Walsingham “Ghost”.
Housekeeper tells of strange happenings.
A strange tale was related to our Fakenham representative of a Walsingham “ghost,” whose “visitations” by night have so worried the housekeeper of the Priest’s House that she has left the district. The strange happenings are said to have begun a few weeks ago. The housekeeper spoke of hearing footsteps in the passages and rooms. Then she heard a scratching noise at the window panes. Late one night she heard a door being opened and then shut. On another night, she claims, a peculiar light shone on her bedroom, which opens to a dark passage. Further tappings were heard by the woman, who became convinced that the house was haunted. A man was invited to sleep in the house, but during the night he neither heard nor saw anything of a ghostly nature.
Father Scott James lives at the Priest’s House.
Another woman who had visited the house asserted that she had seen an apparition and the housekeeper also spoke of what she described as “the devil looking at me through a window.” The housekeeper said that she 2could not stand the ghost any longer,” and that it had “got on my nerves.”
Tapping sounds, it is said, were frequently heard on mirrors and window panes. Altar wafers and books were supposed to have been thrown about in the house, and it has been claimed that an unearthly light was seen. This light was supposed to have been “quicker than lightning.”
The house was at one time converted into business premises. Last year the building was reconditioned and became the residence of the first Catholic parish priest for Walsingham for 400 years (Fr. Bruno Scott James).
There is a bricked-up fireplace of large dimensions in th ehouse. Part of the house has been converted into a chapel, and it was dedicated to St. Aelred.
Yarmouth Independent, 18th January 1936.