Odd happenings in ancient Cornish house.
Mystery of old cedar chest.
Queer occurrences in an old Cornish manor house have led to efforts to trace the history of a carved cedarwood chest thought to be the cause of strange manifestations. The chest was bought about seven weeks ago by Mr T. A. Ley, who lives with his wife and two children at Stanbury Manor, Morwenstow. Mr Ley and his wife noticed the chest in an antique shop in Cornwall. “The woman in charge said we could have it for a reasonable price,” says Mr Ley, saying that since she had had it she could keep nothing in her shop. Anything placed on the walls kept falling down. She added that some sort of ghost seemed to be attached to it.”
“We bought the chest and placed it temporarily in the armoury at Stanbury Manor. Next morning my wife was going through the armoury and about 12 old firearms suddenly clattered to the floor. Some were smashed, but we could not find that a single sustaining wire had been broken.
“The chest was next put in a bedroom. The following day two pictures came down. Next day another picture came down in the adjoining bedroom, hitting me on the head, although I was sitting in a chair about two feet out from a wall. Three pictures came down in the drawing room, followed on another day by two more. The pictures were smashed. We examined all the fallen pictures and only one hanging wire was broken among all of them.”
Mr Ley said the manifestations stopped about a month ago, and they had had no further trouble. All was quiet during Christmas. He intends to trace back the history of the chest as far as possible to see if there is any mystery attached to it.
Western Morning News, 5th January 1949.
Mr Ley’s manor has chest trouble.
Herald reporter. Bude, Cornwall, Wednesday.
The poltergiest in the trunk tonight took an evening off from his pranks in Stanbury Manor, Morwenstow, a coast village six miles from here. His mischief began some two months ago, when Mr T.A. Ley, owner of the manor, bought a splendidly carved cedarwood chest in a Cornish antique shop. When the chest reached Stanbury, the Poltergeist (mischievous spirit said to throw things about) of the Trunk got busy.
In every room the chest was put, Mr Ley told me tonight, things began to happen.
Room 1 (the armoury). Six museum-piece shotguns, hanging by stout wire, clattered to the ground. Not a nail had slipped. No wire was broken. Two guns were smashed.
Room 2 (a bedroom). A heavy framed picture bounced two feet off the wall down on Mr Ley’s head. “There was no wind,” he said. “Explain that away.”
Room 3 (another bedroom). Two large pictures, “hanging safely for generations,” fell down one after another.
“It’s incredible, all right. I’ve moved the chest from room to room – ten pictures in all have smashed. The last picture did not fall off the wall – it was pushed right back through the Queen Anne panelling. Still, we wouldn’t think of selling the chest. We’ve nicknamed the ‘ghost’ Old George.”
The chest, 6ft by 3f., is covered inside and out with carvings of ancient soldiers, musical instruments and ships.
Daily Herald, 6th January 1949.
Blood on the old cedar chest.
Herald Reporter. Morwenstow, Cornwall, Thursday.
By the light of a paraffin lamp the vicar here tonight examined the “Poltergeist Chest” at 13th century Stanbury Manor – and found what looked like bloodstains. Mr T.A. Ley, 36-year-old owner of the manor, was astounded. “I’ve never noticed them before,” he said. Since Mr Ley bought the cedarwood chest two months ago, queer things have happened – caused, it is said, by a Poltergeist (mischievous spirit), which Mr Ley has nicknamed “Old George.”
Pictures and shotguns have fallen from the walls, tools have disappeared. So Mr Ley asked the vicar, the Rev. K. Rees, about the possibility of exorcising the “ghost.” The red stains which the vicar found were on carved figures on the outside of the coffin-like chest. One was on the arm of a woman holding a corpse. The other, about three feet away, was on the body of a headless man. “The chest would make an ideal hiding-place for a body,” said the vicar. To a suggestion that the devil inside the chest should be exorcised, the vicar said: “I’m not well versed in exorcising. I must look it up.”
Tomorrow Mr Ley is going back to the antique shop where he bought the chest to try and discover its origin.
During alterations to the Manor after moving in two years ago he found his family name on an old firegrate previously bricked up. Then at the parish church he saw records showing that his ancestors lived in the Manor centuries ago.
Daily Herald, 7th January 1949.
‘Haunted chest’ and stage coach not sold.
Hesitant bids at Morwenstow.
During an auction of furniture yesterday at Stanbury Manor, Morwenstow – one of the oldest in Cornwall, dating from 1241 – by Mr C. Kivell, of Messrs. Kivell and Sons, Holsworthy, two strange items came under the hammer. One was a stage coach believed to have been the last to run in the Westcountry. The other was a “haunted chest” which put Morwenstow in the headlines about a year ago. Both were withdrawn. Although buyers found seats on most of the furniture, the chest remained strangely clear. Some hardy souls did afterwards pose for photographs on, and even in it.
Bidding began desultorily. The auctioneer asked for £25 and came down to £5 before an offer was made. From £5 the price rose slowly to £9, where it stopped and the chest was withdrawn for sale by private treaty.
The chest came into the news when Mr Trevor Ley, the present owner, bought it from an antique dealer in Cornwall, who complained that since she had had it in her shop, things attached to the walls kept falling without apparent reason. She attributed some ghostly power to it. The chest continued to uphold its reputation at Stanbury Manor. The morning after its arrival, as Mrs Ley walked into the armoury, where it had been put, twelve guns clattered to the floor, yet none of the sustaining wires had broken. The chest was then moved to a bedroom, from the walls of which pictures repeatedly crashed to the floor. Mr Ley was, in fact, hit by one when he was sitting in a chair two feet from the wall.
The Leys decided to lay the ghost once and for all and enlisted the aid of a spiritualist from Lostwithiel. The exorcism was apparently successful, for no trouble has occurred since.
Nothing definite is known of the origin of the chest, but a Bude spiritualist declared while in a trance that carvings on the chest had been executed in hatred of her uncle by a girl called Susannah, who had lived in Western Germany. The uncle had killed her brother and subsequently killed her, placing th ebody in the chest.
The chest is of cedar wood and undoubtedly very old. The carvings show a distinct propensity for dismembered and headless bodies.
Western Morning News, 8th March 1950.
Photo in ‘Ghosts of Cornwall’ by Peter Underwood, 1983.
(I don’t think the chest is 6’x3′ to be honest)