Old Mansion Has its “Ghost”

Manawatu Times, Volume 68, Issue 56, 8 March 1943, Page 6

Old Mansion Has its “Ghost”

LONDON, Dec. 17. A playful ghost is putting a mild scare into workmen who are converting a 400-year-old mansion at Highgate (London) into a communal restaurant. The house, which is named “Fairseat,” and stands on Highgate Hill, has extensive cellars, blocked-up passages, false ceilings, secret panels and seven feet-thick walls. It once belonged to a brewer, Jerqmiah Kettle, who died in 1600. His descendants occupied it until five years ago. Workmen who are breaking down partitions and making a spacious ground-floor restaurant assert that weird noises such as the smashing of vases, and mysterious bell ringing arc* heard, at odd times. They say that their tools arc spirited away into distant corners and that hats and overcoats, even buckets, disappear. The foreman says: “I cannot throw off au eerie feeling that I am unwelcome, whenever I enter the place, I feel queer all day and I am glad when I leave. “A policeman at the dead of the night heard a bell ringing upstairs and thought it was a burglar alarm. He had the house surrounded, but there was nothing (here—only our ghost.” Thy restaurant will be controlled by the London County Council and sell meals at Is 2d each. From the first day of entering camp Tiny had found himself selected for cookhouse fatigue. A week of it passed before he decided to go sick. Paraded before the medical officer, ho complained of .shell-shock. “.Shell-shock!” exclaimed that as lounded officer. “Why, you haven’t heard a gun fired yet.” “Guns have nothing to do with it,” said Tiny. “It’s the way they keep me shelling those nasty peas.” “Nurse,” said the private, “I’m in love with you. 1 don’t want to get better. ’ ’ ‘Don’t worry; you won’t,” she said, cheerfully. “The M.O.’s in love with me, too, and lie saw you kiss me this iinorning. ”•