saying that he had seen a shadowy object fly across the room, making a terrific flapping noise as if it had wings, and it had flown out through the closed window. “He was really terrified,” Mrs Heffer, who now lives at Manor Farm, Offchurch, told our reporter, “and I couldn’t leave him alone at night for a long time after that.”
Mr Granville Gulliman, the wealthy Leamington businessman, who has sold Brookhurst so that a block of luxury flats can be erected on the site, said that he first became aware of a mysterious phenomena when he took over the club in 1935. “I have often heard footsteps and sensed that I was being followed, only to find that there was no-one there,” he said. “Sometimes it made a flapping noise – like a macintosh blowing in the wind.”
Several people can recall the time several winters ago, when the front door opened and footsteps passed through the house. This happened four times in succession, but no-one was found, and although there was deep snow outside, there were no footprints.
And it seems that George (this is the name given to the ghost by Mr and Mrs ET Gulliman, who are living on the premises) has no respect for the law. “On many occasions the Police came to lock up for us late at night,” Mr Granville Gulliman told “The Courier,” only to return first thing in the morning and find the place unlocked.
“I remember an occasion in 1948,” he continued, “when PC Jo Whitmarsh called at the club.” “We both heard the sound of someone groaning,” he said. “We searched the place but could find no one, and the police officer was so scared that he jumped on his bicycle and fled down Guy’s Cliffe Avenue.”
But it seems that George is absolutely harmless, for he has never done any damage, and apart from PC Whitmarsh and little Ronnie Heffer, he has never really terrified anyone.
Mr and Mrs ET Gulliman and their 13 year old son, Michael, hear George frequently. But they have now come to accept him as “one of the family,” although they often get tired with answering the door-bell and finding no-one there, and of going to meet footsteps which do not have an owner. Mrs Gulliman’s mother, Mrs EA Nichols, who also lives on the premises, said that she saw “a winged object” float down the passage quite recently. Mrs Gulliman herself last heard the mysterious footsteps on June 22. “It was the day before we had the sale here,” she explained (George is not strictly nocturnal). “Mr George Doughty from Locke and England’s was with me. Every door in the house was locked but we both heard the footsteps quite clearly. We searched although we knew it was useless. No-one was there.” Mrs Gulliman said that she last heard the “wings” just over a month ago. “It was a Friday morning,” she said. “I’d just collected ‘The Courier’ from the doorstep and began reading it as I walked upstairs. I opened it at the women’s page, and there was a photograph of my mother at a fashion show. I was so amused that I sat on the stairs and laughed and laughed… Then all of a sudden I heard the wings making a great commotion overhead,” she said. “I soon stopped laughing…”
Leamington Spa Courier, 22nd July 1960.
Now a snooker-playing spirit is getting tough.
‘Poltergeist’ pranks.
“George,” the snooker-playing Leamington poltergeist with a liking for club life, is reacting violently now that his favourite haunt is being knocked down. For 30 years his footsteps have been heard in the front hall of “Brookhurst,” the 23-roomed club house of Leamington Golf Club. Now the building is being demolished to make way for flats.
Yesterday bricks shattered three windows in the bar room, showering in the bar room, showering glass over demolition workers, who hurried outside – and found the grounds empty. On Friday, Mr Donald Wilkes, managing director of the demolition firm, had a large ball of paper thrown at him. “I searched everywhere and couldn’t find anyone,” he said yesterday. “At first we took it to be a joke, but now we are really wondering whether someone or something is trying to scare us away.”
Mrs Edna Cox, a former barmaid at the club, three times heard a game of snooker in progress in the room above her head. “When I went up there was never anyone there,” she said yesterday.
Because of “George’s” antics, the Rev. John Dening, curate at Leamington Parish Church, who is interested in psychic research, is to make on-the-spot investigation. He believes that the poltergeist may transfer to the new flats unless exorcised.
The former owner of the house, Mr Granville Guilliman, a local business man, said: “Several times I heard the club’s front door open and then there were footsteps,” he said. “We never found anyone. We got so used to it that we called it George. Several times the local police called me out in the middle of the night to lock the premises. Yet I was certain I had left them locked.”
Mr Donald Wilkes, managing director of the demolition firm, points out one of the smashed windows. With him is Mr Dennis Stokes, of Bordesley Green, Birmingham, another of the men who were showered in broken glass.
Birmingham Weekly Mercury, 16th October 1960.
‘Ghost tries to scare workmen from Brookhurst.’
