Ghosts in West Street.
by Rex Needle.
Nothing is less conducive to thoughts of ghosts and poltergeists than the attractive modern front of a multiple grocery store in Oundle’s West Street. But take a peep into the shop next door. It’s a drapery shop and looks ordinary enough from the outside. Inside, however, the prospect is a little different. Dimly lit, the shop interior reflects some of the history of this age-old building which is just one of many among those lovely old grey stone buildings of Oundle, a little bit of England tucked away between Peterborough and Kettering.
At the back of the shop and above are the living quarters of Mrs Fanny Seamark and her two daughters: long, low passages joining curiously furnished rooms that blend perfectly with the architecture of the building to give an air of mystery, of latency. Bangings, knockings, and shufflings in the house have become accepted by the Seamarks as everyday occurrences and to be awakened in the dead of night by a tapping on the bedroom door is certainly nothing new. The ladies pay little attention to what they consider “these minor disturbances” and sleep on until morning.
Mind you, both daughters, Miss Vivian Mildred Seamark and Miss Margaret Ellen Seamark, would prefer to be without the sounds of hurrying footsteps, scurryings and things that go bump in the night. They are quite used to it all. Not so their occasional guests. “We had a lady friend come to stop with us some time ago and it didn’t dawn on us to mention these strange goings on,” declared Miss Vivian Seamark. “She told us next morning about being woken up and scared out of her wits by the sound of someone trying to get into her room. Of course, it’s nothing new to us and we didn’t bother. We didn’t like to mention it to her before: after all there was no point in scaring and upsetting her before she went to bed.”
“And,” added Miss Margaret Seamark, “she won’t come to stay with us any more!”
All three ladies have had strange experiences. Uncommon noises filter through to their sitting room and bedrooms at all hours of the night, mostly at 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. and the oddly shaped rooms add a touch of the supernatural. In her lounge one evening, Mrs Fanny Seamark heard footsteps in the passage outside, stopping directly outside the room, and immediately afterwards came a distinct tapping on the door. “Who is this coming,” she thought, walked over and opened the door. But the passage was empty. No one was there. Thinking about it later, she realised that footsteps would not sound in the passage, which was covered with a thick carpet…
After some months of these happenings, and a series of noises from the shop next door, also unexplained, the three ladies accepted as fact that there was something unusual about their home, especially when they heard that on the site of their shop, and the International Stores Ltd. branch, once stood a Roman Catholic church or chapel and was still then consecrated ground. That must have been a long time ago, for the Seamarks say the buildings are about 500 years old. The women believed the tale. The men were sceptical, especially Mr Reg Crick, manager of the adjoining store.
Whenever the Seamarks told him of strange happenings in his shop after hours, he scoffed and let them go on talking… never once believing them. Least likely place for ghostly visits would be a fine modern grocer’s shop at 39a West Street, the road which gives the traveller a fleeting glimpse of the town as he drives north or south. Yet Mr Crick cannot give a good earthly reason for a rather alarming experience he had one evening, some 18 months ago. He was in his office at the rear of the shop about nine o’clock talking on the telephone. Suddenly there was a shattering noise like the crashing of a dozen biscuit tins. “I dashed into the shop. There was not a tin on the floor and nobody was there. It beat me,” confessed Mr Crick. The Seamarks in their flat above the shop also heard the noise, and nodded knowingly. It certainly was not the first time they had heard strange noises from the grocery store. Once, the three ladies heard a terrific crash like the breaking of Mr Crick’s plate glass window. Next morning the window was intact.
Mr Crick isn’t quite so critical of the Seamarks’ stories now, though there are still many men in Oundle who laugh at the thought of ghosts in West Street. And the three ladies go quietly about their business. Ghosts or not, that something eerie is now part of their life…
Peterborough Advertiser, 10th February 1956.