Haunted Hartlepool and East Durham E-Book

Paul Screeton

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 165

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

From heart-stopping accounts of apparitions, manifestations and supernatural phenomena to first-hand encounters with phantoms, spirits and ghouls, this collection of spooky sightings from around Hartlepool and East Durham is guaranteed to make your blood run cold. The sweep of East Durham's mining landscape is host to countless spectres, while in Hartlepool – where legends are a part of the town's very fabric – ghostly goings-on have been reported at houses, clubs, schools, roads, ships and even a former airport. Pubs figure widely, and one local brewery is a veritable hive of paranormal activity. With tales of historical ghosts to modern hauntings, many investigated by the author himself whilst a journalist for the Hartlepool Mail, this book offers a unique glimpse into the ghostly legacy of the region's past that is sure to appeal to anyone interested in a spot of ghost hunting. So draw the curtains, dim the lights, choose your favourite chair and immerse yourself in a journey into the realms of the unfathomable.

Leseprobe

For Margaret O’Rourke – a fellow seeker

CONTENTS

Title Page

Dedication

About the Author

Introduction

one Historical Hauntings (Hartlepool)

two Scary Spooks

three Pub Spirits

four Poltergeists and Mischief

five Historical Hauntings (East Durham)

six Revenants, Omens and Sadness

seven Highways, Maritime and Railways

eight Shamanic Landscapes, Haunted Skies

nine Resurgence of a Haunting Hobby

Select Bibliography and Further Reading

Copyright

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A ‘Poolie’ by birth, Paul Screeton came into this world at Grantully Nursing Home, perhaps fortuitously on a major geological fault line. Since then he has lived most of his life in Hartlepool and the major part of his journalistic career was spent in various roles at the Hartlepool Mail. His authorial debut was Quicksilver Heritage, the influential study of earth mysteries and ley-lines in 1974. His subsequent eleven published books have been diverse and include studies of railways in folklore, Hartlepool’s monkey-hanging legend, two on dragonlore, contemporary legends (urban myths), local odd tales, a history of ley hunting, an appreciation of polymath John Michell, an anthology and most recently, Quest for the Hexham Heads, an in-depth work of investigative journalism into a Celtic mystery reverberating still in the twenty-first century. The supernatural elements in that study led Paul back to the paranormal in his own native North East England, where he and fellow journalist Margaret O’Rourke had been fascinated by local ghost report and collaborated on occasions. The result is a mature reflection on half a century’s worth of collecting regional ghostlore and folk tales.

Paul is also an active folklorist, editing both magazine and Facebook forum under the name Folklore Frontiers. He has also created a website for sharing information on the North-East Coast Line and has been a rail enthusiast since 1956. He is chairman of Friends of Seaton Station. When he has time, he enjoys the siren call of tavernology.

INTRODUCTION

I was born in Hartlepool and will probably die here. But will I return to do a spot of haunting? I have no idea. However, it has been said that Hartlepool folk are very insular: they never leave the town and marry local people, yet whenever a major national or international disaster occurs, someone from Hartlepool will be there. Maybe it’s because so many outsiders were attracted by jobs in industry and settled here, creating a diverse gene pool and the unique accent.

Geographically located in north-east England, Hartlepool is a town of 92,000 people and was previously part of County Durham, now to the north, where the former East Durham mining communities are a world apart in culture, outlook and dialect. But the supernatural knows no such arbitrary boundaries.

Administratively, East Durham is overseen by Durham County Council, while Hartlepool has become a unitary authority. However, until 1967, when the ‘ancient borough’ of Hartlepool and the larger West Hartlepool were amalgamated, both had been proud to have independent councils and go their separate ways. The ‘shotgun marriage’ saw a historic ‘Old Side’ – granted a charter by King John in 1201 – wed to a Victorian upstart created by economic rivalries during the Railway Mania. Headlanders, or Crofters as ‘Old’ Hartlepool folk were known, even had their own small fleet of four buses painted blue, whereas West Hartlepool’s were red. Both had services to the Headland and many Crofters would shun the red and wait to ‘pot’ a blue.

The Railway Mania affected Old Hartlepool first, changing it from a sleepy fishing village into a bustling coal exporter. But a rival scheme making a pincer movement from the south created improved port facilities and gave birth to the fledgling West Hartlepool. Led by the pioneering activities of Ralph Ward Jackson, an increasing number of docks were created, the volume of coal for export increased and pit props for the mines imported. The area to the north also benefited from this enterprise, with many more collieries opening to take advantage of the rich seams of fossil fuel.

