One of England’s most famous alleged poltergeists, and an inspiration for many subsequent ghost stories. It was reported to haunt Epworth Rectory, the childhood home of John and Charles Wesley (subsequently the founders of Methodism), for three months between 1716 and 1717. Their father, Samuel Wesley, vicar of Epworth, was locally unpopular with many (on account of being a Tory and a Royalist who among other transgressions had preached against folk-religious beliefs), and had nearly been killed when the previous rectory had burned down in suspicious circumstances in 1709, which might hint at a natural, rather than supernatural, cause for the banging, visions and so forth the family encountered. Eventually, the Wesleys nicknamed the apparent poltergeist Old Jeffrey, and referred to the attic room from which most of the noise seemed to come as Old Jeffrey’s Chamber; suddenly, a few months after they had started, the disturbances stopped.

In 1784, John Wesley published a memoir called ‘An Account of the Disturbances in My Father’s House’ in Arminian Magazine. For a recent (American) rendition of the tale, see the video below:

Mabel Peacock’s book of short stories Lincolnshire Tales: The Recollections of Eli Twigg (1897) includes ‘The Temple-Leys Ghost’, which patently draws inspiration from Old Jeffrey: ‘sum’ats did fall to setting up a booing and hooing in the attic’. We are grateful to Tim Davies for drawing our attention to this connection.

Epworth Old Rectory, as it is now called, is a museum. You can plan your visit here. Daniel Codd includes a full account of the story in Haunted Lincolnshire, and there is a hearty fictionalised rendition in Michael Wray, 13 Traditional Ghost Stories from Lincolnshire. Lucy Wood provides an outline in The Little Book of Lincolnshire (2016), as do Susanna O’Neill in Folklore of Lincolnshire (2013) and Derek Turner in Edge of England (2022). Dudley Wright, The Epworth Phenomena (1917) is available to purchase online in cheap OCR editions. We are grateful to Prof William Gibson of Oxford Brookes University for drawing our attention to that book. Gibson is the author of Samuel Wesley and the Crisis of Tory Piety, 1685-1720 (OUP, 2021).

Words by RORY WATERMAN