I may have mentioned already that I grew up in a very haunted house. It had been part of a large estate but the owner, tired of losing his tenants after a few months, even days on occasion decided to sell it together with a parcel of land. My parents bought the house in1958, I was four years old at the time and my baby brother was due to arrive in a few months.
It was a lovely old stone house with walls three feet thick to withstand the moorland gales.and was surrounded by a small woodland of beech and sycamore trees know locally as the spinney. It has good out buildings and thee view from all the rooms was spectacular. It was my fathers intention the have a poultry farm of his own, all free range and he would also sell geese, ducks ,chickens and turkeys for the table.
The first night was dreadful to me, the house was large and dark and there were no electric lights,add to this the fact that we arrived at night and you can imagine that I was not a happy little girl. I slept in a huge room, empty except for a little bed, I had never slept in a room on my own before, and the spiders, oh God , the spiders, I hate them still.
On the first morning a local farmers wife appeared at the back door with four bottles of fresh milk. She told us that she would supply our needs as far as dairy produce was concerned as we were not keeping any cows. I stood beside my mother half hidden behind her and a little shy. The woman asked if we knew anything about the house,and then proceeded to gleefully regale us with several gory tales of suicide and murder and ended by saying that no local person would set foot on the property after dark as the place was haunted, and that no one had ever managed to stay more that a few months. People had even given up their job at the hall rather than put up with the houses other residents!
Now my mother was an avid ghost hunter and the farmers wife was greatly chagrined by the blithe reception given by my mother to the ghastly news. She and my grandmother talked of nothing else all day.
That night I received what was to be the first of many nightly visits from the murder victim, she came every night until I left the farm at nineteen to be married. I knew she was coming, I could hear her tread on the stairs, she walked quietly into my room and sat at the foot of my bed. She did not speak,she never spoke to me,only to my mother and then only once although we all saw her. She looked so sad but kind, I was frightened of course and yelled for my mother at the top of my voice. Unfortunately the house was so large that she could not hear me when she was down stairs. Eventually the lady stood up and walked across the room and out of the door. This ritual went on for so long that I became unable to go to sleep until she had been to see me each night.
The story, and it is a true one was recorded in the newspapers at the time . It told of a brother and sister who had been left a large sum of money each. The lady worked at the hall as s seamstress and lived in our house. The brother, a ner'do well having gambled away his fortune appeared late one night and begged his sister to give him some cash. Having already settled his debts several times she refused and in a fit of rage he chased her through the house with a poker and bludgeoned her to death on the stairs. He fled in to the night but he had been seen by a local herdsman and the moment the body was discovered the hue and cry began. My grandfather remembered the case from his boy hood but had not associated it with our farm.
The brother was caught, confessed and was hung soon after.. We were told later that the stairs had been replaced but when my curios mama took up the stair carpet to look she found some very sinister stains on the wood work, she was delighted!
Thankfully the brother seldom appeared. He was seen occasionally looking in through the parlour window, he looked bedraggled and frankly not that scary , it was the way he faded into nothing that I disliked!
When I grew up I researched the story by contacting the county archivist and looking up ancient back numbers of the local news papers, I recognised both brother and sister from their photographs and the house too. I do not ask you to believe my story, it is rather odd though, don't you think.
These two apparitions were just the beginning,next time I have a dull day we shall have another chapter.
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