The original Hartlepool lies on a promontory overlooking the North Sea, while West Hartlepool grew westwards from Tees Bay. East Durham, by contrast, is higher and forms a plateau. This book covers Hartlepool as it is today, the villages Greatham, Elwick and Hart, to the north the post-war new town of Peterlee and the former pit villages, plus a hinterland delineated for demarcation purposes by another railway development, the current route of the East Coast Main Line.

The people of Hartlepool have only rare social contact with their East Durham cousins. However, when the young men of Blackhall, Horden and Peterlee converge on their more vibrant neighbouring town for weekend drinking and clubbing, the ‘pit yackers’ try to wind up ‘Poolies’ or ‘Hartlepudlians’ with jibes regarding the monkey-hanging legend, often leading to random disturbances. One example of graffiti is said to have read, ‘Poolies are loonies, but Yackers are crackers’. A possible derivation is that yacker evolved from hacker (i.e. a coal hewer).

While the spectre of pit closures loomed like some almost visible, nearly tangible Grim Reaper over the villages of South-East Durham, the folklore associated with mining made virtually no mention of underground supernatural manifestations.

While Peterlee has attracted inward international investment, a more visible renaissance has boosted Hartlepool. The moribund dockland area has been transformed into a vibrant marina, with shopping, housing, eating and drinking establishments, plus tourist attractions at the Historic Quay. Satellite resort Seaton Carew has a splendid beach and the Headland boasts the magnificent abbey church of St Hilda.

Hartlepool has been the butt of many jokes, but lived to tell the tale. And what a tale! During the Napoleonic Wars a French ship was wrecked and the only survivor, washed ashore, was a bedraggled monkey dressed in a military uniform. Suspecting it to be spy, the fishermen held an al fresco court, found it guilty and hanged the gibbering simian in an act of ignorant yet cautionary zeal.

Indeed, legends aplenty are part of Hartlepool’s fabric. It has been claimed that the prose poem Beowulf has its geographical setting at Hartlepool and Hart, the Scots King Robert the Bruce was born in Hart and the deeds of King Arthur are writ largely across East Durham. In fact, the doughty Arthur’s mythos here is largely spectral and this book looks at many historical ghosts alongside more modern hauntings. Pubs figure widely, as might be expected from the region which gave the world Andy Capp, created by Hartlepool cartoonist Reg Smythe. Also, the local brewery is a veritable hive of paranormal activity. Other spectres share council and private houses, clubs, schools, roads, ships and a former airport.

I investigated several of these cases myself as a journalist with the Hartlepool Mail and many others are archived from that local paper’s columns. Some I collected while researching and writing this book. I have also had experiences with the paranormal, which I share here. That said, I must admit to leaning towards being a sympathetic sceptic. As a seasoned journo, I know only too well the pitfalls of gullibility and have always been wary of anyone approaching a newspaper with a story – often as not they have a private agenda. But when the wheat has been sorted from the chaff, there are plenty of cases worthy of taking seriously and these are the ones which I am presenting on these pages.

As for explanations, I personally have no answers. I am a journalist and not a paranormalist, but I do feel qualified to comment as I have studied the subject for half a century. I do know the theories and will introduce these briefly where they have relevance.

So, be prepared for an entertaining and I hope erudite tour of a town rich in history and a region where (allegedly) King Arthur stamped his presence. As well as visiting many spooky locations, I even wrote the majority of this book in a haunted alcove of a pub – as I explain later – so join me for a glass or two. Draw the curtains, dim the lights, choose your favourite chair and immerse yourself in a journey into the realms of the unfathomable.

Paul Screeton, 2014

ONE

HISTORICAL HAUNTINGS (HARTLEPOOL)

SOME of the oldest buildings on Hartlepool’s Headland have one thing in common: they all share regular visitations from a ghost, always referred to as the Grey Lady. She flits among the gravestones of the landmark which dominates the ‘ancient borough’, the magnificent abbey church of St Hilda. She patrolled the corridors of St Hilda’s Hospital and could be found underground in the cellars of a nearby pub, undeterred by its bricked-up passages. She went back to school and terrified a hardened veteran soldier beneath the premises and has even been associated with Old Hartlepool’s former municipal headquarters.

But who was – and is – she?

