The Cursed Chest of Cornwall

"Western Morning News," January 8, 1949, via Newspapers.com

In late 1948, Trevor Ley of Stanbury Manor, Morwenstow, bought an old hand-carved, cedarwood chest from a Cornwall antique shop.  The woman who owned the shop let him have the chest for a low price, explaining that since she had acquired it, anything placed on the walls kept falling to the ground.  She thought that “some sort of ghost seemed to be attached to it.”

This purchase soon led Trevor to question his life choices.  As the shop owner had warned, wherever the chest was placed, the most damnable--literally--things began happening.  Six antique shotguns that were securely fastened to the wall suddenly smashed to the floor, even though the nails and wires that had held them were still intact.  A heavy painting leaped two feet from the wall, hitting Trevor on the head.  Two other large pictures which had been “hanging safely for generations” also propelled themselves into the center of the room.  In another bedroom, a painting did something even weirder--it somehow was pushed backwards through the paneling.  An electric light bulb which had been placed on a window sill hurled against the wall on the opposite side of the room.  

And so on.  The Leys were naturally curious why their ghost--which they had nicknamed “Old George”--had attached itself to the chest, but Trevor had a healthy distrust for self-proclaimed “mediums” and declined most of their offers to contact their “spirit.”

In January 1949, Trevor brought in the local vicar, the Rev. K. Rees, to try to exorcise “George.”  When Rees examined the chest, the men were bemused to find what appeared to be bloodstains on the object.  The red stains  were on carved figures on the outside of the chest.  One was on the arm of a woman holding a corpse. The other, three feet away, was on the body of a headless man.  Rees made the cheery remark that "The chest would make an ideal hiding-place for a body.”  When asked about conducting an exorcism, Rees demurred.  "I'm not well versed in exorcising,” he explained.  “I must look it up."

Finally, the Leys brought in a spiritualist from London to rid them of their poltergeist.  These efforts were apparently successful, as “George” subsequently ceased to bother them.  However, just to be on the safe side, the Leys put the now-famous chest up for auction.  This failed to find a buyer, and the chest was withdrawn from sale.  I have been unable to learn of its subsequent history.

Despite his efforts to trace the chest’s history, Trevor never learned for sure why the chest came to be haunted, but he did uncover one wonderfully M.R. James-ish clue.  He wrote to a psychic researcher named William H, Gilroy that he had received a letter from a Cornish curate who had recognized the chest from its photos in the newspapers.  

This curate told Trevor that “many years ago there were two sisters living in the Manor House, Newlyn, (he gave their names but I cannot find his letter at the moment, but will look it up if it is of interest to you). They had in their house quite a collection of antiques and among them was this chest which they kept in their bedroom. One time, after having been away for a few days, they returned late one night and being rather tired, placed their heavy baggage on the chest rather than unpack at such a late hour. Early the next morning their attention was drawn to the chest and as they went over to it the lid, although weighted down by the heavy baggage, slowly opened and they looked inside. What they saw they would never reveal, but it was so horrible that they were both struck stone deaf; and although they lived to an old age they never got their hearing back.

“When they died the house and furniture were sold at auction and all trace of the chest was lost until it turned up in the antique shop where I purchased it.”