The Poltergeist of Westgate Street

Poltergeist Westgate street Gloucester

37 Westgate Street in Gloucester was once where the local Anglian Windows company had a branch but in the late 1980s, it was home to some very strange happenings indeed.

At a meeting in one of the rooms, all eight members of staff saw the carpet rise up in the middle. They thought it weird and odd but just joked about it happening. It wasn’t long after that incident, that a strange acrid odour was smelt throughout the building. It was so bad that professionals were called in to check the drains but no source for the odour could be found. Then a large damp patch of a congealed liquid appeared on the ceiling. Again, no explanation could be found as to where it had come from.

The office manager, Jean Brown, witnessed the toilet flush handle being pulled up and down as though by an invisible hand. Lights would go off and on throughout the day, Doors would become locked and unlocked as well. Rather than finding these events scary, people were rather annoyed by these incidents. One time, Jean Brown, was locked inside the toilet after going to investigate a strange noise she had heard.

One of the tenants that lived above the store, left after only a month after they had moved in as they had had enough of all the strange happenings.

One of the staff, a young woman, was doing overtime in the office and her sister arrived just before 9pm to pick her up. As the sister entered the showroom, where the young woman was waiting for her lift, she saw a figure who was wearing a long robe and had long white hair, standing behind the young woman. The sister screamed out what she was seeing and both sisters ran out of the showroom in fright. The young woman would not go back to the premises and found a new job.

 

It wasn’t long after this that a big crash was heard on the stairwell. Turns out that a hand basin, that had been left propped up against a door, had been thrown down 2 flights of stairs, even though it had to be moved across the landing to get to the stairs.  

At this point, the owners of the building had approached Gloucester Cathedral to request an exorcism. When the incidents were annoying, they weren’t violent but whatever was causing the activity had become more dangerous.

A medium, Phillip Seff, was to hold a seance at the building. The seance was attended by local journalists and photographers. Seff said he made contact with a middle-aged man, who had long white hair and beard, who wore a long grey robe. Seff said this entity was angry as he felt justice had eluded him when he was alive. This man had died by falling from the building and breaking his neck. He did this by his own hand and was trapped in the building and it was him and his anger that was causing the poltergeist activity. Steff was confident that all the happenings would now stop as he had spoken to the entity and managed to calm him down.

Unfortunately, this was not to work in stopping the poltergeist activity. A new manager for the branch had not long started and would be, at times, working in the building alone. He started hearing weird noises and couldn’t find what was causing them. He said whilst being new to the role, he had heard about the rest of the staff hearing things, but until now, he hadn’t heard anything. Jean Brown said that it never used to bother her in hearing all the strange noises but was now very nervous about going upstairs.  

The worst was yet to come. The cafe owner, Steve Pugh, whose cafe was adjacent to the Anglian Windows building, heard a terrible crash, followed by the sound of smashing glass. He saw that a window had been smashed on the third floor of the building. He rushed over to the business, where he met with Jean Brown, and he asked her what was happening. She said she didn’t know as all the rooms upstairs were bolted shut. So, they both went up to the locked room, opened it up and saw that a large double wardrobe had been moved several feet and was now moved over to the smashed window. Whatever was haunting the building had smashed the window by pushing the wardrobe into it.

After this event, the medium Phillip Steff visited the building and held another seance again. This time he said he had made contact with a monk-like figure, who was looking for a key, which was said to be lost in the building. During the seance, a telephone was said to be constantly ringing, despite it being an internal line and no one was using it. Steff said he had placated the spirit of the monk and said things would calm down in time. For some reason, the cafe owner and his friend, Robin Ledbury, who was a local hairdresser, felt that it would be a good idea to hold an overnight vigil on Halloween, in which they would raise money for charity. Steff said this wasn’t a good idea, but the 2 men went ahead with it anyway.  

The charity who would be benefiting from this overnight vigil would be the ‘Money Mountain’, which a local radio station called Severn Sound, hosted. The radio station would be recording the vigil and placed their equipment in one of the locked rooms upstairs, only to find it scattered all across the room when they went to retrieve the items. A transmitter had been pushed over, wires removed, and batteries had been disconnected too. Despite this set back, they didn’t want to pull out as it was too late notice.

Throughout the hours of the vigil, noises of bumps, bangs and crashes were recorded, and lights were constantly flickering on and off. It was around 2am that a table crashed to the floor, but it had not harmed either of the 2 men holding the vigil. When it was finally over, the 2 men said they were glad they had done the vigil as it had raised around £400 but that they were never going to be doing anything like that again.

The poltergeist activity went on for around a year and I’ve not been able to find any reports of any further disturbances at this address but if you have, then please let me know - Email