WILLINGTON MILL

1. Public Record

Willington, near Wallsend on Tyneside. Flour mill across the road, house and garden between. George Unthank owns first. Joseph Procter, Quaker, partner from 1829, twelve quiet years, then not.

Autumn 1834 in some counts, early 1840s in others: heavy treading upstairs, whistling, a clock wound that is not being wound. Six years of it thickening. A white woman at a window seen from outside. A white face over a stair rail. A bare-headed man in a surplice at an upper window, four witnesses.

Cousins in a bed that rises with them on it. A maid hears steps in the room above. Procter goes up. That door has been nailed. The window boarded with lath and plaster years before. On the floor, a thin even soot that has not been walked.

Thomas Mann, mill foreman, hears feet on the mill lawn in the dark and finds no one. Dr Drury writes and is allowed a vigil, 3 July 1840, Procter warning him the house is sporadic. Kitty the mill-girl whose hair caught a stone is a later newspaper attachment and should be filed as later. SPR prints the case in early volumes. The Procters finally leave the house.

Unthank years are remembered as quiet. The rumour of a builder's murder during construction is older talk, not a charge sheet. The nailed room with clean soot is the sentence that will not go away.

2. Date of Incident

Disturbances from the mid-1830s into the early 1840s. Drury vigil 3 July 1840. Family leaves after years of it.

3. Location

Willington Mill house, Wallsend. Approximate 54°59 N 001°30 W.

4. Official Narrative

A Quaker household that moved. Official narrative is a noted northern haunting. No prosecution. Mill work continued.

5. Witness Layer

The Procters. The maid. Mann on the lawn. The cousins in the rising bed. Drury on 3 July. Neighbour at the window.

Activity was sporadic at best.

6. Recovery Logistics

Family notes. Early SPR print. A nailed room opened and found still. No captured figure.

7. Assessment

A mill-house file. Keep the twelve quiet years so the noises have a start. Keep the soot. A nailed, boarded room that still makes a maid complain is better than a surplice at a window, and both are in the same week of talk. Do not hang the case on Kitty. Do not write Quakers as automatic honest and therefore finished. Sporadic is Procter's own limit and should stay on the page.

8. Materials & Remains

SPR first series. Local press later. House and mill gone or altered. No object from the rail.

9. Key Personnel

Joseph Procter : The house.

Thomas Mann : The lawn.

Dr Drury : 3 July 1840.

10. Aftermath

The family leaves. The mill name stays on ghost lists. SPR keeps it as an early English mill case.

11. Current Archive Status

Status: Procter house, 1830s-40s. Nailed room, clean soot. Vigil 1840. Family left.

Confidence: High that the household recorded years of steps and figures and that a sealed room was inspected. High that they left. Low that a builder's murder is documented. Low that Kitty belongs to the original nights.

Filing note

A Quaker partner, twelve quiet years, then treading, a clock winding itself, a face on the rail, cousins lifted in a bed, a maid and a room that had been nailed and boarded, soot with no track, a doctor told not to expect a show.

Not even a mouse. The clean soot is the unkindest line in the house. Something was heard walking where the dust said nothing had.