The identity of the Grey Lady is open to speculation, but my guess is that she is St Hilda herself. After leaving Hartlepool, she went on to find greater fame by founding Whitby Abbey. She had started as a humble nun named Hieu, whose vision was to create a monastery on the promontory at Hartlepool, and it was she who guided its fortunes from 649–657. Her name is remembered in Hartlepool for what has been described as ‘the finest of the parish churches of the North of England’, and St Hilda’s church is believed to stand upon the foundations of her Saxon monastery. Perhaps she hankered after her roots and her spirit returned to where her faith originally blossomed.

To confuse matters, the Headland also had a friarage and commentators over the decades have suggested that the Grey Lady may be male – to scant local support. Let’s just say that I’m in favour of the more feminine argument, though as will be seen there has been some sturdy opposition.

The ghost glides through the churchyard that bears her name, passing the grave of the Victorian showman clown Billy Purvis, who played a role in another Hartlepool controversy – the hanging of a monkey during Napoleonic times. Perhaps her favourite haunt was St Hilda’s Hospital, in Middlegate, until its closure in 1984. The hospital was built in 1865 with additions during the 1930s. However, the two-storey children’s ward was originally a mid-sixteenth-century mansion with Elizabethan windows, shorn of their mullions. To conservationists’ dismay the whole edifice was demolished in 1987. Numerous stories in the Hartlepool Mail have recorded the apparition being sighted in various parts of this sprawling hospital. I will quote one that is typical, from a letter by Doreen Lee, of Keswick Street, Hartlepool:

The Grey Lady was often seen floating around at night in her grey cloak. I was doing a spell of night duty on the orthopaedic ward. Having just completed a round of the patients at 2am, a young patient asked me for a drink of water. He then told me he had already asked me once, but remarked: ‘You didn’t reply, you just floated past my bed in your grey cloak.’ The point is, I didn’t have a grey cloak, mine was navy with a red lining. Also I was the only nurse on duty on that ward that night and I had been in the office for the past hour completing my daily report. So who had he seen ‘floating past’? Could it have been the Grey Lady!

Hartlepool Mail reporter Margaret O’Rourke noted that St Hilda’s Grey Lady might have been a woman dressed in an old-fashioned nursing uniform or perhaps a Grey Friar, for the foundations of a former Franciscan friarage’s domestic buildings (established around 1250, dissolved courtesy of Henry VIII) extended under the children’s ward. To distinguish themselves, Franciscans wore grey, whereas Dominicans were the Black Friars and the Carmelites were White Friars. Local historian Walter Gill explained: ‘They all wore long tunics (skirts down to their ankles), each order with its appropriate colour – and they were all men!’

One theory regarding the Grey Lady’s identity is that she was abbess at St Hilda’s abbey church, seen here dominating the Headland. (Author’s collection)

If historical and archaeological evidence was on the side of demythologising, romanticism and folklore were not. Fellow journalist Bernice Saltzer introduced the human dimension:

Legend has it that a Franciscan friar and a nun fell in love and planned their elopement during one of their secret meetings in the passageways beneath the Headland. The monks discovered the plan and murdered the brother and when the nun discovered his fate she committed suicide. She is also known as the Grey Lady and is believed to walk around the grounds of the former St Hilda’s Hospital – where the tunnel leads – looking for her lost love.

Bernice’s article was based on research by ghost hunter Garry Baker, who had spoken to a retired sister who worked at the hospital and wished to remain anonymous. In a rare example of vocal interaction, she claimed to have spoken to the Grey Lady and was told, ‘You have a rest and I’ll take over.’ Another – not so helpful or friendly – aspect related to a nurse returning to a room she had recently tidied only to find the contents strewn about, despite the fact that no one could have been in it. As for the claims of a labyrinth of tunnels below the Headland, these include St Hilda’s church being linked with various parts of the ‘ancient borough’, ranging from the cellars of the Seamen’s Mission on the Town Wall, to The Globe and King’s Head pubs. Certainly there are two bricked-up entrances in the cellars of the nearby Cosmopolitan pub; one leading in the direction of the friarage site and the other towards St Hilda’s church. So, off to the pub …

Located at the corner of Durham Street and Middlegate, according to one reference ‘The Cos’, as it is popularly known, was originally built for John Hart as an ‘ale store’. Licensees in the mid-1980s, Don and Hazel Thynne cashed in on the tales of the ghost by running a Grey Lady carvery. She was also afforded another explanation for her presence and an identity as the former abbess of St Hilda’s church, who would hide here with her companions when the Vikings were plundering, pillaging and raping. Giving the tale gloss, Bernice Saltzer romanticised that she fled carrying all the valuable religious artefacts through a secret tunnel from the church to a neighbouring fortress, reputedly on the site where The Cosmopolitan now stands. It is the cloaked abbess, protecting her possessions from the invading barbarians, who reputedly haunts the pub. Actually, despite local belief and media hyperbole, I can find no witness to a Grey Lady at the pub over the many decades, sponsored spook-ins and a visit by UK Living channel’s Most Haunted team. It seems more likely that archaeological excavations on the Headland during 1972 and 1974 – plus renovation work to properties in the close vicinity – disturbed the psychic dimension.

