The Thornton Heath Poltergeist

A Suburban Haunting in the Shadow of War. Beverstone Road, Croydon, London, 1938

In February 1938, as Europe teetered on the brink of war and Adolf Hitler prepared to annex Austria, British newspapers made space for a different kind of terror. A modest terraced house in Thornton Heath, a respectable suburb in south London, had become the site of inexplicable disturbances. Flying crockery, materialising objects, and violent manifesta…