The Wetherby Ghost.
Spectre of a young lady seated in an arm chair.
A fondness for frying ham.
The tenant’s remark: “What I have seen I have seen”!
(By our special correspondent).
“Happen you’ve come to see them skelintins,” said my guide when I alighted last night at Wetherby. I confessed that the principal business was to get in touch with the Wetherby ghost, if such a performance were possible. The proprietor of the Apparition was not at home when I called, but his wife kindly told me where to find him. Passing out of the gate which the Ghost is said to have banged with almost corporeal violence, I became aware of a melancholy tree, on the lower branch of which, my guide solemnly informed me, the Ghost had been discovered sitting at early morn, a month ago, by an affrighted policeman.
The tenant of the haunted house was voluble but unyielding when I suggested that I might sit in the kitchen from midnight till daybreak on the off chance of interviewing the Ghost, and, perchance, assisting the intangible visitor in those domestic operations to which the “Woman in White” is said to be addicted. The tenant, an earnest and robust person with an unshakable belief in what he described as “the evidence of his seven senses” avowed that he had many times gazed upon the Ghost, and had frequently wished it further – or wherever it properly belonged – when it took to re-arranging the ornaments on the mantelpiece, distributing the furniture in unwonted places, and frying any loose ham that might be lying about on a fireplace where there was no fire. This last-mentioned culinary detail seemed to lend colour, in the mind of the obsessed tenant, to the theory of infernal origin for the Phantom that carried its own combustible materials.
The age of the Ghost, when last seen, appeared to be about 40 years. It follows, therefore, unless there is some confusion of identity, that the Spirit which pervaded the house thirteen years ago was that of a prepossessing Shade of twenty-severn summers.
About eight years ago the tenant first became aware of his spectral and uninvited guest. Ructions in the parlour at the uncanonical hour of 3.30 a.m. caused paterfamilias to troop cautiously downstairs, armed with the bedroom poker, in the expectation of taking some marauder in flank attack. In the pearly light of a summer morning the amazed citizen saw a woman sitting in the arm-chair, bute and motionless. This purely passive attitude, however, was severely confined to the Vision. Several spirited vases and graven images were seen waltzing about the apartment without reserve, and generally conducting themselves with a reckless “abandon” most unbecoming in samples of earthenware.
When the astonished landlord attempted to make articulate remonstrance with the diaphanous disturber – through whose unsubstantial form the back of the chair could be plainly seen – the Spectre vanished, going to wherever it belonged by way of the chimney.
On another occasion, when Mr — detected the Ghost in the act of frying ham over a hypothetical fire, the domesticated Apparition disappeared by way of the bedroom staircase. The evident dislike of human speech displayed by this female Ghost causes some wonder amongst the mere men-folks of Wetherby.
“There is no possible, probable shadow of doubt whatever” in the mind of Mr — about the Apparition. His manner was quite sincere, if not convincing, when I saw him last night. “I know what I know,” he said, with deliberate emphasis, “and I’ve seen what I’ve seen – and there’s an end on’t.”
Yorkshire Evening Post, 3rd March 1909.
A Ghost fries the ham.
Vases dance round table legs, and clock wobbles.
Wetherby’s lady spectre.
A ghost who is declared to have a weakness for burning clothes and frying ham and making vases dance round table legs during the eerie hours, is causing a creepy feeling among certain inhabitants of Wetherby, in Yorkshire. Strangely enough the ghost has been a regular frequenter of certain haunts for almost 20 years, but only a recent discovery of skeletons in the immediate ghost country has led those, who have had a companionship with the vision too close to be comfortable, to relate their experiences.
One house which nearly 20 years ago supplanted some property probably 300 years old is a favourite resort of the spook, and it was while building the comparatively modern house a skeleton was discovered.
The skull of this skeleton was taken home by one of the workmen, who placed it in his bedroom. The story goes that he was unable to sleep with this grim relic in his room, and before the following morning he had to place it outside the house, after which he was able to sleep in peace.
The next occupier of the new house during his tenancy saw or heard nothing of any ghostly visitant, but the present occupier is not so reticent of what he sees and hears. The first time he had an acquaintance with the ghost, which bears the form of a woman, was eight years ago. It is always dressed alike, though he cannot describe the dress. On the first occasion of its visit he was in bed, and at 4 a.m. his wife heard a noise downstairs. Suspecting burglars, the husband, armed with a poker, went down and was more than surprised to see a young woman of about 27 sitting in an arm chair mute and motionless. Vases were running round the legs of the table, and the clock, as if in disdain at the proceedings, turned on the mantelshelf and stood face to the wall. The astonished householder alleges that he spoke to the vision, which immediately dissolved into air.
Other visits followed, during which clothes were burned and hams frizzled in the kitchen during the night when there was no fire in the grate.
Until two months ago the children occupied the front bedroom, but they were then visited and touched by something, and since then they have refused to enter the room.
A neighbour’s wife has twice seen the ghost in the rear of the houses. One moonlight night a few months ago she heard her garden gate bang very violently. She closed it, but no sooner had she returned to the house than it banged again. Going the second time to close it, she saw a woman in white on opening the kitchen door. The apparition at once disappeared. The last time the ghost was seen was just before Christmas, when it entered the room in which the tenant was reading alone, and on being spoken to it immediately vanished.
Empire News and The Umpire, 7th March 1909.