POLTERGEIST - The Black Monk of Pontefract

Join me for the chilling legend of the Black Monk of Pontefract, one of England’s most infamous haunted house cases. The story centers on 30 East Drive, a quiet home in Yorkshire plagued by violent poltergeist activity in the late 1960s.

Episode Transcript

(00:06):
The following podcast may not befor all listeners.
Listener discretion is advised. Have you ever walked into a
place and just known you shouldn't be there?
I'm not talking about feeling a little.
Uneasy I'm. Talking about the kind of dread
that crawls up your neck and makes you feel like you're being

(00:27):
watched even when you're alone. Some houses have walls that
remember things they shouldn't. In this episode, I'm going to
take you inside of one of the most haunted homes in England.
This isn't a campfire story. It's a true horrifying tale.
And by the time we're done, you might think twice before turning
out the lights tonight. Pontefract is located in the

(00:54):
county of Yorkshire. The streets are narrow and
hunched, pressed in on themselves by centuries of soot
and rain, old brick and black and stone buildings squat side
by side, their windows weary andlow to the ground.
There's a heaviness in the air, a sense that the police
remembers more than it lets on. The streets are old, the air

(01:17):
heavy. The house is stubbornly standing
through centuries of storm and story.
But the home at 30 E Drive, a modest semi detached house on
the edge of Checkerfield Estate,holds a secret that chills even
the most skeptical. This is the story of the Black
Monk, an entity so malevolent that his legend has haunted

(01:40):
England for over half a century.It was August 1966 when Jean and
Joe Pritchard settled into 30 EWDrive with their son Philip, 15,
and her daughter Diane, 12. The house barely had time to
catch its breath before it started showing its true

(02:00):
colours. Almost immediately after moving
in, the couple would leave Phillip in the home with his
grandmother, Miss Sarah Scholes,as they went away with her
daughter. One warm afternoon, Phillip and
his grandmother were lounging inthe house.
Sarah was knitting when she noticed something unsettling, a
fine chalky white powder drifting down from above, not

(02:25):
from the ceiling, but from some impossible place just overhead.
Miss Scholes stared at it, unsettled and confused.
She reached for the phone and called her daughter, Marie
Kelly, Philip's aunt, to come and witness the strange silent
intrusion for herself. After witnessing the strange
powder, Marie headed into the kitchen to grab some cleaning

(02:48):
supplies. But as she stepped into the
room, she slipped on a pool of water that hadn't been there
before. The puddle sat in the middle of
the floor, silent and inexplicable, as if the house
itself was trying to warn them that something was deeply wrong.
Each time Marie mopped up the puddle, another would form right

(03:10):
where the last had been. No matter how many times she
wiped the floor clean, water kept appearing throughout the
remainder of the day and into the evening.
Loud, aggressive banging echoed through the house, shaking the
walls and rattling nerves. A heavy dresser began to tremble
and lurch, as if some invisible force were trying to tear it

(03:32):
apart. They found a framed wedding
photo of Joe and Jean, slashed by a knife and lying face down
on the floor. The glass shattered.
Whatever was in the house, it wanted them to know it was
there. The afternoon turned into
evening and the strange occurrences began to escalate.

(03:52):
In the kitchen, a loose leaf teadispenser continuously fell
over, spilling its contents. No matter how many times it was
picked back up, it would be knocked over.
Overwhelmed and frightened, Philip and his grandmother Sarah
fled the home and stayed across the street with her daughter
Marie. After that day, the house fell

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silent. Two years passed without a
sound. No powder, no puddles, no
furious knocking. The family believed it must have
been a one time occurrence tied to their adolescent children.
Poltergeists are notorious for targeting families, especially
when there are adolescents, and the activity tends to centre

(04:34):
around a specific person or room.
Though the quiet didn't last, inAugust 1968, whatever haunted
the house returned, and this time it didn't creep in.
The activity was instant, fierce, as if the entity had
been waiting all along and now wanted to make up for lost time.

(04:55):
Without warning, the house was filled each night with the
relentless clang of what soundedlike a blacksmith's hammer
pounding through the darkness. The bangs and crashes escalated
as objects were hurled across the room, smashed, or just
simply vanished, only to turn upbroken later.
The destruction was constant, almost routine, as if the

(05:18):
poltergeist was determined to remind them, night after night,
that they were not alone. As spread for help, the family
called Reverend David, a Church of England priest.
He arrived with skeptics, calm, unconvinced that any
supernatural was at play. As he explained his doubts, a
candle on the mantle slid off the edge and crashed to the

(05:40):
earth. Before anyone could react, a
second candle began to tremble, then lifted from its stand and
hovered, drifting slowly throughthe air.
The room went cold, then a sudden, deafening crash.
One of the dressers had toppled over, sending every glass object
tumbling to the floor. When the chaos settled, not a

(06:01):
single piece was broken. The Reverend stood in stunned
silence, his skepticism shaken by what he just witnessed.
When the entity first made itself known, its hatred was
aimed at Philip and his grandmother.
Now its attention shifted. Diane was 14, and the things
seemed to sense her, like a wolfpicking out the weakest animal

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in the herd. The harmless tricks were over.
Dustin puddles gave way to outright violence.
The attacks always came when Diane was defenseless.
Usually when she was asleep. She'd wake to her blankets torn
away, sometimes flung across theroom, were sometimes just piled
at the foot of the bed like an insult.

