The Ghost of Hartwoodhill House

Dr Struan J T Robertson

1931

When my younger sister Mavis and I were kids there was no end to the pranks that we got up to for entertaining ourselves, living as we did away out in the countryside some two miles from the nearest country village of Shotts, nowadays quite a town. Our house was tied to our fathers post of Assistant Superintendent at Hartwood Asylum which now no longer exists having been closed down and subsequently demolished many years ago.

It was about 1931 and winter time but before the snow had fallen, and Coopers van called once a week around 5pm to deliver provisions to our house. This gave us an idea and we decided to give the driver something to tell his own kids about and to give us a bit of a laugh!

Our house was over a hundred years old and it was well known that it had originally been the country shooting lodge of Lord Justice Deas, The Hanging Judge as he was known on account of his predilection to sentencing to death by hanging all who came before him. The house had all the downstairs windows barred with thick iron bars as he had been afraid of being burgled and possibly murdered by the locals as he was hated throughout the area of Lanarkshire and Glasgow. Even more, he had a large bell hidden outside behind one of the chimneys that could be rung to summon help if the house was broken into! In fact, he was so much hated, reviled and stood in dread of, that it was said of him in those days that on his way to the kirk on the Sabbath, in passing Glasgow Cross, he would hang his hat on the arm of the cross and pick it up again on the way home after the sermon and not a soul would dare to so much as touch it! Of such was the old saying about him but I never myself knew if there really had been an actual cross there in those days or since. It was always referred to simply as The Cross which of course was a crossing place not a monument!

When we lived there, there was still a working coal pit behind the house which had a gallery running underneath the dining room at such a level that in the still silence of the night my parents could sometimes hear the rumble of wagons being trundled along the rails and even the voices of the miners talking to each other! However, there was also the tale of the White Lady who had died in the house and who was reputed to drive up to the front door in her carriage and horses during the night. This was proved to be true as my mother and elder sister, Gwen, were sitting chatting and listening to a programme on the battery operated wireless one frosty winters night (for this was long before the invention of TV) when they heard the clip-clop of horses hooves and the rattle of carriage wheels on the gravelled drive outside. They went to the front door to see who it was arriving so late and there was nobody there, no sign of any carriage or vehicle of any description at all! So there might well have been something in the nature of haunting at Hartwoodhill House!

However, back to the story of our ghost. Mavis and I cut out the figure of a man from newspaper and tied it to the middle of a very long string. Then, in the gloaming, I climbed up to the tops of two of the tall yew trees that grew along each side of the drive, threading the ends of the strings loosely over convenient boughs and leading them back down to where they were secured to the base of each tree. Then, concealed from view behind the trees on each side of the drive, we tested it out - when one of us gave a shout, we both pulled the strings and the paper ghost obediently shot briskly up into the air to the height of about fourteen or fifteen feet above the centre of the driveway. Fine! We pulled it down again, laid our ghost in the middle of the drive and waited.

Right on cue, about five oclock on that cold Wednesday night, Coopers van came slowly trundling round the corner of the long, lonely drive. When it was almost at the point where the ghost was lying, I shouted Right, pull! and we both pulled vigorously on our strings. Up into the air flew the ghost about a vans length in front of the headlights and with a roar of fright and a wild screech of brakes, the van lurched to a halt only a few feet in front of the paper ghost flapping around in the light breeze high above the front of the vehicle!

Mavis and I melted quietly away into the night, ran to the back door of the house and quietly walked into the kitchen with solemn faces and warmed ourselves before the kitchen range to await the arrival of the van driver.

A few minutes later, a white faced driver came through the back door with his delivery and sat down, burbling to our cook and housemaid all about the ghost he had seen on the drive outside! All went out to see the phenomenon for themselves and lo and behold! There was the figure of a white body floating in the air between the trees, arms and legs waggling in the breeze!

As there was no doubt as to the masterminds behind this hoax, we were led into the house and soundly told off about the dangers of frightening motor drivers and made to promise we would never do it again. Needless to say, we had had our fun and certainly never did the same thing twice!