Haunted Newcastle E-Book

Darren W. Ritson

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

Seitenzahl: 197

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

This fascinating book contains over forty-five spine-chilling accounts from in and around central Newcastle. Take a tour of this ancient city and discover poltergeists, apparitions, curses, hauntings and even the ghost of a living person! From the ancient city walls to the cobbled back streets and chares of old Newcastle, and including graveyards, museums, stately halls, pubs, parks and monasteries, this book includes many pulse-raising narratives that are guaranteed to make your blood run cold.

Leseprobe

HAUNTED

NEWCASTLE

HAUNTED

NEWCASTLE

DARREN W. RITSON

FOREWORD BY ALAN MURDIE

This book is dedicated to my mother and father, Jean and Walter; to my brother, Gary; and to my girls – Jayne and Abbey.

Frontispiece: The Holy Jesus Hospital on City Road is said to be one of two surviving seventeenth-century buildings in Newcastle. Behind the building stands a fourteenth-century Augustinian tower.

First published 2009

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

Reprinted 2009, 2012

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved

© Darren W. Ritson, 2009, 2013

The right of Darren W. Ritson to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUBISBN 978 0 7509 5258 3

Original typesetting by The History Press

CONTENTS

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Some Thoughts on Newcastle

1.A Short History of Newcastle upon Tyne

2.The Ghosts of an Ancient City

3.Newcastle’s Haunted Pubs and Inns

4.Investigations and Overnight Case Studies

Afterword

Bibliography & Recommended Reading

FOREWORD

The author of any regionally orientated ghost book such as Haunted Newcastle faces the difficult task of satisfying at least three distinct audiences. Firstly, there is a large group of people who want to be simply entertained by a thrilling ghost story, suitable for telling at Christmas time or reading alone in the comfort and security of one’s home with the lights dimmed. Secondly, there is a smaller – but no less demanding – audience who see the paranormal as a serious matter for study and debate, and view it as providing insights upon fundamental questions regarding the nature of existence and the possibility of life after death. And there is a third and perhaps growing audience, those who live in, and know the area concerned and who want a handbook to use to go and directly investigate haunted sites. On opening a regional ghost book they will soon be eagerly searching for details of ghosts in local buildings which they know and frequent, with every intention of making a personal visit in the very hope of experiencing paranormal activity themselves.

Whichever of these categories the reader may fall into – and in many cases they overlap – I am sure that Darren Ritson’s book will be appreciated and enjoyed by many. Perhaps only pure thrill-seekers may be a touch disappointed to find that genuine ghosts seldom resemble the dramatic phantoms of supernatural fiction (although I suspect many researchers might quit the field if they did!). But the accounts in this book are none the less fascinating for this, and whatever view the reader takes of reports of ghosts and ghostly phenomena, I am certain this is a book which will be of great value to anyone with a serious interest in Tyneside hauntings.

A book such as Haunted Newcastle is also long overdue. For myself, with a family background partly from the Newcastle area, I have long held an interest in ghost reports emanating from the city and its environs. However, I have hitherto been rather disappointed to find relatively few first-hand reports of apparitions and haunting events in published works. Even in the heyday of spontaneous case collecting in the early years of the Society for Psychical Research, relatively little material was gathered in and around Newcastle. The society zealously pursued cases of both crisis apparitions of persons seen at the point of death (published in the monumental Phantasms of the Living (1886)) and more standard accounts of haunted houses, but few cases seemed to have been gathered on Tyneside. Even over a century later – in marked contrast to the celebrated ghosts of other cities such as London, York, Derby and Edinburgh – the phantoms receive little publicity. As the author remarks, the city was very much virgin territory in terms of books and published reports of apparitions and ghostly activity when he began collecting the material contained herein.

For those engaged in psychical research this seeming absence of material may also be rather surprising. If there is any truth in the view that psychic phenomena may be linked with the presence of water, Newcastle upon Tyne might well be expected to have many accounts of noisy hauntings, even spurious ones caused by the effects of tides and underground water channels. This theory – which was popular with certain psychic researchers during the 1950s and ’60s as an explanation for poltergeist phenomena and anomalous sounds such as footsteps, knocks and groans – is now largely discredited. Similarly, proponents of the more esoteric theory of ‘window areas’ – that there are certain places particularly prone to ghostly and psychic occurrences – might conclude that Newcastle is not one of them.

However, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and I think that other factors have been at work and have kept Newcastle ghost experiences a predominantly local affair. A strong sense of regional identity and local patriotism for which the area is justly famous has been an influence. As Darren Ritson has discovered, local people have an endless number of stories of ghostly experiences, but have largely kept them local and to themselves – as is their privilege. It has thus required determined local researchers to tap into this rich source of oral tradition and record it. As a local born and bred, Darren Ritson has been ideally placed to engage with local people and receive their testimony, and this book is a tribute to his labours. The harvest has been great and regrettably space does not allow for inclusion of all the accounts and data which have been gathered. Attractive as theories of ‘most haunted cities’ and ‘window areas’ may be, books like this one lead me to believe they are really no more than statistical effects, which ultimately reflect the dedication and commitment of individual researchers. Haunted Newcastle demonstrates what I have come to believe about all areas of the UK, and indeed the rest of world. Every related society of which we have a record has had a belief in ghosts and the return of the dead in one form or another. Accounts of haunting phenomena are to be found everywhere, if you are prepared to go and look. What is necessary are dedicated people prepared to collect testimony – and in this regard, Darren Ritson has done a very good job.

The volume of material gathered in this collection is also owed much to the fact that the author is no mere armchair or internet-surfing ghost hunter, but one of the variety who actually goes out and looks. He has visited many reputedly haunted sites and investigated numerous cases personally. Despite the view propagated by certain parts of the mass media (particularly on some very dubious television shows) that ghost hunting is a thrilling activity filled with unexplained events at every turn, the reverse is more usually the case. As another former chairman of the Ghost Club, Tom Perrot, once wisely said to me, ‘All too frequently my ghost hunting equipment consists of a pencil, a notebook and a sympathetic ear.’ Proper investigation requires not simply a night-time vigil but a great deal of follow-up work. This often involves laborious trawls through official records, libraries and archives, as well as contacting a wide range of individuals and agencies who may hold key information about a particular site. To investigate an alleged haunting properly can take weeks, if not months of effort. At the early stages there is often little beyond the account of a puzzled or frightened witness to go on. Proper research can demand the gathering and examination of a great deal of diverse evidence. It is rare that investigators get to have experiences of an apparent ghost, although Darren Ritson has had some measure of success at certain sites. More often than not these efforts result in more unresolved questions than one began with.

Fortunately, the whole topic of ghosts is today increasingly receiving more academic and informed attention than for many years. This interest on the part of academia is long overdue. Reports of ghosts – whatever one may believe about them – are increasingly being studied and examined by scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including psychologists, physicists, historians and folklorists. Increasingly, it is recognised that ghost encounters can shed light on many aspects of human experience, whatever the ultimate nature of the phenomena may be. Parapsychologists – of whom the UK has a growing number – are also taking up with renewed interest the issue of so-called ‘spontaneous cases’; in other words, those types of psychic phenomena occurring outside the laboratory and which are experienced by the population at large. Whilst these are welcome developments, we must never forget the crucial work which researchers such as Darren Ritson perform in gathering fresh data at source. Books such as Haunted Newcastle lay a pioneering path for researchers delving into the vast territory of the unexplained, and the publication of this volume is warmly welcomed as a further informed contribution to the field. And I am also sure that this will be a book that many will read for pleasure for many years to come.

Alan Murdie

Head of the Spontaneous Cases Committee

for the Society for Psychical Research,

and former chairman of the Ghost Club

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Alan Murdie (Head of the Spontaneous Cases Committee for the Society for Psychical Research, and former chairman of the Ghost Club) for his help and kindness and for agreeing to pen the Foreword to this book. My acquaintances at the Society for Psychical Research who have given me so much real support and encouragement during my research these last few years. The Ghost Club of Great Britain for its support, and encouragement. My father, Walter Ritson, for supplying me with many photographs from his archives for inclusion in this book. Mike Hallowell for his endless help and encouragement. To Jon Downes from the Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) – the world’s largest mystery animal research group. The members of the North East Ghost Research Team and G.H.O.S.T. for helping with the investigations contained herein. Julie Olley for the wonderful illustrations contained throughout the book. Suzanne Hitchinson (née McKay) and Sam Fox for inviting me to their investigation at the Fusilier public house. The various correspondents and witnesses that have sent me material to use in this book – without their letters these ghost stories may never have been told. Paul McDonald at Newcastle Keep for his help and assistance. Trevor Brown for the use of his rather odd ‘mist photo’ and his explanation as to how it came to be photographed. Steve Taylor from the Newcastle Ghost Walk and Alone in the Dark Entertainment for various stories relayed. To everyone that has taken time out to talk to me and share their experiences during my research and compilation of this book, including pub landlords, property owners, historians, museum guides, shop assistants, factory workers, students and everyone else. Many thanks must also go to the Newcastle Libraries and Information Service for allowing me to reproduce some of their pictures. To Gladys Parker and all the volunteers at Byker Community Centre, Jo Bean and the staff at El-Coto restaurant, the owners of the Coroner’s Court, the staff and wardens at Newcastle Keep, to Gemma Gorner, Liz Mills, Jo Risolino – and of course ‘Tom’ – and to Lee and Kelly from the Fusilier public house for allowing overnight access to their premises for our investigations. Special thanks go to Cate Ludlow and the staff at The History Press for having faith in me – working with you on this book has been an absolute pleasure. All photographs taken by Darren W. Ritson unless otherwise stated.

