Introduction
As with all paranormal claims not definitively exposed as fraudulent, the Hornsey controversy passed from the headlines and memory without closure. There is no ending nor dramatic conclusion of the case. At less than 200 words, Machen’s final journalistic dispatch on the topic ranks as one of his shortest contributions to the paper.
The following article is presented below by the kind permission of the editors of Faunus. It appeared in the third number of that long-running journal, which reprinted it from J. H. Stewart’s pamphlet, From the Evening News (1959).
Bertie’s Banging Ghost
by
Arthur Machen
February 25, 1921
The Strange Affair of the Three Spinning Saucers
The Racketty Ghost of Hornsey is at his—or its?—tricks again. On Wednesday the position was as follows:—
Disturbances had gone on all the morning, and the Vicar of St. Gabriels’s took Bertie (aged 9) away with him to the Vicarage.
At 8:30 that night one of Mr. Frost’s sons told The Evening News that no manifestations had taken place in the house since Bertie had gone away.
Since then the child has returned to Ferrestone-road, and the “racket” has begun again. Here is the story of the singular affair of the three saucers.
After the Crash
Bertie and his brother were in the basement kitchen. There was a sudden crash.
A visitor rushed down, and found two saucers, which had been on the kitchen dresser, smashed to bits on the floor. A third saucer was still in its place and undamaged.
It was said—I am not sure whether this is on the authority of the two boys or on the authority of the man who ran down to the kitchen—that this third saucer had rocked and twisted about in its place, something in the fashion of a top when it is coming to the end of its spin.
The Weekly Machen
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If my perpetual calendar is accurate, this article appeared on Friday and last week’s on the day before, Thursday, so the “Wednesday” referred to here might be 23 February – which is presumably the “yesterday” to which Machen refers in his 24 February article, with the “Saturday last” mentioned there being 19 February. Curiously, the author of the 18 February unsigned article writes of “to-day” hearing of “the case of […] a pile of three” saucers. Might Machen’s “Wednesday” then in fact be 16 February?
In any case, there seems to have been a fair bit of visiting the house by Evening News correspondents, be they Machen or another or indeed others. Google Maps tells me it is about 6 miles from Fleet Street to the Ferrestone Road – though one does not know whether the correspondents would have set of from the Evening News offices, or from somewhere else.
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I finally took a moment to see what might be on YouTube about this ‘business’. Searching for “Ferrestone Road Horsey ghost 1921”, found an 18:09 video uploaded on 24 November 2022 on the Curious World channel with the title “The Haunting at Ferrestone Road”. It’s description includes link to a 14:30 video uploaded on 1 January 2014 on the DavidFarrant channel entitled “BPOS Ferrestone Road Investigation (Hornsey North London) Presented by David Farrant”, where the description refers to events in 1999 continuing from 18 months earlier. I know nothing about the late David Farrant or the British Psychic and Occult Society, and have not tried either video.
The only thing I found searching the British Pathé channel for “Hornsey (1921)” is a 1:06 film entitled “A Little Help Is… (1921)” about the Mayor presenting a gift from the people of Hornsey of a Tractor Thresher and plough to the Somme town of Guillemont. (No result for “Ferrestone”.)
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