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Cleve Court

Cleve Court was bought in 1920 by Sir Edward Carson, who died in 1935. His widow, Lady Carson, although a very level-headed woman, was convinced early on that the house was haunted. Lord Carson tended to be sceptical about the origins of the occasional strange noises that were heard but there were some events that left even him mysti fied. One night when he and his wife were in their bedroom a light knocking was heard at the door.

When Sir Edward called Out ‘Come in’ there was no response and on opening the door he found no sign of anyone. Lady Carson herself heard many things: the sound of drawers being opened and closed, dragging noises and footsteps. When children were in the house they often saw a mysterious grey female figure who walked in and out of rooms and never spoke. On one occasion the grey figure appeared beside the bed in which a child visitor was asleep and was eventually seen by Lady Carson herself. At about 1.30 a.m. she had gone downstairs with her dog who wanted to be let out, leaving a light on at the stair landing. She later went back down the stairs to let the dog back into the house and on her way past the light switch accidentally turned off the light.

She carried on to the bottom of the stairs in the dark and let the dog in only to see it run up the stairs and then stop in its tracks. whimpering and shivering, looking up to the landing at the top of the stairs. Lady Carson switched on the lights and saw on the landing a grey-coloured woman moving downstairs towards her. On reaching a half-landing the figure passed through an open door leading to an old part of the house. She saw the figure clearly and described it as that of a young woman wearing a grey dress reaching her feet, a matching cape on her shoulders and a white ribbon in her hair.

When the story became known, a woman who had been a house maid at Cleve Court some years before, wrote to Lady Carson telling her that one morning, when she was fifteen, she had been working i the house and heard footsteps in a corridor, She had anticipated 5 another maid but had, instead, seen a woman in an old_fashioned dress who waved goodbye as she left the room. When the Honourable Edward Carson, a future member of parlia ment and the only son of Lord and Lady Carson was six years old, he told his mother one day that a woman regularly walked in the corridor outside his room and that he neither knew nor liked her. Footsteps were heard for many years but after the night that Lady Carson saw the figure, the apparition never reappeared. Should there ever be chil dren at Cleve Court again perhaps the ‘grey lady’ will show herself once more. A drowning at Downe Court | Beavor | Bexley | Bradford | Downe Court | England | England | Hall place | Hardwick Hall | Haworth | Ireland | Lancashire | Norfolk | Penistone | Pontefract Town Hall | Rotherham | Rotherham | Salford | Scotland | Sheffield | West End | White Lady |