Difference between revisions 123501094 and 123501095 on dewiki

{{Use British English|date=April 2011}}{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2011}}
[[File:Cock lane ghost.png|250px|thumb|alt=A monochrome illustration of a narrow street, viewed from a corner, or intersection. A large three-storey building is visible on the right of the image. The ground floor has three windows, the first and second floors have two windows each. The roof appears to contain a row of windows, for a loft space. The word "KING" is written between the first and second floors, and a sign, "(contracted; show full) for his family.  He listened to the couple's plight and was sympathetic, offering them the use of lodgings in his home at what (in 1965) was 20&nbsp;Cock Lane, to the north of St Sepulchre's.  Located along a narrow, winding thoroughfare similar to most of central London's streets, the three-storey house was in a respectable but declining area, and comprised a single room on each floor, connected by a winding staircase.<ref>{{Harvnb|Grant|1965|pp=4–6}}</ref> Shortly after Mr
. and Mrs. Kent (as they called themselves) moved in, Kent loaned Parsons 12&nbsp;[[guinea (British coin)|guineas]], to be repaid at a rate of a guinea per month.<ref>{{Harvnb|Grant|1965|p=10}}</ref>  

It was while Kent was away at a wedding in the country that the first reports of strange noises began.  Parsons had a wife and two daughters; the elder, Elizabeth, was described as a "little artful girl about eleven years of age".<ref name="ElizabethODNB">{{Citation | last1 = Seccombe | first1 = Thomas | last2 = Shore | first2 = Rev Heather | title = Parsons, Elizabeth (1749–1807) | format = {{ODNBsub}} | work = Oxford Dictionary of National Biography | publisher = Oxford University Press | year = 2004 | url = http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/21456 | accessdate = 21 December 2009 | doi = 10.1093/ref:odnb/21456}}</ref>  Kent asked Elizabeth to stay with Fanny, who was then several months into a pregnancy, and to share her bed while he was away.  The two reported hearing scratching and rapping noises.  These were attributed by Mrs. Parsons to a neighbouring [[Shoemaking|cobbler]], although when the noises re-occurred on a Sunday, Fanny asked if the cobbler was working that day; Mrs. Parsons told her he was not.  James Franzen, landlord of the nearby Wheat Sheaf [[public house]], was another witness.  After visiting the house he reported seeing a ghostly white figure ascend the stairs, and terrified, left to go home.  Parsons visited him there that same night, and claimed also to have seen a ghost.<ref>{{Harvnb|Chambers|2006|pp=39–40}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Grant|1965|pp=14–15}}</ref>

(contracted; show full)burial he was, however, forced to give a name, and he gave her his own.  Fanny's family was notified and her sister Ann Lynes, who lived nearby at [[Pall Mall, London|Pall Mall]], attended the funeral at St John's.  When Ann learned of the terms of Fanny's will, which left her brothers and sisters half a crown each and Kent the rest, she tried but failed to block it in [[Doctors' Commons]].  The bulk of Kent's inheritance was Fanny's £150 share of her dead brother Thomas'
s estate.  This also included some land owned by Thomas, sold by the executor of his estate, John Lynes, and Kent received Fanny's share of that too (almost £95).  Her family resented this.  Legal problems with Lynes's sale meant that each of Thomas's beneficiaries had to pay £45 in compensation to the purchaser, but Kent refused, claiming that he had already spent the money in settling Fanny's debts.  In response to this, in October 1761 John Lynes began proceedings against Kent in the [[Court of Chancery]].{{#tag:ref|The result of these proceedings is not mentioned.|group="nb"}}  Meanwhile Kent became a [[stockbroker]], and in 1761 married again.<ref>{{Harvnb|Grant|1965|pp=16–19}}</ref>

==Haunting==
(contracted; show full)[[Category:18th century in London]]
[[Category:18th-century hoaxes]]

{{Link FA|fr}}

[[fr:Fantôme de Cock Lane]]
[[ja:コック・レーンの幽霊]]
[[ru:Коклэйнский призрак]]