The Haunted Wardrobe – Oxfordshire, England.
In 1937, the Northern Standard, a Northern Territory
newspaper reported on the case of a haunted wardrobe in Oxfordshire, England.
Mrs Barclay of Carterton Manor, Oxon, had advertised in the Morning Post, an English newspaper that she was selling a haunted wardrobe.
Barclay explained that she purchased the wardrobe for ten
pounds at a sale. Three months later, after having it in her house, the doors
and drawers of the wardrobe would open and close of their own volition, causing
a ruckus. Not long after this happened, she witnessed the ghost of an elderly
man, Barclay claimed, ‘the figure of an elderly man, dressed in old-fashioned
clothes and wearing a kind of deer-stalker cap appeared in the house.’ Every
evening, the ghost would walk from the bedroom, down the stairs out the front
door.[1]
Barclay stated in an interview, ‘I am
not nervous, but the wretched ghost will make such a noise. He clatters across
the landing and shuffles down the stairs and the noise is exasperatingly loud.’[2] Barclay also claimed the
ghost had terrified and frightened away her cook.[3]
The night before the auction, Mrs Barclay claimed that the
ghost was upset with the sale. He (the ghost) banged the doors of the wardrobe
with more than his usual venom. It clattered down the stairs louder than she
had ever heard it before, so she had the wardrobe taken out into the grounds of
the manor.
A group of practical jokers, dressed as
ghosts, invaded Carterton Manor that evening, and refused to leave until Mrs
Barclay's secretary dispersed them by firing a shotgun![4]
Mrs Barclay auctioned the wardrobe. A bidder asked if she
could guarantee that the ghost would come with the wardrobe, which she could not.
Bidding for the wardrobe saw it sell for much more than the 10 pounds she had
previously purchased it for. Mr E Rundle, an ex-R.A.F. officer, who owned an
inn, purchased the haunted wardrobe from Mrs B. Barclay for 50 pounds.[5] Mr Rundle stated after
making the purchase, ‘I am having my bedroom enlarged and am having the
wardrobe put in it. Anyone who wants to do so may sleep there. Personally, I do
not believe in ghosts.’[6]
Rundle took the wardrobe to his Clanfield Inn and soon
reported the same strange occurrences. Being a sceptic, he decided to pull the
Victorian-era wardrobe apart to investigate why the doors and drawers would
open of their own volition. Finding no hidden mechanisms, or reason for the
wardrobe to act in the manner it did, Rundle closed his investigation and
carefully restored the wardrobe. After restoration, Rundle reported that it never
acted in the same manner again.
[1] 'A Haunted Wardrobe
Complete with Ghost', The Catholic Advocate, (25 November 1937), p.
[2] Ibid.
[3] 'Haunted Wardrobe', The
Argus, (21 August 1937), p. 13.
[4]
'£50 Highest Bid for Haunted Wardrobe', Lachlander and Condobolin and
Western Districts Recorder, (6 September 1937), p. 6.
[5] Ibid.
[6]
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