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A Dark Heritage:
The Nighthunter
Logan Bartholom, Nighthunter to the Emperor, wakes with Ghost-induced amnesia in a manor in Little Beddin, Ossyan. All he has from his previous life is a magical sword and a talking dog from Hell. To find his true identity and discover what happened to him, he must go on a dangerous journey to a land where magecraft is still legal, in the company of a child with terrifying powers and his own would-be murderer… who is falling in love with him.
On the way to Thosea they discover a cult which sacrifices people’s souls to a Ghost masquerading as a god. Logan finds out he can travel through time and to different worlds. And they encounter many individuals and beings who are attracted by Cailte’s budding magical powers…
A Dark Heritage is a fantasy / horror novel set in a magical world where prehistoric animals coexist with humans and the Dead return as different species of Ghost.
Hansen Adcock is a writer of short SF stories and novels. His most recent book is A Dark Heritage: The Nighthunter, available from Golden Storyline Books
- The Voices of Joan of Arc
A young French girl claimed to hear messages from God and angels telling her to lead her country to victory over the English. But where did these voices originate from?
image from Pignatta (pixabay.com) Joan of Arc, widely known as the French peasant girl who heard God and the voices of angels and saints beseeching her to lead the defenders of Orleans against the English soldiers besieging the city, played a part in helping France win the war against the English invaders… but unfortunately, she never lived to see that ultimate victory.
She came from Domremy village in north-eastern France, on the borders of Lorraine and Champagne, born on January the 6th, 1412 to Isabelle Romee and Jacques d’Arc. Jacques was a farmer and a minor local official.
At that time, not only was France at war with England but the country was divided against itself, with many nobles in north and east France supporting the English claim to the throne and others staying loyal to the idea of a French king. In spite of being surrounded by pro-English landowners, Joan and her family were on the side of the French crown.
For years beforehand, there had been prophecies circulating that a woman would make France desolate and that a maiden in armour from Lorraine would save it. The woman was Queen Isabella, who allied herself with the English.
Joan’s early life is made murky by the distance of time and modern historians are not certain what her real name was. She claimed to be called Jehanne la Pucelle, but also said she didn’t know her true surname. Some historians believe she was actually named Jehanne Tarc or Jehanne de Vouthon.
The story of her birth and upbringing has been called into question, as Joan of Arc somehow learned to ride warhorses and use a sword, when peasant girls of that era would have been indoors having to do domestic tasks such as weaving and spinning, and caring for domestic animals. However there is other evidence that she was most likely from a peasant family, such as her being illiterate.
It wasn’t until she turned 13, in 1425, that Joan began to hear voices, usually when alone in the woods or sitting in church. She also had visions which she believed were sent to her by God. Saints and angels apparently told her to live a strictly religious life and attend church. Sometimes, even the bells in the steeple seemed to be speaking to her.
Her visions consisted of seeing St Margaret, St Michael, and St Catherine along with bright lights and the sounds of bells. The first voice she heard was that of St Michael, whom she said would return to her over and over when she was alone in the fields. The saints and angels asked her to save France from the English and help put Charles VII, the rightful French king, on the throne.
When Joan was 16 years old, she asked her uncle (Durand Lassois / Laxart) to take her to Vaucouleurs so she could ask the garrison commander (Count Robert de Baudricourt) for permission to enter the court at Chinon to the south-west of Paris. Knowing her father wouldn’t let her go or understand about the voices or visions, she got Durand to ask her parents to allow her to go to Vaucouleurs to take care of her sick aunt, and Durand came to fetch her.
After she told Baudricourt about her visions, the man at first said “Box her ears and send her home to her mother,” but on February the 12th 1429, when Joan told him the French had been beaten by the English at the Battle of Herrings (two days before the news arrived from the battlefield, which was hundreds of miles away), Baudricourt agreed and gave her an escort of two knights to Chinon. They were Sir Jean de Metz and Sir Bertrand Poulengey, and they both came to believe in her quest. During the journey Joan disguised herself as a man and travelled through Burgundian territory.