The landlord during the early 1970s was John Foggerty. In July 1972 he fled from the cellars after experiencing a strong sense of fear and evil, and a feeling of being surrounded by something intangibly unpleasant. ‘I was almost paralysed with fear. Whatever it was it was evil. I was cleaning out one of the lines, and when I managed to pull myself free from what seemed like being enclosed in a tight space, I ran upstairs leaving the water running. It was so bad I was frightened to go down alone,’ he recalled. Another landlord, Mick Watson, had heard a tale that a nun was found in one of the tunnels by smugglers who thought she was spying on them, so they killed her. In his version it is she who walks the tunnels to the cellar.

The Grey Lady’s perambulations extended in all directions beyond the hospital and at Henry Smith School she is connected with the cellars. Radio presenter, columnist and former teacher Alan Wright was a pupil at the school when there was one adult the pupils feared above all others: not a teacher or the headmaster, but the caretaker. But even this hard-as-nails war veteran who saw service in the trenches refused point blank to go back in the cellars after encountering the Grey Lady, who had approached and then passed through him. He recalled the hooded figure appearing to be very small and her legs stopping at her knees. The school had been built over the Franciscan friars’ land and the original graveyard extended into where the cellar lay. According to revelations from an archaeological excavation, the ground level would have originally been 18 inches below the cellar floor – explaining the spook’s lack of visible leg below the knee.

This is similar to the scare apprentice-plumber Harry Martindale had in 1953 while installing a new central heating system in the cellars of the Treasurer’s House in York. On this occasion the worker fell off his ladder in shock when a cart horse ridden by a Roman soldier and then several others, dressed in rough green tunics and plumed helmets, carrying short swords and spears, appeared through a brick wall – on their knees! All was explained when they reached a recently excavated area and it became clear that they were swalking on the old Roman road buried 15 inches below the surface!

The Cosmopolitan, where the Grey Lady has made many appearances. (@ Paul Screeton)

Eventually the monks’ quarters became Friarage Manor House and formed part of the original Hartlepool Hospital, later to be named St Hilda’s Hospital, hence more sightings there. Because of the nature of the friarage, historians hard-as-nails to ghostlore have concluded that the Grey Lady is not female but a wraith of a Franciscan male – a Grey Friar!

Male or female, the spectre has also been associated with the Victorian-era Borough Buildings, in Middlegate, built in 1866. This impressive edifice has had a long and chequered career, having variously accommodated a spacious entertainment hall area – ‘home of the stars’ it boasted – hosting variety shows, dancing, boxing and wrestling, plus a police station, library and tradesmen, such as a butcher’s and a jeweller’s. Apart from the Grey Lady, whose haunting is vague, another wraith that would appear briefly was an elderly man wearing an old-fashioned overcoat, seen during renovation of the bar. Speculation suggests that the police station was formerly here and so the sightings occurred on the site of the cells. It is further surmised that the ghost was a former boxer who got into a fight outside a hardware store and it took six policemen to restrain him and take the pugilist into custody.

Henry Smith School, Hartlepool, was another building which attracted the Grey Lady’s wanderings. (Author’s collection)

It has also been claimed that the closed Croft Tower was a no-go area for many. In 1980 a plumber working in the ladies’ toilet was spooked upon hearing a bell ring and seeing curtains move. Perhaps not your bog-standard spirit!

To briefly return to the Grey Friar notion, other commentators have speculated about phantom cowel-wearing monkish figures. Eerie ‘hoodies’ have trodden these shores since Gallic Celts introduced the cult of Genii Cucullati in Romano-British times. There is a shadowy reference to ghost hunter Garry Baker coming across sightings of ghostly monks at a house in Glastonbury Walk, on an estate in Throston, Hartlepool. A monastery was reputed to have been on the site many centuries ago. This seems too good to be true, for the road’s name is so palpably evocative of a romantic mystical past. Seatonian Michael Dickinson told me he saw a group of half-a-dozen or so hooded figures in the 1970s, stood outside Holy Trinity church, Seaton Carew.