“Sir,—The detail of circumstances connected with the Syderstone Ghost, as reported in the public papers, is in my opinion very incorrect, and calculated to deceive the public. If the report of noises heard on other evenings be as much exaggerated as in the report of the noises which five other gentlemen and myself heard on Wednesday evening, the 15th of May, nothing could be better contrived to foster superstition and to aid deception. I was spending a few days with a friend in the neighbourhood of Syderstone, and was courteously invited by Mr. Stewart to sit up at the Parsonage; but I never imagined the noises I heard during the night would become a subject of general conversation in our city and county. As such is the case, and as I have been so frequently appealed to by personal friends, I hope you will afford the convenience of correcting, through the medium of your journal, some of the errors committed in the reports made of the disturbances which occurred when I was present. If the other visitors thought proper to make their statements known to the public, I have no doubt they would nearly accord with my own, as we are not, though so represented in the Bury Post, ‘those who deal in contradictions of this sort.’
“The noises were not loud; certainly they were not so loud as to be heard by those ladies and gentlemen who were sitting at the time of their commencement in a bedroom only a few yards distant. The noises commenced as nearly as possible at the hour we had been prepared to expect they would—or at about half-past one o’clock a.m. It is true that knocks seemed to be given, or actually were given, on the side-board of a bed whilst Mr. Goggs’ hands were upon it; but it is not true that they were ‘powerful knocks.’ It is also true that Mr. Goggs requested the ghost, if he could not speak, to give three knocks, and that three knocks—gentle knocks, not ‘three most tremendous blows’—were heard as proceeding from the thin wall against which were the beds of the children and the female servants. I heard a scream as of a female, but I was not alarmed; I cannot speak positively as to the origin of the scream, but I cannot deny that such a scream may be produced by a ventriloquist. The family are highly respectable, and I know not any good reason for a suspicion to be excited against any one of the members; but as it is possible for one or two members of a family to cause disturbances to the rest, I must confess that I should be more satisfied that there is not a connection between the ghost and a member of the family if the noises were distinctly heard in the rooms when all the members of the family were known to be at a distance from them. I understood from Mr. Stewart that on one occasion the whole family—himself, Mrs. Stewart, the children, and servants—sat up in his bedroom during the night; that himself and Mrs. Stewart kept an attentive watch upon the children and servants; and that the noises, though seldom or never heard before in that room, were then heard in all parts of the room. This fact, though not yet accounted for, is not a proof but that some one or more of the family is able to give full information of the cause of the noises.
“Mr. Stewart and other gentlemen declared that they have heard such loud and violent knocking, and other strange noises, as certainly throw a great mystery over the circumstance. I speak only in reference to the knockings and the scream which I heard when in company with the gentlemen whose names have been already made known to the public; and confining my remarks to those noises, I hesitate not to declare that I think similar noises might be caused by visible and internal agency.
“I do not deny the existence of supernatural agency, or of its occasional manifestation; but I firmly believe such a manifestation does not take place without Divine permission, and when permitted it is not for trifling purposes, nor accompanied with trifling effects. Now there are effects which appear to me trifling, connected with the noises at Syderstone, and which therefore tend to satisfy my mind that they are not caused by supernatural agency. On one occasion the ghost was desired to give ten knocks; he gave nine, and, as if recollecting himself that the number was not completed, he began again, and gave ten. I heard him beat time to the air of the verse of a song sung by Miss Stewart—if I mistake not, ‘Home, Sweet Home’; and I heard him give three knocks in compliance with Mr. Goggs’ request.
“Mr. Editor, noises are heard in Syderstone Parsonage the cause or agency of which is at present unknown to the public, but a full, a diligent investigation ought immediately to be made—Mr. Stewart, I believe, is willing to afford facility. If, therefore, I may express an opinion, that if two or three active and experienced police officers from Norwich were permitted to be the sole occupants in the house for a few nights, the ghost would not interrupt their slumbers, or, if he attempted to do it, they would quickly find him out, and teach him better manners for the future. The disturbances at the Parsonage House, Epworth, in 1716, in some particulars resemble those which have occurred at Syderstone, but in these days we give little credit to tales of witchcraft, or that evil spirits are permitted to indicate their displeasure at prayers being offered for the King, etc.; and therefore I hope that deceptions practised at Syderstone, if there be deceptions, will be promptly discovered, lest that parsonage become equal in repute to the one at Epworth.—I am, Sir, your humble servant,
“Samuel Titlow.”
(Norfolk Chronicle, June 8, 1833.)
Syderstone Parsonage
“To the Editor of the Norfolk Chronicle.