Monday 29 January 2024

The Haunted Wardrobe – Oxfordshire, England.

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.

Researched and written by Allen Tiller © 2024

[1] 'A Haunted Wardrobe Complete with Ghost', The Catholic Advocate, (25 November 1937), p. 6.

[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] 'HAUNTED WARDROBE FETCHES £50', Northern Standard, (31 August 1937), p. 4.

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