Joan was given a private audience with Charles VII, because she impressed him. Charles had ordered a subtle inquiry into her claims and to make sure she was loyal and genuine, and when she arrived in court, Charles gave her a test.
The would-be King swapped places with one of his court-members and put on plain clothes before Joan walked in. He maintained that if Joan were really sent by God, she would be able to spot him standing in the crowd.
Joan of Arc entered the court and saw through the King’s ruse, directly approaching him instead of the man on the throne. She addressed him as the dauphin. He insisted she had got it wrong to begin with, but she stood firm and didn’t back down. She told Charles what he had said to God during his private prayers, which further impressed him. He accepted her as a devout Christian and a loyal subject.
Charles VII’s mother in law, Yolande of Aragon, was helping to prepare an expedition to the besieged city of Orleans. Joan asked for permission to bear the weapons and armour of a knight and travel with the army headed there. As Joan had no money, she relied on people’s donations for horses, swords, armour, banner, and entourage. According to Margaret Nicholas, Joan wore white armour with a scarlet and white surcoat, with a sword in a red scabbard by her side. The sword had once belonged to Charles Martel, who stopped Muslims invading France in the 8th century. It had been hidden somewhere for hundreds of years, but Joan’s voices guided her to ask for the old sword marked with five crosses which was buried at Fierbois in the church of St Catherine. The clergy in the church didn’t know what she was talking about, but she insisted it was buried behind the altar. They dug behind the altar, and there the sword was.
Joan also rode out of Chinon on a white charger with a white banner painted with a fleurs-de-lys.
The earlier prophecies made Joan popular in the city and an inspiration to its defenders. She was given command of 6000 men at Blous and arrived at the siege of Orleans on April the 29th, 1429, still aged sixteen, but was quickly excluded from the war councils by the leader of the French defence, Jean d’Orleans.
Joan was tenacious. She would burst into meetings, arguing and criticising decsions made by the senior commanders who were there. She got the population of the town involved at times, turning the siege into a religious war with God on the French side. She walked amongst the locals daily giving them food and other supplies, as well as encouragement.
Some historians maintain that Joan was only a standard-bearer in the army. Other historians maintain she was a great strategist and a skillful tactician.
Within nine days of her arrival, the siege of Orleans ended.
After that, Joan led the French counterattack against the English, which ultimately would help Charles VII gain the crown. The city of Rheims was occupied by the Burgundian allies of the English. Despite scepticism from the commanders, Joan planned to simply march into Rheims and take back the land, relying on God to protect her.
Joan’s victory at Orleans brought the army quite a few new recruits from different parts of the country. In the end she was successful in convincing the commanders to accept her suggestions for the taking of Rheims.
The French had become so good at retaking their land by this stage (with other victories at towns such as Patay), the Burgundians surrendered the city of Rheims, not even offering any opposition when Joan and the army opened its gates. Charles VII was crowned King of France in Rheims cathedral in July 1429, with Joan by his side.
The medieval French writer Christine de Pizan composed The Tale of Joan of Arc shortly following these events, and Joan was seen as a hero. Only Paris remained to be recaptured to ensure a French victory.
However, the assault on Paris didn’t go to plan, Joan was injured, and a ceasefire was arranged. During the temporary peace the Burgundians captured Joan of Arc in 1430 and sold her to the English! King Charles VII didn’t help her.
She was imprisoned in the English-controlled city of Rouen, and was put on trial for heresy and witchcraft. She was supposed to have been placed in an ecclesiastical prison guarded by women, but instead she was put in a normal prison where she was threatened and harrassed by male guards.
Many religious leaders refused to go to Joan’s trial until the English threatened them. The English were determined to convict her for heresy; several theological traps were laid during her interrogation, for example she was asked whether she was “in God’s grace.” If she answered yes to that question, she would be deemed a heretic, but if she said no, that would be the same as saying her visions had been false. Instead, she replied:
“If I am not, may God put me there and, if I am, may God keep me there.”
