The Society for the Investigation of Spectral Phenomena
The Vicarage Table at Croydon Minster: A Confession
Croydon Minster, church, Broad Green, London
I.Background & History
Croydon Minster is the parish and civic church of the London Borough of Croydon, standing in the Old Town area of the district. It is the most prominent of more than thirty-five churches now in the borough, and it is Grade I listed.
The Society holds no further particulars of its fabric or its clergy that it can vouch for, and none are offered here. It is enough that the church has stood for generations at the heart of the town, and that the houses about it were for long occupied by those who served it.
Source: Croydon Minster, Wikipedia
II.The Entity
The Sexton's Housekeeper
A stooped woman in a grey mourning gown and a clergyman's housekeeping keys, seen moving through the Old Town churchyard and the north aisle at dusk, carrying a tray. Her hands are always correct in their motions and wrong in their number of joints: each finger bends a third time, backwards, as it sets down a cup. She has no face to speak of, only a smooth pallor where the features ought to settle, and she turns it toward whoever watches.
Assessment of Peril
Class IV: Malignant
She does not strike, but those who are seen to watch her are afterwards expected at her table, and the Society has recorded four who sat down to it. None rose again in their right minds, or at all.
III.The Account
The following is the confession of Mr. Josiah Pellew, formerly parish clerk, delivered to the Society in the winter of 1871 and received, to our lasting regret, a week after his burial. We print it as it came, in a cramped and failing hand.
'In the autumn of 1846 a fever went through the clerk's house beside the churchyard, and took my employer's whole family in nine days: the old man, his wife, two daughters, and a servant girl named Hannah Voke. I had the keys. I was frightened of the contagion, and I did what I now confess before you. When the servant girl called from the upper room for water, I turned the key upon her, and I went to the vestry and sat with my hands over my ears until the calling ceased. She was the last to die. I told the parish she had gone with the others, and she was buried with them.'
'Within the month I noticed the house was kept. I lodged across the lane then, and from my window I saw a lamp lit each evening in the kitchen at the hour she used to light it. In the morning, when I went in with the key, the table was laid for six, and the six places were wrong. The knives lay edge outward. The cups were set upside down on their saucers. The clock in the passage had been wound, but wound backward, so that its spring was strained near to breaking. I put it all away, and the next night it was done again, with patience, as by one who had been told how a household behaves but never shown it.'
IV.Recorded Manifestations
- ✦Tables laid for six with knives edge outward and cups inverted
- ✦Clocks wound backward until the springs are strained
- ✦Beds warmed by hot stone bottles with the sheets turned down upon no sleeper
- ✦A kitchen lamp lit at dusk in an empty house
- ✦Cold tea carried through the north aisle by a faceless woman
- ✦A name chalked upon a saucer in a hand the reader knows
Testimony of Witnesses
“'I saw her cross the grass with a tray at dusk. She set it upon a gravestone, and a cup upon it, and she looked at me. I have kept away from that stone since.'”
“'Every bed in that house was warm when I went in to strip them, and no one sleeping in them. The bottles were hot as new. I gave my notice that day.'”
“'I was sceptical, and I attended the late officer's body. His tea was warm. I do not drink tea now, and I would ask you not to inquire further.'”
V.Rite of Expulsion
Difficulty: Perilous
Requisites
- ☐A key that fits no lock in the house
- ☐A clean white tablecloth
- ☐Six unwashed cups
- ☐A hand-bell
- ☐A candle of unbleached tallow
The Rite
- I.1. At dusk, enter the house with the key held in the left hand, and speak to no one met on the stair.
- II.2. Lay the table yourself, correctly, with knives edge inward and cups upright, and light the candle at its head.
- III.3. Wind the passage clock forward, never back, to the hour of the servant's death, which was three in the morning.
- IV.4. Ring the bell once, and say aloud the name Hannah Voke, then unlock the upper room.
- V.5. Leave the door open and the table laid, and withdraw to the churchyard without looking behind you.
- VI.6. Return at dawn and clear the six places in silence, and cast the key into running water.
Caution. On no account sit at the table, or accept any cup offered. The last officer who did so, Mr. Aldous, is entered in the Society's register as 'present, though not living'.
VI.Hauntings of the Surrounding District
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The Spread Eagle Theatre · Old Theatre · 0.3 miles
The Spread Eagle Chorus, phantom procession. Players in cracked greasepaint cross the dark stage nightly in silence, and one more is always found among them than went in.
St Andrew's · Church · 0.4 miles
The Veiled Almswoman, white lady. A woman in a wet veil kneels in the porch each Candlemas, and the stone beneath her is always found warm to the touch.
Fairfield Halls · Manor House · 0.4 miles
The Ledger-Knocker, poltergeist. Each evening something raps the panelling of the old hall in the cadence of a steward's counting, and stops at the number of those who will die that year.
Ashcroft Theatre · Old Theatre · 0.5 miles
The Gas-Boy, spectre. A boy with a lamplighter's pole tends footlights that have long been cold, and those who look at him find their own shadows have gone out.
Warehouse Theatre · Old Theatre · 0.6 miles
The Crate-Sitter, unclassified entity. Something sits among the stacked crates breathing in time with whoever stands near, and a half-breath behind.
Queen's Road Cemetery · Cemetery · 1.2 miles
The Gravel-Pacer, phantom hound. A lean black dog paces the cemetery paths at night, and it is said that it only walks beside the one who is next to be carried in.
St Mary's Church · Church · 0.6 miles
The Belfry Ewe, spectral animal. A drenched white ewe bleats in the tower stair at midnight, and none who follow the sound have been found on the stair by morning.
Dog & Bull · Old Inn · 0.2 miles
Drover Hask, revenant. A drover with a bloodless face sits in the taproom at closing, and the ale pulled for him is found drunk by dawn.
Nestlé Tower · Old Tower · 0.4 miles
The Tower Glimmer, will-o'-the-wisp. A pale blue light bobs at the height of a window where no window is, drawing the watcher steadily toward the foot of the wall.