Other books by Darren W. Ritson include: The South Shields Poltergeist – One Family’s Fight against an Invisible Intruder (with Michael J. Hallowell. Published by The History Press, 2008).

SOME THOUGHTS ON NEWCASTLE

Newcastle is a noble town tho’ in a bottom, it most resembles London of any place in England, its buildings are lofty and large of brick mostly or stone; the streetes are very broad and handsome and very well pitch’d and many of them with very fine conduits of water in each, always running into a large stone Cistern for every bodyes use. Their shops are good and are of distinct trades. Saturday is the biggest market day and the market is like a faire for all sorts of provision and goods are very cheape.

Celia Fiennes – 1698

Newcastle is spacious, extended, infinitely populous place; tis seated upon the river Tyne, which is here a noble, large and deep river, and ships of any reasonable burthen may come safely up to the very town. As the town lies on both sides of the river, the parts are join’d by a very strong and stately stone bridge of seven arches rather larger than the arches of London Bridge; and the bridge is built into a street of houses also, as is London Bridge. They built ships here to perfection, I mean as to strength, and firmness, and to bear the sea; and as the coal trade occasions a great demand for such strong ships, a great many are built here.

Daniel Defoe – 1724

Had I not been journeying towards heaven, I could not wish for a more pleasant abiding place than Newcastle.

John Wesley – 1738

An ancient and large town that is exceedingly populous and very rich. It is situated at the end of a wall on the River Tyne, over which it has a fine bridge. The commerce carried on its coals and salmon is amazing, and hath rendered it in great measure of the emporium of the north.

C.T. Middleton – 1778

one

A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE

Newcastle upon Tyne is world famous for the many bridges that span the River Tyne linking the city of Newcastle to Gateshead; the most famous bridge, of course, being the Tyne Bridge.

Work began on the Tyne Bridge in August 1925, and it was completed in 1928. The Tyne Bridge was opened by King George V in that same year. The newest edition to the River Tyne is known as the Millennium Bridge, or the Blinking Eye. On 20 November, in the year 2000, I remember sitting in the garden at my parents’ house in Walker – a house that had spectacular views of the river – eagerly awaiting the passing of Asian Hercules II that was ferrying the massive 800-tonne structure up the River Tyne from the AMEC Wallsend shipyard where the structure had been assembled. When it eventually passed our house, after its slow and painstaking voyage up the Tyne, I began to comprehend the fact that I was actually experiencing Newcastle’s history in the making. It was a day that no one will ever forget.

But it was Emperor Hadrian of the Roman Empire who built the very first bridge that spanned the Tyne – or Tinea, as it was then known – during their occupation of Newcastle around AD 120. The site of the original Roman bridge is roughly where the Swing Bridge now stands. The Roman structure was named Pons Aelii. During the Roman occupation the first fortification that stood in Newcastle was on the site of what is now known as Newcastle Keep. That was named Pons Aelius and it was essentially built to safeguard the bridge Pons Aelii. It was built high on a hill and was the perfect position for such a fortress.

It was AD 122 when the magnificent Hadrian’s Wall was built. It was an impressive structure, 10ft wide and 15ft high, that ran nearly seventy-five miles from Bowness on Solway in Cumbria (Maia) to Wallsend (Segedunum). It was built to prevent the military raids from the ancient Scots and Picts, to improve the quality of life and economic stability in the Roman province of Britannia, and in the main to defend the northern frontier. The wall ran straight through Newcastle with Pons Aelius being one of its many fortresses; however very little of the wall remains in central Newcastle. There are nevertheless some magnificent remains of the wall and its fortresses further west, stretching across the Pennine Way from Housesteads Roman Fort to Greenheads. A very small section of the wall can be seen in Byker, and the remains of the fort at Segedunum museum where the wall ends is there for everyone to enjoy.

A small section of Hadrian’s Wall on Shields Road, Byker.

AD 500 saw the Angles arrive in the North East, and Pons Aelius became Monkchester. Although there is very little to support the theory that the Angles occupied Newcastle, there are rumours that there is a Saxon burial ground near to the Roman fortress. After the arrival of William the Conqueror in England in 1066, England was quickly subjected to the Norman rule. In 1080 he sent his son William Curthose north to defend his kingdom against the Scots. It was here where he rebuilt the fortress and a ‘New Castle’ was erected. It was of motte and bailey construction – essentially a mound of earth on which there is a wooden structure called a keep. It was this castle that gave Newcastle its name. It is also interesting to note that these constructions were called ‘grafts’ and as they were very hard to construct, the term ‘graft’, meaning to work hard, came into being.

