THINKS HE IS BESET BY GHOST OF CROMWELL.

Northland Age, Volume 3, Issue 8, 25 September 1906, Page 2

THINKS HE IS BESET BY GHOST OF CROMWELL.

OCCUPANT OF AN OLD ENGLISH MANSION DATING BACK TO CHAUCER TELLS A STRANGE STORY OF A SPOOK. Ghost stories are to the fore again and a more_remarkable tale is told by tho occupant of the Manor House, Knaresborcugh, England, a charming old mansion, parts of which date back to the early thirteenth century. !A’. ,W. Howes, the occupant, recently restored the building, and during the a skeleton was found under one of the staircases. It is this discovery which has induced Mr. Howes to tell his story. There is something about the building, be declares, that cannot be explained. Formerly he and his wife occupied the Blue Rooms, in which stands an old oak bedstead, in which Oliver Cromwell once slept. Like the other apartments, this room is splendidly panelled, and has a cupboard, which was formerly a priest’s hole or hiding-place, concealed by a spring door. During the night sounds or footsteps are heard on the landing, and Mr. Howes says it is impossible to keep the door of this room closed. . "We have locked it and put a chair against it," ho states, “and in the morning we have found it open. There are no draughts to account for the opening of the door. Since we have moved out of this room' footsteps have still been heard, and on one occasion they were accompanied by a loud bump on the door of our present room."

Mr. Howes says that neither he ncr his family is alarmed, or believes in the supernatural, but after a fifteenyears experience of the house they are at a loss to account for the sounds.

“We call it Oliver's ghost," he remarks, “but I np reason why he should haunt u 3." ’ Chaucer is supposed tc have visited the house, which is supposed to be the only one in England in which stands an original roof tree. In this case an old oak of the forest with its roots still intact, rises through the kitchen up to a bedroom, where it is cut short—being no longer necessary for the. support of the roof—and is used as a small table for the occupant’s candlestick.