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It may have started as mischief,but it quickly evolved into
something much more terrifying. The darkness in the house had
teeth now, and it was about to bite Diane.
One night, Diane woke to find herself on the bedroom floor, a
suffocating weight pressing downon her chest.
It was her own mattress, somehowflipped and dropped right on top

(07:09):
of her, pinning her to the floorboards.
This wasn't a one time nightmare.
This occurred several times. Desperate to make sense of the
horror, the Prichard family tried to soften the terror with
a name. They called the entity Fred, as
if naming it could tame it or make it less monstrous.
The attacks didn't stop. They grew worse.

(07:32):
Fred grew bolder, almost hungry for attention.
One afternoon, as Diane reached the bottom of the stairs, a
sewing machine table was hurled across the room by an invisible
force. She barely had time to scream
before it slammed her against the wall, pinning her near the
foot of the staircase. As the violence increased, Fred

(07:53):
became visible not just to the family, but to anyone unlucky
enough to visit. They would catch a glimpse of a
tall, massive, shadowy figure draped in black robes.
It would stand in doorways or atthe foot of the bed, watching.
This led to the name the Black Monk, a title that fit the dread

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settling over the house like a shroud. 1 evening.
Diane was standing near the staircase when her hair suddenly
lifted, yanked straight up as ifgripped by unseen hands.
Before she could scream, an invisible force seized her by
the throat and began to drag herviolently up the entire flight
of stairs. Her parents and brother raced

(08:37):
after her, grabbing hold of her,desperately trying to pull her
back. For a few agonizing moments it
was a brutal tug of war, Diane'sfamily on one end and an unseen
horror on the other. The terror was no longer just
shadows and whispers, it had hands now.

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During the brutal tug of war, the invisible force let her go
suddenly, causing the whole family to tumble backwards down
the stairs. Diane was not seriously harmed,
but her neck revealed finger shaped bruises.
Terrified by the visible bruiseson Diane, the family made a
decision to leave that night. They stayed with friends for the

(09:18):
night, but she was not ready to give in and let Fred win, so
they returned to the home in time.
In the weeks and months that followed, Fred reigned with
terror over the family and wouldhumiliate anyone who attempted
to help a relative named Maud Pierce King to help.
Determined to drive the entity out for good.

(09:41):
Inside the house, she started singing Onward Christian
Soldiers. As the hymn echoed through the
rooms, a pair of fur lined gloves floated into the air.
Suspended in the air, they beganto move, twisting and waving as
if an invisible conductor was leading an unseen orchestra.

(10:01):
Maud snatched the gloves from midair and burned them,
convinced they were evil. Running out of hope, the family
turned to a local priest, begging him to perform an
exorcism. But even holy rituals were
turned into a cruel joke. As the priest tried to banish
the entity, Fred lashed out, slapping people and shoving them

(10:23):
downstairs. The holy water meant to purify
the house began to seep down thewalls.
The entity didn't just resist the exorcism, it mocked every
attempt. Remember the puddles of water
left in the family's kitchen? During the first incident, this
same phenomena occurred, but this time it wasn't water.

(10:46):
It was thick green foam, and it oozed from the home's faucets
and toilet. At the height of the hunting, an
acquaintance offered Jean a bit of old folklore, hanging garlic
over the doorways to keep evil at Bay.
It was a remedy usually whispered about for vampires,
not ghosts. But at this point, the family

(11:08):
was willing to try anything. Maybe it was the garlic.
Maybe it was just Diane getting older, But the activity began to
fade. By late 1969, the terror had
finally stopped. Still, quiet didn't bring
comfort. The scars ran deep, and the
Pritchard family knew they wouldnever truly feel safe in that

(11:31):
house again. Eventually, they left 30 E
Drive. By 1979, the story of 30 E Drive
had drawn in Tom Conniff, a local historian with a nose for
the macabre. He started digging through the
pontrefact archives, combing through old records and town

(11:52):
legends. What he uncovered was enough to
send a chill down anyone's spine.
The tale of a Clooniac monk executed centuries ago for the
rape and murder of a young girl.According to the legend, the
monk was hanged in the gallows that once stood right where 30 E

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Drive now sits. The past, it seemed, had left to
stain, that the land could nevershake.
In 1980, Tom discussed the tale with author Colin Wilson, who
went on to interview the Pritchard family.
Colin Wilson published a book titled Poltergeist, a Study in
Destructive Haunting. After the Pritchard family moved

(12:36):
out, the house sat empty for years, its haunted history
hungover the neighborhood like astorm cloud.
These days, it's no longer a family home.
Instead, it's owned by Bill Bungay.
He bought the place after makinga film about its infamous past.
Now, the house serves as a commercial venue, a magnet for

(12:59):
ghost hunters and thrill seekers.
Anyone brave enough can lease itfor the night for some
paranormal investigations. According to the current owner
and a neighbor, Fred the Black monk never really left.
The darkness still waits inside.Some stories fade over time, but

(13:28):
the tale of 30 E Drive just keeps getting darker, like the
house itself is still hungry forattention.
Maybe it's just an old building with creaky pipes and too many
bad memories dropped in the walls.
Or maybe there's something stilllurking, waiting for the next
foolish person to spend the night.

(13:49):
If you ever find yourself in Pontrefract and visit the house,
I'd love to hear your experienceand maybe have you come on to
tell it. Again, Thanks for joining me in
the unexplained realms. Lock your doors, check under the
bed and remember shadows linger whether you see them or not.