Joan was put on trial for 70 charges, mostly of witchcraft and sorcery, but once the trial was half over the charges reduced to 12, all references to witchcraft gone apart from one.
Threatened with being burned at the stake, Joan eventually denied that she had been directed by God. Following this, more visions came to her, scolding her for lying to save her own life. She withdrew her denial, was found guilty of heresy and sentenced to death.
On May the 30th 1431, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake, holding a cross in her hands, made of two sticks and passed to her by an English soldier. She called upon the name of Jesus even as she was being burned. To make sure she was dead, they burned her twice, casting her ashes into the River Seine.
Twenty-five years later, the church formally exonerated Joan and she was beatified in 1894. In 1920, the Pope declared her a saint.
Modern doctors have put forward the view that Joan was suffering from some form of mental illness. The bells and lights that came with her visions are the sort of thing that happens during hallucinations. She could have been suffering from migraines, brain lesions, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.
More in-depth information can be found here: https://www.jeanne-darc.info/
What do you think? Was Joan being guided by something beyond the veil – good or bad – or was she living with a mental difference and the rest was only coincidence? For example, how did she know which one was the true Charles VII when she entered the court at Chinon? Let me know in the comments!
Sources:
https://www.historicmysteries.com/history/joan-of-arc-divinely-inspired-mentally-ill/22010/
The World’s Greatest Psychics & Mystics by Margaret Nicholas
- The Versailles Incident
A supernatural journey through time by two Edwardian headmistresses
image by SLPix (pixabay.com)
Two women named Charlotte Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain paid a visit to the Palace of Versailles in France in 1901. While they were looking around the palace grounds, they became lost and seemed to walk backwards through time.
Miss Moberly, born in 1846 (the tenth of fifteen children) was the daughter of the headmaster of Winchester College (who was also Bishop of Salisbury). When she grew up she became the head of a hall of residence for young women, St Hugh’s College, in Oxford. Miss Jourdain was asked to take on the role of her assistant.
Miss Jourdain, born in 1863, was the child of a reverend who was the vicar of Ashbourne in Derbyshire. The eldest of ten siblings, she was the sister to art historian Margaret Jourdain and the mathematician Philip Jourdain. She attended school in Manchester, despite most girls being educated at home during that era. Miss Jourdain also ran a school of her own in Watford and had written several textbooks.
Eleanor Jourdain had an apartment in Paris which she used to teach children English. Before she took on the role of vice-headmistress at Charlotte Moberly’s college, the two women decided to spend some time in the apartment in Paris to get better acquainted, though the main reason may have been because Charlotte wanted to visit the great International Exhibition.
They took a train to the Palace of Versailles in August 1901 and took a tour of the building. While walking in the gardens they missed the turning for the main avenue and wandered onto a lane that passed by the Petit Trianon (a small chateau they were trying to get to). Then strange things started to happen, almost imperceptibly at first.
An Incident in Time
It was August the 10th, 1901. After the palace tour, Misses Moberly and Jourdain decided to walk through the gardens to the Petit Trianon, a Neoclassical style chateau within the gardens of the Grande Trianon. The smaller chateau was built on the orders of Louis XV for his mistress, Madame de Pompadour.
When Louis XVI gained the throne aged 20, he gave the chateau and its surrounding grounds exclusively to his wife, Marie Antoinette.
The two headmistresses looked forward to seeing the gardens’ decorative bridges, waterfalls, pavilions, groves, and the “toy village” where Marie Antoinette would entertain herself pretending to be a peasant woman, a shepherd or a milkmaid in the farm cottages.
They reached the head of a long lake and turned right, through a woodland glade, until they found another stretch of water with the Grande Trianon reflected in it. They passed the body of water on the left and came to a wide green drive, completely empty of people. If they had followed it, they wouldn’t have gotten lost, but they crossed it into a lane instead.
