DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70302#0088
70
ACCOUNT OF THE COCK LANE GHOST.
the 2nd of February, 1760, and was interred at the Church
of St. John’s, Clerkenwell.
From this event two years elapsed, when a report was
propagated that a great knocking and scratching had
been heard in the night, at the house of Parsons, to the
great terror of all the family ; all methods employed to
discover the cause of it being ineffectual. This noise
was always heard under the bed in which lay two chil-
dren, the eldest of whom had slept with Mrs. Kempe,
as already mentioned, during her residence in this house.
To find out whence it proceeded, Mr. Parsons ordered
the wainscot to be taken down, but the knocking and
scratching, instead of ceasing, became more violent
than ever. The children were then removed into the two
pair of stairs room, whither they were followed by the
same noise, which sometimes continued during the whole
night.
From these circumstances it was apprehended, that
the house was haunted; and the elder child declared,
that she had, some time before, seen the apparition of a
woman, surrounded, as it were, by a' blazing light. But
the girl was not the only person who was favoured with a
sight of this luminous lady. A publican in the neigh-
bourhood, bringing a pot of beer into the house, about
eleven o’clock at night, was so terrified that he let the
beer fall, upon seeing on the stairs, as he was looking up,
the bright shining figure of a woman, which cast such
a light that he could see the dial in the charity school,
through a window in that building. The figure passed
by him, and beckoned him to follow, but he was too
much terrified to obey its directions, ran home as fast as
possible, and was taken very ill. About an hour after
this, Mr. Parsons himself having occasion to go into another
room, saw the same apparition.
As the knocking and scratching only followed the
children,
ACCOUNT OF THE COCK LANE GHOST.
the 2nd of February, 1760, and was interred at the Church
of St. John’s, Clerkenwell.
From this event two years elapsed, when a report was
propagated that a great knocking and scratching had
been heard in the night, at the house of Parsons, to the
great terror of all the family ; all methods employed to
discover the cause of it being ineffectual. This noise
was always heard under the bed in which lay two chil-
dren, the eldest of whom had slept with Mrs. Kempe,
as already mentioned, during her residence in this house.
To find out whence it proceeded, Mr. Parsons ordered
the wainscot to be taken down, but the knocking and
scratching, instead of ceasing, became more violent
than ever. The children were then removed into the two
pair of stairs room, whither they were followed by the
same noise, which sometimes continued during the whole
night.
From these circumstances it was apprehended, that
the house was haunted; and the elder child declared,
that she had, some time before, seen the apparition of a
woman, surrounded, as it were, by a' blazing light. But
the girl was not the only person who was favoured with a
sight of this luminous lady. A publican in the neigh-
bourhood, bringing a pot of beer into the house, about
eleven o’clock at night, was so terrified that he let the
beer fall, upon seeing on the stairs, as he was looking up,
the bright shining figure of a woman, which cast such
a light that he could see the dial in the charity school,
through a window in that building. The figure passed
by him, and beckoned him to follow, but he was too
much terrified to obey its directions, ran home as fast as
possible, and was taken very ill. About an hour after
this, Mr. Parsons himself having occasion to go into another
room, saw the same apparition.
As the knocking and scratching only followed the
children,