On the evening of 3 November 1963, a council house on Bronte Street in Gateshead became the centre of a poltergeist case that lasted about three months. The account kept by Spooky Newcastle describes bottles hurled from shelves, glasses breaking in empty rooms and plates smashing in front of witnesses. The activity is described as violent rather than gentle: objects were thrown with force.
Neighbours were quickly drawn in by the noise, and word spread. Crowds are said to have gathered outside and waited in the cold for something to happen. Through November and December furniture reportedly shifted across the floor and doors banged open and shut. The family asked a local clergyman for help, and he carried out an exorcism in the living room. The house went quiet for a short time, but at midnight on New Year's Eve the disturbances are said to have resumed, with decorations torn down, chairs scraped across the floor and crockery smashed again.
The family eventually abandoned the house, and once it was empty the activity reportedly stopped. Believers read that as a sign the disturbances were tied to someone in the household, as is often suggested for poltergeist cases. Sceptics would say the events were exaggerated or staged under public attention. Spooky Newcastle notes the case got little national press.
This is a thin, single-source account. The house number, the family's name and the name of the clergyman are not given, and no contemporary newspaper report was found in this research, so the exact pin is only Gateshead in general.
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