Eleanor was slightly further ahead when Charlotte noticed a woman shaking a white cloth out of the window of a cottage on the corner of the lane. Later, she learned that Eleanor didn’t see the woman.
At that point, both the women weren’t aware of anything unusual going on. They talked about Oxford and mutual friends, moving up the lane and turning right past some buildings.
They came to a fork of three grass-covered paths and chose the central one, as there were two men up ahead from whom they proposed to ask for directions. Both women assumed the men were gardeners because there was a wheelbarrow and a pointed spade nearby, but both men were dressed a little oddly in long, grey-green coats and small, tricornered hats. The men directed Eleanor and Charlotte to keep going straight ahead, then resumed their deep conversation.
Eleanor then saw a detached cottage with a woman and a girl standing in its doorway. They were dressed oddly, too, with white kerchiefs tucked into bodices, and the woman was passing a jug to the girl, who wore an ankle-length skirt and a close-fitting, white cap. Charlotte didn’t see the girl or the woman with the jug.
It was at that point that both Charlotte and Eleanor began to get a creeping sense of surreality, but as they hadn’t known one another all that long, neither dared mention these feelings out loud.
Charlotte Moberly wrote later that “an extraordinary depression came over me, which in spite of every effort to shake it off, steadily deepened until it became quite overpowering.” Unknown to her, Eleanor Jourdain wrote that she “began to feel as if I were walking in (her) sleep; the heavy dreaminess was oppressive.”
They came to a grotto with something like a kiosk or small bandstand in it. Seated by it was a man in a heavy, dark cloak, his face shaded by a big hat. He turned his head suddenly and seemed to look at them, revealing a pockmarked face with a dark and menacing expression. Eleanor felt that he was uncanny and fear-inspiring, and both she and Charlotte had a moment of alarm.
The grotto was so enclosed they couldn’t see anything beyond it. Things took on an unnatural aspect, and not a pleasant one! Even the trees behind the bandstand became flat and lifeless, like a wood depicted on a tapestry, with no light or shade, no hint of a breeze, everything weirdly still.
Footsteps ran up the path behind the two women but when they turned around, nobody was there. However, another person had appeared in the grotto – a handsome gentleman with black, curly hair who called to them in some excitement, “Mesdames, mesdames, il ne faut pas passer par la” and waved his arms before saying “Par ici… cherchez la maison,” indicating he wanted them to take the right-hand path, not the left, as that would take them to the house.
Charlotte and Eleanor moved to a small bridge on the right and turned to thank him, but the man had vanished. They heard someone running yet again, but saw nobody actually running.
Over the bridge, they were on higher ground until they came to a meadow looking onto the front of the Petit Trianon. They mounted a set of steps onto the terrace, and Charlotte caught sight of a lady sitting in the grass growing right up to the house, sketching. This solitary artist turned to look at the two women as they passed, and she was dressed in a light summer dress trimmed with a fichu folded across her shoulders, with a shady, straw hat on top of her puffed-out blonde hair. The young woman was pretty, but at the same time, Charlotte Moberly found her somehow unattractive, still feeling as if she was walking in a dream. Eleanor Jourdain didn’t see the sketching woman.
Misses Moberly and Jourdain walked around to the terrace’s west side, seeking an entrance, the oppressive stillness growing ever more intense. A door opened and a young man dashed out, slamming the door behind him, and ran to them, saying they mustn’t stay there. He offered to take the two ladies to the main entrance off the courtyard. He had a cheerful manner with a slightly mocking smile, and though he wasn’t in livery, they got the impression he could be a junior footman.
The man led Charlotte and Eleanor through a formal French garden walled with trees, into the courtyard, where they found the entrance hall.
Reality asserted itself once again – a guide arrived and invited the two women to join a group of tourists. On leaving, Charlotte and Eleanor took a carriage back to Versailles for tea, and everything was natural, the wind blowing once again.
Taking Stock
The visit wasn’t mentioned for a whole week. However, as Charlotte was writing a letter about her time in France, she began to wonder.
