The Society for the Investigation of Spectral Phenomena
Dr. Voysey's Casebook: The Green Script at Beach Road
St Catherine's Church, church, Littlehampton, West Sussex
I.Background & History
St Catherine's Church is a Roman Catholic parish church in the centre of Littlehampton, West Sussex, standing on Beach Road and backing on to St Catherine's Road. The parish was founded in 1862, and the building was raised in stages afterwards, to the designs of Matthew Ellison Hadfield. It is a Gothic Revival church and is today a Grade II listed building.
The Society notes that the present fabric dates only from the parish's foundation. Of what stood upon the ground before, the dossier supplied to this office says nothing, and the Society will not pretend to knowledge it lacks. The account that follows concerns the plot, and not the stones now upon it.
II.The Entity
The Verdigris Amanuensis
It is never seen entire, only as a dampness on the plaster in the shape of a stooped figure with its arm extended, the fingers drawn out into fine pale tendrils of mould and ivy. Where it passes, growth follows in the ruled lines of a clerk's hand. Those who stand near it report the smell of a wet vestry and the faint dry scratch of a nib.
Assessment of Peril
Class IV: Malignant
The Amanuensis does not strike; it writes, and those it writes about are afterwards found in the condition it has described. Four persons are recorded as having read their own names upon the wall, and none outlived the winter.
III.The Account
The case notes of Dr. Josiah Voysey, surgeon, of Littlehampton, were deposited with the Society in 1871 by his niece. They begin in March 1846, when he was called to a ropemaker's widow, Mrs. Hester Crale, who complained of a green stain spreading beneath the skin of her forearm. He records it, at first, as a vegetable eruption, perhaps a fungal dermatitis, and prescribes a wash of zinc. He notes with some irritation that the patient insisted the marks were 'neat'.
By April he had seen eleven persons with the same affliction, all of whom had passed by the waste ground off Beach Road, where an old wall stood hidden in ivy. The ivy had grown in a single night, they said, into ruled lines. Voysey went himself and wrote: 'The growth is in rows. I confess I took it for a trick of the eye until I saw that the rows had a margin.' In the same entry, his hand begins to change; the clinical terms fall away and he writes that the letters are being formed of him as much as upon him.
In June the patients began to sicken in the order in which their names appeared on the wall. Mrs. Crale was first, then a carter, then a child. Voysey copied the ivy's script nightly in his notes, and found each name preceded by a date. He set a watch with a sceptical colleague, Dr. Aldous Pym, who was found at dawn seated before the wall with his eyes open and his fingertips green to the second joint. He lived eleven days and spoke only to dictate what he said was being read to him.
IV.Recorded Manifestations
- ✦Ivy or pale mould appearing overnight on bare plaster, in ruled lines with a clear margin
- ✦A smell of wet vestry and a dry scratching as of a nib
- ✦Green discolouration beneath the skin of the hands, spreading in rows
- ✦Names followed by dates, found on walls and in the soil of the churchyard
- ✦Persons found seated with eyes open and fingertips stained green
Testimony of Witnesses
“I saw my own name in the ivy by the Beach Road wall, sir, and a date after it. I have not gone by that way since, and I do not mean to.”
“Each morning the trench was grown over, and the growth was in lines like a copybook. We cleared it twice. The third time, one of my men read it aloud, and he would not say what it said.”
“There was a green stain on the vestry wall in the shape of a bowed figure writing. I scrubbed it away, and in the morning my name was in its place, very neatly.”
V.Rite of Expulsion
Difficulty: Perilous
Requisites
- ☐A new quill pen, never dipped
- ☐A bottle of plain black ink
- ☐A bundle of unmarked paper
- ☐A clean white cloth
- ☐A candle of beeswax
The Rite
- I.1. Attend the wall at precisely a quarter before midnight, and speak to no one on the way.
- II.2. Spread the white cloth before the growth and set the candle upon it.
- III.3. Write upon the paper your own name, and no other, in a plain hand.
- IV.4. Strike through the name with a single line, and burn the paper in the candle's flame.
- V.5. Repeat the same act at the stroke of midnight, without pause.
- VI.6. Leave the quill at the wall's foot and depart without looking back.
Caution. Do not read any word the ivy has formed. The Society's Mr. Harcourt read three lines in 1889, and his hand was never afterwards his own.
VI.Hauntings of the Surrounding District
Select a bar to filter the register.
Littlehampton Friends Meeting House · Church · 0.3 miles
The Stooped Plain-Coat, spectre. A figure in Quaker grey sits at the back of the meeting room, and those who sit near it find their hands will not unclasp.
Slayer's Slab · Tomb · 1.9 miles
Slab-Sleeper of the Downs, revenant. Something beneath the stone turns over at dusk, and travellers hear it breathing under their feet.
Lyminster Priory · Abbey · 1.9 miles
The Cloister Sweeper, white lady. A pale nun sweeps the same flagstone each night and is said to look up when her name is whispered.
Poling Preceptory · Templar Preceptory · 2.7 miles
The Knights of the Hushed Bridle, phantom procession. A column of mounted men passes the field in total silence, and the horses leave no mark.
Zachary Merton Hospital · Hospital · 1.7 miles
The Ward-Maid's Bell, poltergeist. A call-bell rings in an empty ward each night, and the bed it summons is never the same twice.
Bailiffscourt Chapel · Church · 1.8 miles
The Salt-Lamb, spectral animal. A white lamb is seen in the chapel porch, and it casts a shadow that is far too large.
St Nicholas Church · Church · 2.1 miles
The Pale Lantern-Bearer, will-o'-the-wisp. A low light drifts over the churchyard and draws the curious toward the open grave.
St Mary Magdalene's Church · Church · 2.6 miles
The Borrowed Voice of Magdalene, possession. Those who kneel at the north aisle rise speaking in a woman's voice they have never owned.
Arundel Blackfriars · Abbey · 3.4 miles
The Friar Without a Cowl, headless apparition. A black-robed figure paces the priory ground, and its stride quickens when it is watched.
St Margaret's Church · Church · 2.8 miles
The Lych-Gate Seamstress, spectre. A woman sits sewing at the gate, and the shroud in her lap always fits the one who stops.
Arundel Castle · Castle · 3.5 miles
The Rampart Sentinel, revenant. A soldier stands on the wall in the dawn mist, and he is said to answer to a name no one remembers giving.
Trinity Congregational Church · Church · 3.4 miles
The Hymn-Board Shifter, poltergeist. The numbers on the hymn board change at night to a hymn the congregation does not know.
Ecclesden Manor · Manor House · 3.4 miles
The Moat-Side Mastiff, phantom hound. A great pale dog paces the old moat, and its eyes hold the colour of a drowned lamp.
Yapton Free Church · Church · 3.5 miles
The Pew-Crow, spectral animal. A black bird sits on the front pew, and whoever it regards is dead within the quarter.
Arundel Cathedral · Church · 3.5 miles
The Spire-Hum, unclassified entity. A low note sounds from the cathedral roof on still nights, and those who hum it back are never found.