Workmen engaged on the demolition of Brookhurst, formerly the club house of Leamington Golf Club, complained during the weekend that they were being held up by the activities of a poltergeist which, it was alleged, had thrown bricks through a window. The site is being cleared for the erection of a block of flats.
Mr David Wilkes, of 35, Prospect Road, Leamington, told a reporter that he was working with a gang on the joists of a window when three bricks came whizzing through the panes. The glass was flying in all directions, and they had to dive for safety. They dashed out to see who it was, but no one was in sight. “It was not the work of children because the bricks were too heavy for them,” he said. “I had been told what to expect when we came on the job, and that ‘George’ would be busy, but none of us believed it. It is not me only, however; we all went through a rather terrifying experience. It was as if someone was trying to scare us away.”
Mr John Baker, aged 22, of Queen Street, Leamington, said that he had refused to go on working alone on the roof. “I felt there was someone by my side all the time,” he said, “and it made a funny feeling go down my spine.”
Mr Granville Gulliman, the former owner of the property, said strange things had happened at Brookhurst, and the staff and visitors had complained of noises. A policeman, too, had “seen something.”
The Rev. John Dening, whose interest in ghosts was referred to in our last issue, has been told of the circumstances, and he is considering what can be done to “lay” the “ghost.”
Leamington Spa Courier, 21st October 1960.
Whatever became of George…?
They were saying a lot of things about George about three years ago. George was one of the town’s most celebrated ghosts, who was in the limelight on and off for about 27 years as the cause of the strange happenings at Brookhurst, the social headquarters of the old Leamington Golf Club, near Guy’s Cliffe Avenue.
In October 1960 workmen who were demolishing the 100-year-old house to make way for modern luxury flats were disturbed by a “poltergeist” who threw bricks through windows.
Then curate at the Parish Church, the Rev. John Dening announced that unless George was exorcised he would probably trouble the residents of the flats. Although he started plans to lay George Mr Dening moved from Leamington before he was able to carry out the experiment. So as far as anyone knows George is still there…
“Ghosts!” said Mrs Mabel England of 1 Brookhurst Court, when I told her the story. “I’ve never had any experience with them here.” Her upstairs neighbour, Mr E. Latham smiled: “I don’t think it will keep me awake tonight – I have lived here for some time and I’ve never seen a ghost yet.”
But the ex-owner of the haunted house, Leamington businessman Mr Granville Gulliman told me this week: “We used to lock up all the rooms and switch all the lights out and when you had a final look around there would be the lights switched back on or the doors had been unlocked. It was most annoying at times,” said Mr Gulliman. “There was only one time that I was scared. I had just switched off all the lights and I heard a sound like a rustling mackintosh coming towards me.”
Mr Gulliman’s relations who lived at Brookhurst for several years christened George, and treated him almost as one of the family when he left doors open and played with the snooker table. Mr Gulliman was convinced that demolition work would reveal a body – the cause of the hauntings – but the foundations were concreted in.
What has happened to George? – Peter Fairley.
Leamington Spa Courier, 29th November 1963.
A day the bricks were hurled.
George was a friendly ghost whose supernatural antics were confined to nothing more than ringing doorbells, opening doors and creating footsteps. That is, until the demolition men moved into his favourite haunt – Brookhurst, the century-old building used as a clubhouse for the Old Leamington golf course. Then, we are told, “George” became violent. He attacked a group of workmen with bricks 1960 as they pulled down the building. And one man, convinced “someone is by my side all the time,” was too terrified to return to the site.
This and earlier tales of “George” are told with 27 other stories in a book published today – “The Restless Ghost of Ladye Place and other True Hauntings,” by Harry Ludlam.
Mrs Hilda Heffer, manageress of the golf club in the last decade, said that her 12-year-old son once woke in the night crying: “I have seen a shadowy object flying across the room with a great flapping noise.” And a similar noise – “like a mackintosh blowing in the wind,” was heard by Leamington businessman the late Mr Granville Gulliman, who took over Brockhurst in 1935. He had often heard footsteps and sensed he was being followed. Mr Gulliman also claimed that the police, who often locked up for him late at night, found the place open again in the morning.
The ghost became “George” when Mr and Mrs E T Gulliman and their young son moved into Brookhurst before its demolition. They came to regard him as “one of the family.” Which may explain why he was infuriated at seeing his old home demolished.
Leamington Spa Courier, 17th November 1967.