“Do you think the Petit Trianon is haunted?” she asked Eleanor.
“Yes, I do,” her new friend conceded without hesitation.
They finally compared notes and discovered that they hadn’t always been seeing the same things at the same time while they were lost in the gardens.
Charlotte and Eleanor wrote a separate account of what each had experienced (without showing it to the other one) and undertook research of the Trianon’s history. They reckoned they may have seen events that took place on August the 10th 1792, six weeks before the French monarchy was abolished, the siege of the Tuileries, and the slaughter of the King’s guards.
Eleanor revisited the palace grounds again by herself in January 1902, and found that things had altered, the route she and Charlotte had walked now being untraceable. The bandstand and the bridge were missing, the place was swarming with (living) people, the gateway onto the wide green drive was derelict, the drive itself smothered by weeds, none of the three paths they’d had to choose from were there, there was no cottage where Eleanor saw the woman handing a jug to a child, no steps leading to the house-front, and the door through which the “footman” had rushed out was invisible because a wall stood in the way of it. Eleanor asked people she knew in Paris whether there were any ghost stories concerning the Petit Trianon.
They told her that Marie Antoinette’s ghost had been seen in the gardens wearing a light summer hat and a pink dress.
Some people in Versailles village said that the ghosts of the entire court appeared on the anniversary of the siege of the Tuileries on August the 10th, 1792 – the day that led to Marie Antoinette dying via the guillotine.
Through more research, the two women decided that the pockmark-faced man they had seen was the Comte de Vaudreuil, who was a friend of Marie Antoinette’s.
Eventually, Charlotte and Eleanor published a book about their experience titled “An Adventure” in 1911, under the pen-names Elizabeth Morison and Frances Lamont. The book, along with its claim that Marie Antoinette had appeared in the palace gardens in 1901, caused quite a ruckus and a lot of divided opinions.
The true identities of the book’s authors weren’t revealed until 1931.
Can It Be Explained?
It may have been that the two headmistresses had stumbled into an eccentric sort of LARPing party and not realised.
According to Philippe Jullian in 1965, the French poet Robert de Montesquiou lived near the palace of Versailles at the time of the “incident” and he was sometimes prone to holding parties where he and his friends dressed in historical clothing and performed “tableau vivants” as entertainment.
However, Charlotte and Eleanor claimed to have had other psychic experiences before and after the Versailles time-travelling escapade, including Charlotte Moberly reportedly seeing the Roman Emperor Constantine in the Louvre in 1914, an unusually tall man in a gold crown and a toga.
In the First World War, Eleanor Jourdain grew convinced there was a German spy hiding in her college. Eleanor developed more and more authoritarian behaviour and suddenly died in 1924, in the middle of a scandal over her management of the college. Charlotte Moberly died in 1937.
Once their book came out of copyright, it was republished in 1988 titled “The Ghosts of Trianon: The Complete ‘An Adventure’” by Thoth Publication. In 2008 it was released by CreateSpace.
So, what do you reckon happened at Versailles? Are there any other instances of walking through time you’d recommend I look into next? Let me know in the comments!
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moberly%E2%80%93Jourdain_incident
The World’s Greatest Psychics & Mystics by Margaret Nicholas
- Haunted Stately Piles in the UK
Sounds painful, doesn’t it? Anyhow, this is a list of some of the most ghost-ridden old buildings in the UK.
image by HiQ-Visions (pixabay.com) Scotland
Inveraray Castle
On the north-east of Glasgow, upon the edge of Loch Fyne, this castle is perhaps one of the most haunted buildings in Britain.
It has five ghosts, the most disturbing of which can be found in the MacArthur Room. In 1644, the Duke of Argyll left his castle to evade capture by the Marquess of Montrose, leaving behind a young Irish lad who had been his harp-player.
The Marquess’s mercenaries found the boy and, angry at the prospect of one of their fellow countrymen serving a Scotsman, they killed the poor fellow and left his mutilated body lying on the Duke’s bed.
