Sykes Street, Hull

The following account appeared in ‘County Folk-Lore Volume VI – Examples of Printed Folk-Lore Concerning The East Riding Of Yorkshire (1911)’ edited by Eliza Glutch. ‘The Hull police, in investigating a remarkable ghost story during the week-end, have expressed themselves as being completely baffled, and one constable has frankly admitted that he believes a supernatural agency has been at work.

Strange scenes are said to have been witnessed at a house in Sykes-street, where a young man died of consumption on Friday. So uncanny have been the occurrences that his mother swooned and to-day was in a state of great nervous prostration. She stated that not only were the windows broken by stones, but the furniture, pots and pans, and china moved across the room in a most remarkable manner.

A police constable was sent for, and no sooner had Constable Hynes gone into the room than further missiles crossed and re-crossed the room, and he narrowly escaped being hit. He made investigations, but failed to find any satisfactory explanation, and when he returned to the room in which he had narrowly escaped being struck by the flying pots he found the woman lying on the floor in a dead faint.

The neighbours were told of the occurrences, and Sykes- street is now in a state of great excitement, the story that the house is haunted being thoroughly believed by the alarmed inhabitants. . . . .

Y.H. Sep. 8, 1908.