Background

The Origins of Hawthorn House

>Exploring the history of Hill House and the chilling transformation into Hawthorn House.

Nearly a century ago (1890’s), so local legend has it, a man named Hugh Crane had a house built at 1 Derby Street, Ilkeston. It was a detached house which stood on the hill just a few hundred yards from the town centre. He called it Hill House and moved in with his young wife. Little is known of Mr. Crane, but the legacy he left Ilkeston will be spoken of for many, many years.

 

Tragedies and Legends

>Unraveling the mysterious deaths of Hugh Crane’s wives and the eerie occurrences that followed.

It is believed that tragedy first struck when his wife was killed in a coaching accident outside the front door of the house. He re-married, but his second wife, we’re told, was killed when she fell down the stairs.
Crane married again. But it is said that his third wife outlived him only to die at the hands of a knifeman inside the house.

 

Paranormal Activities

>Documenting the spine-chilling experiences of tenants, including lights flickering, unexplained noises, and ghostly sightings. Since then, the locals have feared the house, which was renamed Hawthorn House. Forty years ago (1940’s), five men and a woman went inside to try to cure the deathly air. The woman died during the attempt.
As the current relief road for the town was planned, the house was purchased by Derbyshire County Council to demolish it when the road was finally built, but they had been letting it to tenants.

A Desperate Cry for Help

>Owen Davies and Elaine Short’s terrifying encounters lead to seeking assistance from the Vicar of Ilkeston for a paranormal intervention.

The latest man to rent it is Mr. Owen Davies, 35, a technician and ex-Royal Marine. But he swears that he will never set foot in after recent events. Since moving in a year before, he says he has experienced things that would send a weaker man insane. His girlfriend, Elaine Short, says something inside that house nearly killed her. She, too, will never retread its floors.

The Paranormal Activity

They hadn’t been there long when lights began to go on and off of their own accord. Then Owen awoke one night to hear a thumping sound downstairs. Thinking it was the damper on the open fire, he investigated.

At first, he saw nothing. But then he looked at the back door of the house. The recess of the Yale lock had been torn off. The door also had a padlock, but this was untouched. If the noise had been someone trying to break in, the padlock would have given way. But it hadn’t, Owen had to reason that that the damage had been caused by someone – or something – trying to break out.

From that day, things rose to a horrifying crescendo that neither he nor Elaine would ever forget. Once, Owen found handles from internal doors strewn across the floor.

At a Christmas party, a fruit bowl filled with nuts suddenly rose unaided from the sideboard and blew itself to pieces, scattering the nuts everywhere.

A Paranormal Sighting – Apparition

Soon after this incident, Elaine saw the ghost of a Victorian woman on the stairs. Later, she saw the same ghost behind one of the glass doors in the kitchen.
“She was small-waist wearing what looked like a crinoline dress and a pointed hat,” she said.
The night after that second sighting, Elaine’s terror began in earnest. She was in the downstairs bathroom washing her hair. All of a sudden coldness came on to the back of my neck,” she said, “and all of a sudden it pushed my head underwater I managed to get my hands or it either side of the sink and force myself up, but a mighty push came down again. Then it went warm I knew she had gone.”
Elaine walked into the front room, where she found a trail of tobacco along the shelf, and cigarettes had been snapped in half and scattered around the floor. “Then, the most chilling thing of all. She heard a woman giggling, and the ornamental birdcage in the room began swaying. In the pantry, a packet of cornflakes had been scattered on the floor.
The next day, Owen found the light switched on, and his clothes were removed from pegs and piled in a heap on the floor.

The Paranormal: Help

This was the signal that needed help. Owen contacted the Vicar of Ilkeston, Canon Arthur Robertson. Elaine was reluctant to return to the house, but she went back . . . and as Mr. Robertson was saying the Prayer of exorcism, she felt the ghost enter the room. “I grabbed hold of the Canon’s arm,” she said, “and had a violent shaking bout. As though she was trying to part my back and get in me.”

Elaine has never been back since. But Owen did go back. He had gone to bed in August when a sound of screaming downstairs awoke him, he said. “It sounded as though the woman was having pain inflicted on her.” He went downstairs, and as the screaming continued, ashtrays and a letter rack were “wriggling about” on a shelve, and a transistor radio was missing from a table.

With screaming still ringing in his ears, he opened the pantry door, and it suddenly stopped. When he closed the door, the screaming started, and when he went to from the room, he saw something he would never forget: “A potted plant and a vase of artificial plants were moving through midair and swapping places on top of a storage heater. Panicking, he bolted for the door.

The key was missing. He raced to the back door but found the keys missing, too. He tried the only window that would open, but that was tightly shut. On the point of throwing a chair through the window in a last desperate bid to escape, he remembered the advice of Rev Robertson and said a prayer. Still, the screaming continued until 6 am. “I sat up all night with cotton wool in my ears,” he said. Owen is convinced that the source of the disturbance is the ground-floor pantry or the cellar under it.

 

Lost Secrets and Lingering Fears

>Delving into the secrecy surrounding Hawthorn House and the lingering fear that has plagued its occupants for decades.

Whatever the secret of Hawthorn House is, the people of Ilkeston know that danger lurks there. Old people talk of it as a place to be avoided and Owen Davies has joined their ranks: “I want nothing more to do with it,” he said.

As the council refuses to speak to the Evening Post and Mr. Robertson won’t comment on the ghostly activities, it remains for us to wonder what that terrifying secret of 1 Derby Street, Ilkeston, is. I doubt if we will ever know. But as the bulldozers set about the property in years to come, and the demolition men take apart the home of the man who built Hawthorn House, they may bring to an end the horrifying nightmare which seems to have engulfed Crane, his three wives, a woman 40 years ago … and, almost, Owen Davies and his girlfriend, Elaine?