In 1172 Henry II rebuilt the castle again, this time with stone. It took five years to erect at a cost of £1,000-£1,500. The Black Gate was added to the castle in the reign of Henry III between 1247 and 1250, essentially forming a new Barbican at the north entrance. At this point in time the city walls had yet to be built – when the Scottish invasions occurred, the townsfolk gathered inside the castle’s large, triangular bailey for safety. Throughout the Middle Ages Newcastle was England’s most northerly fortress, and after the Battle of Alnwick the Scots’ King, William the Lion, was imprisoned there. During the fourteenth century, Newcastle successfully defended its townsfolk on three occasions. The legendary William Wallace, landowner and then a commander in the Scottish Wars of Independence, came through Newcastle with Edward I and, after Wallace’s brutal death in London in August 1305, he was hung, drawn and quartered and parts of his body were displayed in Newcastle. His head was then spiked and displayed on London Bridge.

Hadrian’s Wall at Housesteads Roman Fort in Northumberland – one of the most magnificent sections of the wall that remains today.

It was also during the Middle Ages that Newcastle’s famous city walls were built. In 1265 the town was granted permission to impose a ‘wall tax’ upon its citizens. This would pay for the construction of a giant, fortified wall that would encompass the town to protect it from further invasions from the marauding Scots. Two miles of city wall were built, consisting of six main gates (with additional smaller ones) and seventeen towers. The wall was 9ft thick and 25ft high. It was an incredible piece of industrialisation. Like the Roman wall, little remains of the town walls, but there are some good sections still left intact which add character, charm and a wonderful historical aspect to what is now a now modern and high-tech municipality.

Established within the city walls were five friaries, the most well known (and the only one that remains standing today) being called Blackfriars. Blackfriars was founded in 1237. Others included Whitefriars (1262), Austinfriars (1290), Greyfriars (1274) and the Trinitarians, founded in 1360. There was also one nunnery – St Bartholomew’s – founded in 1086 near the city’s ‘Nun Street’. Of course, the Tudor period began during the 1500s and the dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry VIII led to all of Newcastle’s monasteries being dissolved. During the reformation Blackfriars was sublet to various traders and merchants, and was subsequently used as their headquarters. This is why it survives to this day. By now the wars between the English and the Scots were beginning to diminish and thus the need for the city walls became redundant. They began to decline through lack of maintenance and eventually parts of the walls were demolished and used to make other, new and more needed buildings. During the sixteenth century, Newcastle was also hit by the plague on no more than four occasions, resulting in many deaths. Over 5,000 people in all died as a result of the Black Death.

The city walls stretching west from St Andrew’s Church towards Herber Tower.

Herber Tower and the city walls at the west entrance to Chinatown. They head south to Westgate Road.

The Corner Tower on City Road. This section of the wall led to the Sallyport Tower, which stands to the south-east.

A magnificent example of the true height and width of the city walls of Newcastle. This section is located behind the central station on Orchard Street.

The city walls were finally breached in 1644 during the Civil War when the Scots once again invaded. Forty thousand Scottish troops besieged Newcastle for almost three months until Newcastle’s garrison of only 1,500 surrendered. During the siege the Scots bombarded Newcastle and its remaining walls and threatened to destroy the tower of St Nicholas’ Cathedral unless the township was surrendered. To counteract this, the Mayor of Newcastle very cunningly filled up the cathedral with Scots prisoners and so saved the building. It was at this point when the King of England at the time – King Charles I – decided to pay homage to the citizens of Newcastle for their bravery and courage by giving Newcastle the motto Fortiter Defendit Triumphans (Triumphing by Brave Defence).

The Black Gate, the former entrance to the castle. (Courtesy of Walter Ritson.)

In 1715 came the Jacobite Rebellion, followed by a second uprising in 1745 led by Charles Edward Stuart – also known as Bonnie Prince Charlie. Once again Newcastle prepared its defences by re-strengthening the town walls and arresting any Jacobite supporters. Two hundred cannons were deployed, and 20,000 regulars were stationed on Newcastle’s Town Moor. This, it seemed, was enough to hold Bonnie Prince Charlie and his army at bay (and as a consequence force them to travel south via England’s west coast). It is interesting to add that many believe that the term used for the people of Newcastle is ‘Geordie’ because King George I was King of England at the time of the rebellion and played a key role in the war. The folk of Newcastle supported the King and were subsequently given the nickname Geordies. In the eighteenth century the term ‘German Geordies’ was used, as King George was in fact the eldest son of Ernest Augustus, the Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg, who was a German prince.