The Society for the Investigation of Spectral Phenomena
Dr. Marchant's Casebook on the Hours Lost at Trinity
Trinity Centre, church, Bristol, Bristol
I.Background & History
The Trinity Centre stands in Bristol, in the Parish of St Philip and St Jacob, and was formerly the Holy Trinity Church. It is today a community arts centre and independent live music venue, managed since 2003 by Trinity Community Arts Ltd.
The Society's records add nothing to these particulars that can be vouched for. The building is a church that passed from worship to public entertainment, and it stands among a close huddle of chapels, churches and priory sites in the older quarter of the city.
Source: Trinity Centre, Wikipedia
II.The Entity
The Sexton's Understudy
Never seen entire: a stooped figure in a grave-digger's long coat, glimpsed at the edge of the nave where the pews have been taken out, always turned away and always holding a spade whose blade is clean. Those who look longest report that it has no shadow of its own, but stands within the shadow of whoever is watching. The air about it smells of cold clay and wet lime.
Assessment of Peril
Class IV: Malignant
No witness has been physically struck, yet every person who lost hours in the building has returned changed in habit and temperament, and four are known to have gone back unbidden. Two have not been seen since.
III.The Account
Dr. Josiah Marchant, physician to the parish poor, opened his notes in the spring of 1907 on a case he thought commonplace. A sidesman of Holy Trinity, a Mr. Elias Garrow, aged forty-four, had been locked in the church at four o'clock to trim the lamps and was let out by the verger at nine, insisting that scarcely a quarter of an hour had passed. His pulse was regular and his pupils were equal. Dr. Marchant observed one oddity only: the man's fingernails were packed black with damp soil, though the floor of the church was flagged and swept.
By midsummer there were five such cases, and the doctor's hand grows less steady in the notes. A charwoman, a choirboy and a curate's wife had each lost hours within the building and each returned with clay beneath the nails. Dr. Marchant records, still in clinical language, that Garrow had begun to sleep on his left side only, to refuse salt, and to hum a burial sentence he swore he had never learned. The curate's wife, formerly timid, now walked the length of the nave each dawn counting the flagstones aloud. He notes that the afflicted know one another in the street without speaking.
The entry for the 9th of October is the first that the doctor does not sign. He had sat a night in the nave with a watch and a lamp, and wrote that at midnight the watch stopped and he found himself kneeling by the north wall with a spade in his hands. The blade was clean; his nails were black. In the floor before him lay a rectangle of loosened earth where no earth should be, and from beneath it, patient and regular, came the sound of someone digging upward. He wrote that he understood, then, that the hours were not lost but borrowed, and that those who were taken were set to dig.
IV.Recorded Manifestations
- ✦Loss of hours within the building, from a quarter of an hour to a whole night, without any sense of passage
- ✦Soil beneath the fingernails of the afflicted, of a cold blue clay unknown in the district
- ✦Watches and clocks stopping together at the moment the shadow is first noticed
- ✦A sound of slow digging from beneath the floor, heard most clearly at the north wall
- ✦A smell of lime and wet earth, strongest on the afflicted for weeks afterwards
- ✦Changed habits among those returned: sleeping on one side, refusing salt, humming a burial sentence
Testimony of Witnesses
“"I trimmed the first lamp and looked up and the verger was at the door. Five hours, sir, and I would swear to a quarter. Why do my hands smell of a grave?"”
“"There was a man at the end of the aisle with his back to me, and I thought, he is standing in my shadow. When I turned about my own was gone, and the day with it."”
“"I heard the spade through the door, steady as a pulse. When I broke in, the floor was swept, and I found my hands full of earth."”
V.Rite of Expulsion
Difficulty: Perilous
Requisites
- ☐A new-bought spade, never used
- ☐A bowl of common salt
- ☐A hand-bell
- ☐A pocket watch wound and set by church time
- ☐Two tallow candles
The Rite
- I.Enter the church at a quarter before noon, alone, wearing no ring or buckle of iron.
- II.Set the watch on the north wall and wind it thrice, so that the hour may be remembered.
- III.Scatter the salt across the nave in a straight line from door to chancel and let no foot disturb it.
- IV.At noon, ring the bell once and speak the name of each afflicted person aloud.
- V.Plant the unused spade, blade downward, in the flags at the north wall and leave it standing.
- VI.Withdraw backwards through the door without turning, and do not look at your own shadow until you are in the street.
Caution. If the watch stops, abandon the rite at once and do not kneel. Captain Hale of the Society knelt, and his hat was all that was returned.
VI.Hauntings of the Surrounding District
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Castlemead · Castle · 0.4 miles
The Moat Drudges, phantom procession. At low water, a line of bowed labourers is seen carrying baskets of earth along the old defences, and none casts a reflection.
Blackfriars · Abbey · 0.5 miles
The Black Cowl of the Refectory, spectre. A friar sits at the long table at dusk, and his hood turns slowly toward whoever speaks.
Bristol Castle · Castle · 0.5 miles
The Keep Porter, headless apparition. A headless man in a leather apron unlocks gates that no longer exist, and a bunch of keys is heard behind those who flee.
Temple Church · Ruins · 0.6 miles
The Leaning Hour, unclassified entity. Passers-by beneath the broken tower report that the light tilts sideways for a moment, and that they have walked a street they cannot name.
Austin Friary · Abbey · 0.6 miles
Brother Tallow-Hands, revenant. A hunched friar comes to the wall each Lent with hands that drip a warm wax, and those he touches smell of candles for a year.
St Nicholas of Tolentino Church · Church · a few paces
The Lady of Tolentino Linen, white lady. A woman in a pale shroud stands at the altar rail folding cloth that is never finished, and her face is never found.
Stapleton Road Chapel · Church · 0.1 miles
The Chapel Heifer, spectral animal. A wet-eyed white calf is found standing in the aisle after dark, and it follows the one who sees it home.
St Jude's Church · Church · 0.2 miles
The Jude Lamp, will-o'-the-wisp. A small blue light drifts along the churchyard rail, drawing the lost toward the open ground behind the vestry.
Kingsley Hall · Manor House · 0.3 miles
The Hall Rapper, poltergeist. Knocking moves through the walls in the pattern of a child's name, and a door opens upon the nearest sleeper each night.
Central Quaker Meeting House · Church · 0.3 miles
The Silent Friend in Grey, spectre. During meeting an extra figure sits among the benches, and it alone is never found when the room empties.
St Gabriel's Church · Church · 0.4 miles
The Gabriel Cough, possession. A dry cough is caught from the empty gallery, and those who catch it speak afterwards in another's voice.
St Paul's Church · Church · 0.4 miles
The Paulside Whelp, phantom hound. A pale dog with reversed paws trots the churchyard path at night, and its tracks lead toward the door and never away.
St Philip and St Jacob · Church · 0.4 miles
The Parish Registrar, revenant. A grey clerk is seen writing in the vestry, and the names he enters are those of the living who will die within the twelvemonth.
Horfield United Reformed Church · Church · 0.4 miles
The Hymn Between Verses, unclassified entity. In the silence between verses, a congregation of unseen voices sings one line further than the book allows.
St Agnes Church · Church · 0.4 miles
The Agnes Bride, white lady. A veiled woman walks backward down the aisle at dusk, and the veil lifts toward any who call her.
