The "Dale" poltergeist, Ainstable, Cumberland (1960)

Ainstable is a village and civil parish in the Eden valley, historically in Cumberland and now in Westmorland and Furness. The parish runs from the River Eden up to the North Pennines. Among its hamlets is one called Dale.

Two Grade II listed farmhouses stand there. The Dale is a two storey red sandstone house, probably late 17th century, with a rear lintel dated 1752. Nearby, Dale Farmhouse was once a public house owned by Sir Richard Hodgson's Carlisle brewery. Which building, if either, lies behind the case is not known.

Summer 1960. Poltergeist activity was reported at "Dale", Ainstable, Carlisle, Cumberland. That is the whole of the surviving description. The catalogue gives no days, no witnesses, no list of objects thrown or sounds heard.

In the catalogues of the Society for Psychical Research, a name in quotation marks usually marks a house. So "Dale" is probably a property. Not a family.

The report reached the SPR, which filed it as P279 in its series of poltergeist case files, 1836 to 1994. That series holds 474 files in 13 boxes, ranging from a single note to a full case file. The catalogue advises researchers to check the Society's hauntings files too, because the line between a haunting and a poltergeist was often unclear.

The correspondent is listed as "B. Herbert(?)". The question mark belongs to the cataloguer. The same uncertain name appears on file P277, a report from Llanthony Abbey near Abergavenny dated 28 March 1963. One possibility is Benson Herbert, an SPR member from 1931 who later founded the Paraphysical Laboratory at Downton in 1966. No source connects him to Cumberland or to this case.

P279 is held at Cambridge University Library. Access is restricted pending a sensitivity review, since the file may contain personal data about living people. No newspaper story, book, photograph or film about the case has surfaced. No police, clergy or scientists are known to have been involved. No hoax claim and no natural explanation has ever been put on record.

Elsewhere in 1960, other poltergeist cases were drawing attention. That year Alan Gauld and Tony Cornell published their study of the Fenland poltergeist at Hannath Hall near Wisbech. They ruled out hoaxing and set aside the idea that underground water caused the tremors. In November and December, the Sauchie poltergeist broke out in Clackmannanshire. Those cases became well known. Dale did not.

The parish already had its own legend. Croglin Low Hall, also in Ainstable, is the setting of the much older story of the Croglin Vampire. It is a separate tale.

Gauld and Cornell's 1979 book Poltergeists may list the case in its tables. Local papers from summer 1960 may yet hold a story. Until the file is opened, Dale remains a name, a season and a number.