Monday 27 October: The owner of an ex-council home in Pontefract supposedly haunted by a poltergeist called the ‘Black Monk’ is giving brave horror enthusiasts the chance to spend a night in the property by entering a new competition for the Big Issue.
30 East Drive in Pontefract, which has been called the ‘most haunted house in Britain’, has nearly a two-year wait for paying customers to experience a night’s stay, but now owner Bill Bungay has donated an experience to the Big Issue which four lucky horror enthusiasts can win for free.
Once a self-claimed sceptic, Bungay now claims that he has witnessed countless unsettling happenings – strange growling sounds, a kettle superheating of its own volition and objects thrown at his head through thin air – mostly credited to a poltergeist of a ‘Black Monk’.
Bungay says he has never stayed in the house because he is “absolutely terrified”. Due to its supernatural reputation, the ex-council home had been on the market for four years and was relatively cheap at £80,000 when he bought it in 2012.
The family who lived at 30 East Drive in the 1960s, the Pritchards, were said to have experienced green foam appearing from the taps and toilet, lights turned off and off, plants leaping out of their pots, photographs slashed and levitating household items.
Their daughter was said to have been dragged up the stairs by an invisible force. They believed it was a ‘Black Monk’, who they named Fred.
