The Black Monk of Pontefract
With Halloween just around the corner every tv show out there is doing some kind of special, but there is one thats really got everyone talking and thats Nick Groff’s, Paranormal Lockdown. They will attempt a 72 hour lock down in the location said to be home of the worlds most violent poltergeist, 30 east drive in the UK. Nick Groff and his fellow investigator will attempt the longest lockdown in history to try and call out what is possible the most aggressive and dangerous spirit in documented history, The Black Monk of Pontefract…. But what is the history of this location ? and who is The Black Monk ?
30 East Drive
30 East Drive, Pontefract, West Yorkshire, is home to what is considered the most violent poltergeist haunting in history. Number 30 stood on a hill on the estate, that turns out to be the place, hundreds of years earlier was the place many people were executed. The haunting itself was witnessed by policemen, a priest, and an MP, and still people today call it a hoax. But that´s always your decision to make.
It began in early 1996 with the Pritchard family, Jean and Joe, their son Philip and daughter Diane.
The Family had all went on a summer holiday, late august to devon. Apart from Philip who had been left at with his grandmother, Sarah Scholes. It was a hot summers day when all of a sudden the pair noticed an icy chill in the main room. Then they noticed a white powder falling from the ceiling, and sounds as if someone was walking up there.
So she went to her her daughter, Marie Kelly from across the road, to see if anything was upstairs. But, when they entered the found pools of water on the kitchen floor. Then the walking sounds came back and the white powder was falling from above the kitchen… Before there eyes more pools began to form around their feet.
Later on, they ended up calling the water company but they couldn´t find any leaks or cause for the puddles. Then the activity stopped no more sounds, leaks or dust. Until 7pm, when Mrs. Scholes was watching tv. All of a sudden her grandson screamed from in the kitchen ” Grandma it’s happening again !”, she ran in to find her grandson terrified looking at the counter… The entire surface was covered in tea leaves and the tea dispenser turning itself on and off, spitting hot tea everywhere.
The Living is still pretty much untouched.
Scholes screamed ” Stop it!”, which was answered by a loud bang in the hallway behind them? They went to leave the house, but to leave they have to pass through the same hallway. They walked cautiously through when the lights began to flicker and then, the entire sideboard began to shake, rattling the cutlery inside. They sprinted through the hallway and to the neighbor’s house, confused and terrified. When they returned to the house with the neighbors, they all witnessed the sideboard shaking, more violently than before.
This carried on until 9pm so they pair decided to try and get some sleep, but, just when she was tucking her grandson into bed, his chest of draws began to sway violently. They watched in terror until it eventually tipped and fell with a smash onto the floor. For obvious reasons, they stayed at their friends that night.
The rest of the family came home from their holiday the next day to find their son and Mrs. Scholes pretty disturbed, but nothing else happened. Nothing else happened for a further two years…
Then, with no warning at all, it started again. They decided they would not be driven from their home by the spirit they had decided to name “Fred”. It was typical poltergeist activity, objects would be thrown around the house, loud crashes and bangs. When neighbors came to the house he acted up, one friend even tried to exorcise the house and Fred reacted by turning all of the crucifixes on the wall, upside down…
If that wasn´t bad enough Fred had focused on the Pritchet´s daughter, Diane. He was being slapped in the face, thrown from her bed and on one occasion he was dragged up the stairs, afterward, there were visible bruises around her throat…
Towards the end of their torment, the whole family began to see Fred. He appeared as a large man in a black robe with his hood up and face shrouded with shadow. He would appear at the bottom of the Diane’s bed and visibly drag her from it by the ankles, kicking and screaming, or just watching her sleep. Despite the numerous sightings even today no one has seen his face.
The Black Monk of Pontefract
One of the creepiest images caught in 30 east drive.
” Fred ” was responsible for a lot of crazy activity during his time with the Pritchard’s. Some of it was actually a little bit funny. On one occasion Fred decided to wear some women´s fur gloves and interact with people as if an invisible person was wearing them. But after all of this activity, it all suddenly stopped… “Fred” never bothered the family again.
Since then, there have been a ton of different theories about what happened at 30 east drive.
One man, in particular, spent years researching what happened, paranormal investigator, Tom Cuniff. He discovered that between the years 1090 and 1539 there had been a small priory located close to the house and that the gallows were located on the grounds where the house now stands.
During his investigation, he found out there was a Cluniac monk, who had been sentenced to hang by the neck until dead, for the rape and murder of young girls… Funny enough, the murdered girl had been the same age as Diane Pritchard. The description of the entity they had been seeing, matched perfectly with The Black Monk.
Today
Today, the house is owned by a film producer Bil Bungay. He was the director of the movie “When the lights went out”, a story of the Pritchard’s account with the Blank Monk of Pontefract. He actually used the real haunted house for the first viewing oh his horror movie !
At first, he was skeptical, “IF the Black Monk ever existed, then surely after 40 years, it would be long gone?”. This assumption proved, later on, to be wrong…
