Anyone else heard strange knocking inside the walls of really old houses?

Old houses make all kinds of weird noises, that's just a fact. I live in a 17th century farmhouse in Northumberland and the walls knock, creak and groan pretty much constantly. Took me ages to stop jumping out of my skin every time.

Honestly most of it turns out to be thermal expansion - old stonework and timber reacts a lot to temperature changes, especially at night when things cool down. Pipes too if the plumbing hasnt been updated since the dark ages like mine.

That said there was one stretch last winter where the knocking had a definite rhythm to it, three short knocks repeated, and I couldn't find any rational explanation for it. Checked everything. Nothing. So I do wonder sometimes.

Not saying its definitely paranormal but I'm not ready to completely rule it out either. Has anyone actually managed to properly document something like this, like with recordings or anything? Would be curious to know if theres a pattern to when it happens in other peoples homes.

Glastonbury is absolutely full of this. The older limestone buildings here practically breathe - you can hear distinct rhythmic knocking that doesn't match any pipe work or thermal expansion pattern I've been able to identify after years of investigating.

What I'd specifically flag is the difference between random structural settling (irregular intervals, varies with temperature) and the stuff that genuinely makes you stop and pay attention - which tends to come in sequences of three or responds to stimulus. I've documented the latter in a couple of properties on the high street using contact mics against the internal walls and the waveforms are genuinely odd, much more consistent than you'd expect from a mechanical source.

A 17th century farmhouse in Northumberland is exactly teh kind of location where you'd want to do baseline recordings across different seasons before drawing any conclusions though. Are you keeping any kind of log of when they occur?