The Up Holland Poltergeist: Stone-Throwing, Knocking and Crowds in the Churchyard

Up Holland lies about 4 miles west of Wigan. On Church Street stood one of the oldest houses in the village, three storeys of stone overlooking the churchyard of St Thomas the Martyr. Nearby lay the grave of the highwayman George Lyon. In 1904 it was home to Mrs Winstanley, a widow, and her children. Three of her sons shared an upstairs bedroom, and in its wall was an old window, long since walled in.

The sources disagree on the first night. One son remembered the first Sunday of the month. Knocking and rumbling moved through the walls. Then the stones under the window board were "loosened and flung on to the floor."

Councillor Richard Baxter kept vigil night after night. He heard "a sound as of trickling water, and this is followed by the mysterious knocking." He heard "a tremendous bang when the stones reach the boards." Once, he said, "the hat-box flew out into the room over the bed." He had "never seen any indication of trickery".

Not every stone flew hard. A Daily Chronicle correspondent wrote that they were "invariably deposited on the bed with the greatest gentleness." John Corless saw something more: "I saw a dim light which moved about thus twice." Later he found a piece of mortar balanced on a brass knob of the bedstead. When a lamp came in, it all stopped, and in the dark it began again.

The story spread to papers across Britain and Ireland. Soon "fully a thousand people" packed the churchyard. Inspector Harlow later put the crowd at "about 2,000 people". Police Sergeant Robert Ratcliffe watched the room himself. "I don't know what to think of it. It passes my understanding, and I'm astounded."

In one test the lads "had their hands under the bed clothes in bed". On 19 August the owner's agent, Mr Chadwick, had the window walled up. A bricklayer reset the stones with trowel and cement. The disturbances came back.

On 9 September 1904 Col. G. L. Le M. Taylor of the Society for Psychical Research arrived and sat in the house on three evenings. "Nothing occult was observed and I returned to Wigan." Yet he wrote, "I could detect no adequate motive on the part of any one." Public opinion, he found, had "completely acquitted" the family.

After he left, William Winstanley wrote that lights were seen and stones thrown again. Taylor's report appeared in October 1905. The editors judged the best attested events "barely beyond what human agency" could produce, and noted they "ceased entirely in the presence of an experienced investigator".

Supt. O'Hara of the Wigan County Police suspected a hoax from the start. The vicar called Peter "less steady" than his brothers. Councillor Bibby suggested some unknown natural law, and Mr Grimshaw thought the knocks were telegraphic code. Theories of coiners behind the wall and an electrical battery were rejected at the time. No one ever confessed.

The house became the "Ghost House". Manifestations were reported again in 1922. Accounts place its demolition in the late 1920s, 1934 or 1937. In September 2026 historian Stephen Miller revisited the case in The Poltergeist Project, calling it "the best documented case I've ever investigated".