The Society for the Investigation of Spectral Phenomena
Diary of the Joiner's Stair, Yapton
Yapton Free Church, church, Yapton, West Sussex
I.Background & History
Yapton Free Church is an Evangelical church in the village of Yapton, West Sussex. The 'pretty flint building' dates from 1861, when it was raised for a body of Congregational worshippers who had been active in the district for several years. It is denominationally independent, remains registered as a place of worship, and is listed at Grade II by Historic England for its architectural and historical importance.
Growth in membership during the twentieth century meant that by the 1990s some services and activities were held in larger premises elsewhere, yet the chapel was kept in use. The Society's survey of the building records a single nave of flint with no loft, no gallery and no stair. No plan known to the Society shows any door upon the north wall.
Source: Yapton Free Church, Wikipedia
II.The Entity
The Knotted-Cord Joiner
A broad, stooping man in a leather apron and the buff coat of a Parliament trooper, who carries a joiner's rule in one hand and a length of knotted cord in the other, and who has no head. Where the neck should be, the collar is buttoned close, as if some decent care had been taken. He is smelt before he is seen: fresh-planed deal, and under it something sweet and turned.
Assessment of Peril
Class IV: Malignant
The Joiner measures those who watch him with his cord, and a tread is added to his stair for each person measured. Three persons are known to have climbed it, and the Society's own officer was found with his lamp burning and a knot tied in his watch-chain.
III.The Account
The diary of the Society's investigating officer, Captain Hugh Dunnock, late of the Sussex Militia, is printed as he wrote it. It should be said that village tradition places a troop of Parliament horse in the parish in the winter of 1643, when the war was carried into the neighbourhood of Arundel. A joiner pressed into their service to build a gun-platform is said to have refused to build a second, and to have been taken to a barn upon this very ground. The next morning the platform stood complete, and the joiner's head was never found.
Monday, 8 p.m. Cold, and a smell of lamp-oil and wet flint. Sexton Penfold unlocked for me and would not stay. He said the Joiner takes the measure of every man who sits up, and that I should keep my hands in my pockets. I have paced the north wall: fourteen feet, plain plaster. Midnight: a sound of planing, very patient, from somewhere above a ceiling that is not there. Tuesday, 11 p.m. A door stands in the north wall. Low, new-sawn deal, no latch, and a stair behind it of nine treads, raw and pale as peeled bone. I did not enter. The planing stopped when I wrote this.
Wednesday. Dr. Ferris, who came to refute me, stood at the foot of the stair at ten and saw it with me. A cold cord, knotted, was drawn once about his chest, and I saw it, though no hand held it. He laughed, and then went up. I heard him count the treads aloud: nine, ten. There was a sound of a saw. The wall is plaster again. His hat lies on the floor.
IV.Recorded Manifestations
- ✦The sound of patient planing above a ceiling that does not exist.
- ✦A low deal door in the north wall, seen only after dark and never twice in the same place.
- ✦A stair that gains a tread for each person who has watched it.
- ✦The smell of fresh-cut pine and something sweet beneath.
- ✦Knots tied in watch-chains, bootlaces and hair, by no known hand.
- ✦A joiner's rule found lying beside the chair of the watcher.
Testimony of Witnesses
“I heard the saw going in the barn all that night, and in the morning there was a platform where there had been naught, and a good apron folded upon it.”
“I have found shavings on the flags of a Monday morning, and the chapel swept the Saturday. I do not sweep the north wall. I do not go near it.”
“A mere trick of the acoustics, gentlemen. I shall go up and see for myself.”
V.Rite of Expulsion
Difficulty: Perilous
Requisites
- ☐A hank of unknotted white thread
- ☐A joiner's rule of boxwood
- ☐A bowl of salt
- ☐A bible in the Authorised Version
- ☐A single tallow candle
The Rite
- I.1. Enter before dusk and lay the thread unbroken along the foot of the north wall.
- II.2. Light the candle at the first appearance of the door, and set the salt before it.
- III.3. Read the twenty-third psalm aloud, and do not break off for the planing.
- IV.4. Lay the rule across the lowest tread, and speak your own name once only.
- V.5. Cut the thread with no knife but your teeth, and place both ends in the salt.
- VI.6. Walk out backward, and do not look at any wall until you stand in the porch.
Caution. Do not allow the cord to be drawn about you, nor measure anything yourself. Captain Dunnock tied the thread in a knot, and the Society found it still knotted on his wrist when he was lifted from the chair.
VI.Hauntings of the Surrounding District
Select a bar to filter the register.
Bilsham Chapel · Church · 0.8 miles
The Bilsham Pale Ewe, spectral animal. A white ewe stands in the porch each Michaelmas, and those who stroke it find a man's hand beneath the fleece.
John Baker's Mill · Old Mill · 0.7 miles
The Flour-Sleeved Man, spectre. A figure in a miller's smock stands among the stones in the dark, and the sails turn without wind.
Bailiffscourt Chapel · Church · 2.2 miles
The Moat-Chaplain's Widow, white lady. She combs her hair at the chapel window, and it is longer each time she is seen.
Slayer's Slab · Tomb · 3.0 miles
The Slab Sleeper, revenant. A heavy figure rises from the stone and lies down again, and no grass grows about it.
St Mary's Church · Church · 1.5 miles
The Vestry Latch-Lifter, poltergeist. A hand lifts the latch every night at three, and the door is found barred from within.
St Mary Magdalene's Church · Church · 2.0 miles
The Lych-Gate Lurcher, phantom hound. A lean black dog follows mourners home and is found to have lain across the threshold all night.
Lyminster Priory · Abbey · 3.0 miles
The Cloister Bell-Sisters, phantom procession. Nuns in grey cross the garth at dusk, and on the return their number is always one greater.
St George's Church · Church · 2.2 miles
The Rife Lantern-Lad, will-o'-the-wisp. A blue light draws wayfarers from the lane into the wet fields, and they are found at morning facing the church.
Bognor Regis War Memorial Hospital · Hospital · 3.3 miles
The Ward-Sister's Footstep, unclassified entity. A light tread passes the beds at night, and each patient it passes wakes with cold hands.
Arundel Blackfriars · Abbey · 3.6 miles
The Friar Without a Cowl-Face, headless apparition. A black-habited friar walks the field with his hood empty, and the grass bends as though he were bowing.
Our Lady of Sorrows Church · Church · 3.5 miles
The Sorrowing Voice, possession. A woman's grief speaks through a kneeling worshipper in a tongue she never learned.
Arundel Castle · Castle · 3.6 miles
The Candle-Antlered Stag, spectral animal. A great stag with flames in its antlers crosses the tilt-yard and casts no shadow.
Littlehampton Friends Meeting House · Church · 3.4 miles
The Broad-Hat Elder, spectre. A figure sits through the whole hour of silence and is not seen to leave.
St Catherine's Church · Church · 3.5 miles
The Candle-Snuffer, revenant. A thin figure moves along the nave at night, and every light it passes goes out.
Arundel and District Hospital · Hospital · 3.2 miles
The Pale Night-Nurse, white lady. A nurse stands at the foot of a bed, and the patient does not see the morning.
