Beachcombing's Bizarre History Blog

Books and the Ghost March 11, 2015

Aspenshaw Hall is an elegant, still standing, eighteenth century home in Derbyshire central England. It came to the attention of this blog because of a rather charming ghost story.

A mile distant, and not far from Ollersett pit, is Aspenshaw Hall, which for many years was empty. It is in the middle of a wood and people in the vicinity vouch for the following story: some of them remember when a well-to-do farmer named Sidebottom held the mansion, but only occupied a portion of the building, leaving certain rooms unoccupied. A lawyer had previously held the estate, and he, on his decease, left a large number of books strewn about in one of the spare rooms. First one and then another of the volumes were destroyed or mutilated: and immediately after those sleeping in another room had fallen into a quiet slumber they were disturbed by loud noises of tumbling stones or reports varying in character. Every time a book or paper in the room was torn or destroyed, a repetition of the hideous noises followed and the bedclothes were gradually dragged to the floor of the room. For a long time the place was declared ‘haunted’, and many refused to sleep there for fear, though upon investigation the Sheffield Telegraph states that nothing to produce any alarm could be found.

Some of the details seem to be corroborated by a website specialising in Derbyshire history.

In 1710 George Bower the youngest son of Edward Bower married Elizabeth, daughter of Edmund Buckley, of Aspenshaw and in 1722 inherited the Aspenshaw Hall and estate. Their son was Buckley Bower. Though his wealthy background meant Buckley had no need to work he became a successful Stockport lawyer. His father died in 1753 and Buckley inherited Aspenshaw and its extensive lands which he like his father continued to expand.

The present Apsenshaw Hall seems to have been built in 1727, presumably on the instruction of George Bower. The lawyer was Buckley, of course, and he was presumably also the ghost, though why he wished to come back and haunt his old residence was not explained. The fact that he became a lawyer rather than a squire seems to have caught the local imagination: perhaps there was the idea that his spirit was in or valued the scraps of papers and the doubtless sizable library of legal texts that he had left behind? Any other book ghosts: it is a new genre for Beach drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com

