The Dark Mystery Of A Haunted Cellar

The legend of a haunted cellar in Butts Court, Leeds, which has come down from the dim past, persists to this day, and an interesting investigation, begun in the true spirit of scientific inquiry, but not continued and ended in that spirit, was undertaken a short time ago.

Hard by the cellar in question, there is a “bottomless” well of water, the taste of which is said to be not unlike that for which Harrogate is famous. Whether the “spirit” of the cellar is affected by the nature of the water or not, the description of the noises which it is said to make suggests a sulphurous quality.

No one seems to have seen the “spirit,” but an “Evening Post” reporter was told, to-day, that lots of people have heard noises so weird and blood-curdling as to give colour to the theory of the credulous that someone, at some time, came to an end at the well, or in an old subterranean passage, which leads from the premises to—no one knows where.

From the accounts given, the noises are such as might be made by a wife with a strong voice being strangled by an irritated husband.

In these days of healthy scepticism of ghostly manifestations, it is not surprising that a considerable number of people have found courage enough to search in the cellar for natural explanations of the cause and origin of the noises.

A business man who occupies part of the premises, and from whose office there is a door leading to the cellar, regards the vocal manifestations as rather amusing. After going through the war, he says, he is not one to be frightened by mere noises in the basement. He has laid traps of fine thread for the “ghost”, but nothing has ever been disturbed. He has invited it to come out and say what it has to say, but there has been no response.

He states that, some months ago, when he was alone in the cellar, he received a severe blow, such as might be given with a heavy, blunt instrument, on the back of the neck; and though he cannot account for this, as he made sure that nothing had fallen from the ceiling or the wall, he is not alarmed by any suggestion that it was the touch of a vanished hand.

Another tenant, who died the other day at an advanced age, used to open the cellar door when the yells and groans and moans were at their worst, and invite the spirit to come up and have a drop of the real stuff; but even that allurement was in vain.

Engineers have suggested that the noises are produced by some conjunction of air and water. So far, however, the phenomenon has not been satisfactorily accounted for on that basis of inquiry.

The investigation already referred to was ventured upon by two men. One of them had the qualifications of professorial whiskers and a baggy umbrella. He left the latter in the office on the ground floor, in the change of the office boy, who, seeing no reason to poke his nose into his elders’ business, stayed where he was.

Descending into the cellars, the investigators looked round, tapped the walls, and peered into the dark corners. Now, the noises in the cellar occur at irregular intervals, possibly because the victim of the by-gone crime did not make a note of the exact moment of its committal.

The two inquirers had happened to arrive just in time for one of the periodic outbursts. Suddenly the cellar was filled with terrific noises. The investigators as suddenly decided they had got as much as they wanted, and made a bolt for the narrow staircase, scrambled up the steps, and dashed through the office, forgetting the umbrella, and so into the street.

Seeing what was happening, and also perhaps hearing the noises, the office boy was roused from the traditional repose of his tribe, and likewise made a dash for the door. In the excitement, however, it was the cellar door instead of the street door that he dashed through, and unfortunately, he fell down the s[t]eps, bringing down with him from a shelf a glass bottle, which broke and cut his wrist. The umbrella has been returned to the owner and the office boy’s mother has found him another job.