DELAVAL MONK'S GHOST SEEN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22670, 6 March 1937, Page 11 (Supplement)

DELAVAL MONK'S GHOST SEEN

"Our Friend" to People

LONDON, Jan. 30 (IREAT excitement stirred the little colliery village of Forest Hall, Newcastle, recently, when claims wore made that a ghost, thought to be that of the famous " Delaval Monk," had been Been. Each night since that on which the ghost was said to have appeared crowds of would-be " spook " hunters have thronged the neighbourhood of the spot where the ghost was seen. On occasions the owner of the property has had to call in the police to move the crowds. He is Mr. Allan Hall, an undertaker, of Hose Villa, a large house standing in its own grounds on the site of a former mansion, Forest Hall, from which the village takes its name. " Figure in Grey " Local legend lias it that a large mosscovered stone slab in the grounds of Hose Villa hides the entrance to a secret passage, which once connected the mansion of Forest Hall with Seaton Delaval Hall, some three miles away. . 'lhe fact that the " Delaval Monk " is supposed to walk every Christmas, the anniversary of his death, has given rise to the idea that the monk may ilave used this passage. But Mr. Hall and his family have, so they say, seen the ghost at various times during the post three years, although until now their secret did Dot leak out. " Members of my family and myself have seen a figure robed in grey on thp drive and in the grounds of the house several times within the past three years," Mr. Hall stated. " He seems to be quite a friendly Boost, and never frightens anyone. JV®

have become so used to him that my family call him ' Our Friend.' "I did not believe in ghosts three years ago, but now I do." In spite of the close watch kept by villagers and others near Rose Villa, no trace of the ghost has been seen since the first night. " He never appears when a watch is being kept for him," a member of Mr. Hall's family declared. The legend of the " Delaval Monk " is one of the oldest in Northumbrian folklore, and relates how, a few days after Christmas, centuries ago, Lord

Dclaval, of Seaton Dclavnl Hall, slew a monk of Tynemouth Triory because he had stolen a boar's head from the kitchen of the Hall to feed to the poor. A weather-beaten stone, engraved " Oh, horrid deedo to kill a manno for a pigges heede," at Tynemouth, shows to this day the grave of the monk who, according to legend, walks the Hall and its surroundings, searching for the man responsible for the " horrid deede." Mr. Hall has never raised the stone slab in his garden to see what is beneath it, and does not intend to. The stone is six feet long by three wide, and an alternative theory put forward to account for the ghost is that the stone is the entrance to a vault, the spirit of the occupant of which haunts the grounds of the house.