14 Mar 2015: Chris from Haunted Ohio Books writes in with some great examples. ‘Of course there are probably hundreds of haunted libraries, but you seem to want stories of actual haunted books? An Uncommon Prayer Book by M.R. James is a nice fictional example. It runs in my mind that there are some stories in the census of hallucinations, but I need to look more closely.
Here’s a faux-paranormal example:
Orville Wright had a sense of humor about his “psychic abilities.” On a visit to the Wright’s home, Hawthorn Hill, Griffith Brewer, president of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain, quoted a line of poetry which took Orville’s fancy. Orville asked the author who wrote it. Brewer confessed he didn’t know and he and Orville looked through all Orville’s books of quotations without finding it.
The very next day Orville got a letter from a man in Spokane, asking for an autograph and quoting those very lines. He gave the source: Book VI of Milton’s Paradise Lost. Orville located the lines in his copy of Milton. Then he replaced the book on the shelf and pulled out a book on the shelf directly above it just a fraction of an inch.
After dinner Orville announced to Brewer that he would use psychic power to identify the author of the quotation. Brewer was skeptical. He blindfolded Orville and led him to the library where Orville felt his way along the shelves until he felt the protruding book. He dropped his hand to the copy of Milton on the shelf below. “I feel a strong impulse to pick up this book,” he said. Brewer removed Orville’s blindfold and Orville riffled through the pages of Book VI until he came to the proper page, then located the quotation.
Fred Kelly, who told the story in Miracle at Kitty Hawk, says that Griffith Brewer went to his grave believing that Orville was psychic.
And spooky doings from an historic house in Dayton, Ohio called Patterson Homestead.
At the right front of the house is the farm office where the Pattersons conducted their business. It still contains Col. Robert Patterson’s desk, with his ledger of accounts and a quill pen in a holder.
While tidying up at night, the site manager would often close the ledger and put the quill pen back in its holder. She’d lock up and put the alarm system on, and although there was not supposed to be anyone in the house, the next morning, she would find the ledger lying open on the desk, the quill pen on the book. Tiring of this little game, she decided to leave the ledger open and the pen off its holder. In the morning she found the ledger closed and the pen back in its place.
Here are two examples as told to me. I’ve always cautioned people not to take the paranormal too seriously. But….
One young man told me that as soon as they brought Haunted Ohio into their dorm room, strange things started happening. There were knockings on the walls, the stereo turned on and off by itself, and the computer started printing out gibberish–but it stopped when they put a rosary on the keyboard. But it’s OK, he reassured me we burned your book.
They put it on the hibachi. You can’t burn a book that way it just crisped around the edges. And they saw that as further proof of the Mystic Powers I had written into this book….
Then there was the man who was involved in historical preservation in a northern Ohio city. He’d bought one of my first books and had contributed a story to a later volume about a building owned by his family. One day, out of the blue, he called me. We made a little small talk and I asked how things were.
“Not so good,” he told me, “there was something wrong with the wiring and my house burned down. I lost everything.”
I knew that he collected books, antiques, and historical artifacts so this was a personal and professional disaster. I told him how sorry I was.
“Well, I didn’t quite lose everything. I was picking through the wreckage afterwards—the fire was so hot that a steel beam melted—and by that beam was—your book—barely singed. Just thought you’d like to know.”
Did you ever read Dr. Jessopp’s plain tale of what occurred to him in the library of a country house, probably that of my Lord Oxford? The scholar sat up alone, and late, in the library, diligently making notes from some rare old books. He admits that there was soda water in the room, about whiskey he says nothing. He had nearly finished his notes when he observed, sitting at the table at right angles to himself, a clerical person, robust, rather red-haired, very clean-shaven, whose large white hand lay on the table. This ecclesiastical dignitary wore an antique costume of corded silk, with a rather high erect collar. The learned archeologist went on with his annotations (how I envy his pluck!) and paid no attention to his companion. But, laying down one book and taking up another, the last which he had to consult, Dr. Jessopp remarked that the priest was still there, dignified, handsome and silent. The doctor admits that he now began to distrust his nerve. He finished his work, replaced the books on their shelves, drank some soda water, lit his candle, and went to bed, without saying “good night.”
Reader, wouldst thou have acted thus nobly? I confess that I would have made a bolt for it as soon as I saw the cleric, probably a martyred Jesuit of the cruel days of Queen Elizabeth. The learned antiquary told the tale in print, because people were always asking him about it.
Why is it that this simple narrative “gars me a’ grue” more than all the horrors of Mr. Benson and the Provost of King’s? Probably just because there is nothing horrible or malignant in the demeanor of the appearance, except that he was certainly not a man of mortal mold. But that is a good deal, and the thing might happen to any scholar, alone, after midnight, in an old library, making notes, for all I know, on the persecutions under Queen Elizabeth. I, too, am alone, late at night, as I scribble and I find myself looking over my shoulder. Other men might have invited the Elizabethan specter to take “a modest quencher,” not I, and Dr. Jessopp left him to help himself.
The Independent “Fear and Ghosts” Andrew Lang, 603-606 Volume 72 1912
Longleat has one of the largest private book collections in Europe. It has seven libraries containing some 40,000 books owned by the family since before the house was built. Nearly half of the 85 volumes which appear in the booklist of 1577 are still to be found on the shelves. One library in particular – the Red Library, contains 5000 books and a rather distinguished ghost who is thought to be that of Thomas Ken – Bishop of Bath and Wells, who took refuge at Longleat when he lost his seat as punishment for refusing to switch his allegiance from King James to King William. He remained at Longleat for twenty years until his death in 1711. His ghost has been seen sitting quietly in the Red Library reading, when approached he vanishes.
http://hauntedwiltshire.blogspot.com/2011/07/longleat-house.html
The following communication was published in the Daily Post, and will give an idea of what was going forward in the spiritual manifestations. It wag written by D. B. Harris, at whose house many of the manifestations occurred…..The rapping then ceased, and we heard a sound resembling the flapping of a small bird’s wings upon the white counterpane of the bed. Then the counterpane was drawn, by some invisible agency, entirely off the bed, rolled up into a heap, and laid four feet off upon the floor. We then replaced the counterpane, and requested it to be thrown on a chair at the head of the bed. This was instantly done. We repeated this experiment some six or eight times. A chair-cushion, placed upon the foot of the bed, was repeatedly thrown upon the chair which stood at the head, or upon the floor. We next placed a book upon the bed, and asked the spirits to open it. This was also done on the instant, and was repeated several times, the leaves rustling as if turned by the thumb. The book was then thrown from the bed, and lodged on the bureau, some five feet distant. It was then hurled, at our request, so violently against the door, that, if the latter had been made of plate glass, the book would have gone through it.
Modern Spiritualism: Its Facts and Fanaticisms, Eliab Wilkinson Capron, 1855
MIDNIGHT DISCLOSURES.
[Copied from the True Californian of Oct. 3, 1856.]
NIGHT FIRST.
“Editors of the True Californian:
[various manifestations at seances are described.]
During this time, too, we conversed frequently with our invisible guests through the alphabet and raps; and at our request they would vary the sounds, drumming on the walls, ceiling, floor, etc., and responding to all our mental questions even in this pandemonium, or performing our mental requests almost instantaneously. A book was thrown at one of the ladies, striking her severely on the head. Mr. B. picked it up and placed it by his side on the table. In an instant it was snatched up, and as quickly replaced, with evidently a leaf turned down. Mr. J. P. arose, brought in the light, and examined the folded leaf, when he discovered, close to the corner turned down, these words : ‘ Can ye not discern the signs of the times? ’ The book was a history of Central America, and we all believe this is the only quotation from the Bible in its pages.
Modern American Spiritualism, Emma Hardinge Britten, 1872

Thanks, Chris!