Hinton Ampner

The Ricketts case.

There's a letter in this month's Fortean Times

 about the  demolition of the Hinton Ampner house.

It says that there's a book called Allan Fea's "Secret Chambers  and Hiding Places"

 published in 1901, which says that when it was demolished passages were found, 

and the implication is that this solves the mystery.

I have questions about this. 

For one thing, the haunting went on for a couple of years

1769-71, and if it was a hoax, or to drive the family away, why?

Why so long?

There's also the story of a skull, possibly a child's or a monkey's being found under the floorboards, when the house was demolished, 

So where does this come from? The same source as the 1901 book?

Harry Price, in his Poltergeist over England says that the house

Still stood in 1793, as it was in the directories then.

But it could therefore have been demolished 1797.

His mention of the skull in his 1945 book

Originates from the tale as told by Sachaverill Sitwell

Poltergeists Fact or Fancy (1940.)

Sacheverill's earlier source for the skull story appears to be 

From the journal of society for Psychical Research April 1893

I have edited this, looking at the journal of SPR  for that date.
Sitwell copied the item in that journal which adds nothing further to
Osborne Markham and his wife Martha Jervis's material.

  There are two different stories emerging from the demolition to sort out.
But the Ricketts account itself does remain the same
in its reproduction from the 1818 entry.