Though this murder took place in the old castle, the boy’s ghost is said to have become so attached to the bed, he remained haunting it after it was moved to the more modern castle.
Glamis Castle
Built in 1372 and continuously owned by the Bowes-Lyons family, this castle in Angus, East Scotland is said to be cursed after Sir John Lyon took an ancestral chalice away from the family seat at Forteviot (where it was meant to stay in perpetuity).
The castle is haunted by the ghost of Earl Beardie, who had been a guest at the castle and got drunk, then expressed outrage that nobody wanted to play a game of cards with him, and said that instead he would play cards with the Devil! After this a tall man in dark clothes knocked on the door and offered himself as an opponent.
The stranger and Earl Beardie locked themselves in a room, from which could be heard a lot of shouting and swearing. A curious servant tried spying through the keyhole and was blinded by a strange bright light. The Earl opened the door to remonstrate with the servant, only to find that the stranger – the Devil – had left with his winnings – the Earl’s soul!
People who listen hard can sometimes hear the sound of Earl Beardie rolling dice and shouting imprecations. Some folks who stay the night, and often children, wake to find the apparition of the Earl peering into their faces. Not a pleasant wake-up call.
There is also a White Lady, someone who used to live in the castle and was burned at the stake for witchcraft outside Edinburgh Castle, and is believed to roam Glamis ever since then.
Also there is a ghost of a woman with no tongue, who appears pointing at her injured face.
England
Chillingham Castle, Northumberland
This may be the most haunted castle in England. Its glowing apparition of a “Blue Boy”, whose cries of terror resound through the corridors, is the castle’s most well-known ghost, usually seen in the Pink Room.
There is a “White Lady” in its inner pantry, a malignant poltergeist in King Edward’s room and a crowd of ghosts hang out in the torture chamber, where John Sage (the Butcher of the Scots) did a lot of gruesome things to them.
Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk
In this building’s library, the books move on their own. Some people maintain the one moving them is the ghost of William Windham III, a lover of books who died in 1809. He died trying to save his collection of books from a fire which began in that library, and this 17th century Hall is otherwise calm and peaceful (apart from the sound of unknown hands turning pages after dark…)
Blickling Hall, Norfolk
This Jacobean mansion is now owned by the National Trust, but it would seem that a few of its Tudor residents never fully left.
Every May the 19th – the anniversary of her beheading – Anne Boleyn (one of Henry VIII’s wives) is said to return here in a spectral coach driven by a headless horseman, her own head either resting on his lap or her lap. For more information check out this earlier post.
Raynham Hall, Norfolk
One of the most famous photographs of an apparition was taken here in 1936, that of a “Brown Lady” gliding down a staircase.
The Lady may be Lady Dorothy Walpole, the sister of one of the earlier Prime Ministers, Robert Walpole, who died in 1726 under suspicious circumstances.
Visitors in the present-day have heard disembodied footsteps, whispering, and an intense feeling of dread in the upper corridors.
Burton Agnes Manor House, East Yorkshire
Built in 1610, this Elizabethan manor is haunted by the ghost of Anne Griffiths, who is what you might call a quiescent poltergeist.
Anne was the youngest of three sisters who lived here, and she was attacked by robbers and injured fatally. As she was dying, she asked her sisters to always keep a part of her with them forever.
Later on, her skull was found hidden in the manor. Whenever the skull was moved or disturbed, inexplicable noises and poltergeist activity would happen.
The building is calm today, but Anne is still supposedly present in some way.
Treasurer’s House, York
This one is home to a ghostly battalion of marching Romans!
Believed to be the most haunted place in York, the House is also home to the spectre of a cat, a grey lady who tries to converse with children, and the ghost of the building’s previous owner, who leaves smells of cigar smoke wherever he goes.
Longleat, Wiltshire
Louisa Carteret and her husband Thomas Thynne (the second Viscount Weymouth) lived here. She was a kindly and attractive woman, whilst Thomas was suspicious and often bad-tempered.
He became aware – perhaps only in his imagination – that Louisa was in an over-familiar relationship with one of the footmen. In a jealous rage, Thomas shoved that footman down some stairs, killing him. He comcealed the man’s body under the flagstones in the basement, and told his wife the footman had just departed suddenly.
Louisa, incredibly upset, caught some form of illness and died in childbirth aged 22 in 1736.
After her passing, servants claimed they saw Louisa still moving along the corridors in search for her footman, and she can still be heard today banging on doors.
When central heating was put in at Longleat, a body dressed in 18th-century attire was indeed discovered beneath the flagstone floor!
Dorney Court, Windsor, Berkshire
This is a strange one – the place is haunted by the spectre of a bald woman who is only visible to men.
In the 19th century, the Palmer family (who lived there then) were so frightened by the bald ghost they got a priest in to work out what was going on.
Whilst in there, the priest received a supernatural instruction to remove some panelling in an upstairs bedroom. He obeyed, and behind the panels was a secret alcove containing the long tresses of a woman’s hair!
Fulham Palace, West London
This was once a country house for Bishops of London for over 1200 years (obviously the city of London hadn’t expanded so much back then).
It wasn’t such a relaxing holiday destination, however, due to the constant switching of allegiances between Catholicism and Protestantism. During King Edward VI’s reign, the Catholic Bishop Edmund Bonner was sent to Marshalsea Prison, then while Catholicism was popular once again under the reinstated Queen Mary, Bonner’s successor (Bishop Ridley) was burned at the stake!
Bishop Bonner is sometimes still seen by staff and visitors in the present-day, ambling through empty hallways, his footsteps echoing.
Ham House, London
This 17th century mansion is in Richmond, on the bank of the Thames. The ghost of the Duchess of Lauderdale, Elizabeth Murray, still somehow persists here, her perfume able to be smelled in deserted rooms.
Members of staff have experienced cold draughts, weird sounds, and creepy sensations in the basement.
Buckland Abbey, Devon
Located in Dartmoor, this 700-year-old Abbey is associated with Sir Francis Drake, who once owned the house.
Some say that after signing a contract with the Devil, Francis Drake’s ghost lingers in the house, in its grounds, or in Dartmoor in general. His ghost has to drive a black cortège pulled by headless horses, hellhounds, and goblins. If seen, this bizarre and terrifying line-up is an omen of danger.
Hinton Ampner, Hampshire
Today it is a Georgian house. However, a different manor stood on the site in earlier days, and that manor was so saturated in paranormal goings-on that it was abandoned in the 18th century.
People reported groans, banging, and apparitions.
The house that stands today, built in 1790, has a more relaxed vibe, though some people who visit claim to have odd experiences, particularly in the garden and the cellars.
The original ghost-story inspired Victorian ghost-hunters.
Wales
Dinewfr, Carmarthenshire
The 800-acre estate has a 17th-century manor AND its own ruined castle, so there are a lot of areas of a spectral persuasion.
The ghost of Lady Elinor Cavendish wanders the halls of the house, after being murdered by a lover she rejected.
Llancaich Fawr Manor, Rhymney Valley
This Tudor manor house is near Nelson village just north of the old Llancaiach Colliery.
The semi-fortified building was erected on the site of a medieval building (or perhaps incorporated into the eastern part of the older building).
The manor was once the home of Colonel Edward Prichard, who in 1645 hosted a visit by King Charles I of England. Prichard died in 1655.
It was thought to have been constructed for a Dafydd ap Richard in 1530 (ap Richard coming from the Welsh patronymic “ap Rhisiart” or son of Rhisiart). However, dendrochronology dates the roof-timbers to 1548 – 1565.
The building closed to the public in 2024 but has been used in different TV and film productions including Dr Who and an episode of Time Team.
It is supposed to be haunted by four ghosts.
You can also reach Hansen at hansentorauthor@gmail.com
Nightwalks 