I
was stalked by an evil ghost.
The
story I am about to tell you – is not a story. It is the truth.
I
know it is because what I am about to tell you happened to me.
I
once lived in a very old house called Cromwell Cottage. There were
many stories surrounding the house. That it had once belonged to one
of Oliver Cromwell's relatives. Possibly his brother Richard or Sir
Philip Cromwell, as part of his estate.
It
was also said to have been at one time a dying house for plague
victims and a hospital for lepers.
On
a wall in the kitchen after it had been stripped of plaster during a
restoration project, we found what looked like musket ball
holes.
It
was said that during the English civil war, men had been put up
against the wall and shot. No one knew why, or if it was true, only
that it was supposed to have happened. The holes we uncovered
embedded in the exposed brickwork said it was a possibility that
murder had happened there.
How
much of the above is true, I don't know. The name on the deeds to the
property was Cromwell Cottage, so some of the stories were probably
correct. What I do know, is the house was, and I am sure, still is,
very haunted.
I
have been aware of the world of spirit, since as a very young child
of about five, I had my first paranormal experience. I saw the ghost
of a man who had hung himself.
The
original part of the house, built anywhere between the 14th
and 16th centuries, had been extended through the Georgian
and Victorian periods to form a large many roomed residence. Cromwell
Cottage, had six bedrooms, four reception rooms, an enormous kitchen
with a big utility room (mud room) attached and a long wide hallway -
all of which were haunted. There was also a vast barn, which seemed
free of any ghostly happenings.
When
my husband and I viewed the house to buy it, I connected with the
residual spiritual energies in the house, it didn't bother me because
to me spiritual activity was quite normal.
So,
we moved in with our two small boys and set about making the old
place, home.
The
paranormal activity started almost immediately we moved in. Heavy
footsteps could be heard walking down the stairs. We heard a woman
chattering excitedly as she went from bedroom to bedroom. There was
the noise and laughter of children playing in the
hallway. We could hear their boots scrapping on a stone pavement that
no longer existed.
And
many, many other paranormal sightings, of spirits, ghostly noises,
the aroma of musky perfume and the smell of new paint in a room that had
yet to be painted.
My husband fitted a dimmer light switch in our sons bedroom, that
night after we had put the children to bed and we had lowered the
light, the ghosts began to play with the light, first to brighten then dim the light in the room.
When I asked them to stop because they were frightening my young
children, they did. So they weren't all bad, the spirits that shared the house
with us.
We
were not alone in witnessing the activities. The workmen we employed
to help with the renovations refused stay in the house without either
myself or my husband being there.
If
I was to document all the supernatural happenings of that house, I'd
be writing a book, not a blog article.
The
day I discovered we had an intense evil stalking our house, started
no differently than any other day. My husband went to work, I took
our boys to school and then came home to do the daily chores.
The
feeling that there was an unwholesome presence around me began as I
cleaned the upstairs family bathroom.
Someone
watched me. Then whatever it was followed me as I made the beds and
cleaned the bedrooms. I had felt energies around me before especially
when I was alone in the house. This time though, it was different, I
felt a deep sense of unease and an understanding that the energy that
was with me didn't just want to make it's presence known to the physical
world.
I
took no notice of whatever it was standing with me, and refused to
let it intimidate me as I carried on with my housework as if it wasn't
there.
Was
it my refusal to be scared of it that made it so angry? Perhaps but I
don't think so. There was a loathing of the living that came with it.
I knew it wanted to punish me in some way.
I
finished what I was doing and went downstairs. As I descended the
stairs, I felt whatever was there, follow me. And I heard the
distinct sound of a man's heavy footsteps tread alongside me as I
walked. By the time I reached the end of the stairs my heart was
pounding and the skin at the back of my neck itched from the sweat
sticking my hair to it.
Although,
it was a beautiful sunny day and a bright light streamed in
through the glass panel of the front-door filling the hallway with
sunlight, I felt the atmosphere of the hallway hung with a
blackened aura, as an intense psychic darkness, permeated the house
with the feeling of something really evil there with me.
It
was then that I realized I was dealing with an entity consumed by a
wicked malevolence that was aimed right at me.
At
that time I had not trained as a Spiritualist medium and had only my
psychic instincts to rely on to fight the thing trying to scare me.
If
it could have hurt me, I am sure it would have and I am also sure it
would have done me psychical harm, if I had not had spiritual
protection.
The
front half of the downstairs consisted of the two largest reception
rooms. A drawing room that had a large bay window looking directly
out onto the pavement outside and a library/music room.
Both
rooms were the scene of a lot of previous paranormal activities. The
drawing room lights would be turned on every morning, although both
my husband and I made sure we had turned them off the night before
when we went upstairs to bed.
The
library/music room apart from the walls being lined with books had a
piano in it. It was not unusual to hear the piano being played by
ghostly hands during the day but more often late at night.
Something
inside my head told me to head for the kitchen and the other more
older half of the house. I took a deep breath and recited the Lord's
Prayer as I quickly walked the length of the long hallway to the
kitchen door. And as my hand closed over the door knob, I got the
feeling of a large thick fingered hand push down hard on my own
fingers.
“You
cannot stop me.” I remember yelling to the air before pushing the
door open and then firmly closing it behind me.
With
the door shut between me and it, I said to whatever is was still on
the other side, to stay exactly where it was and not follow me any
more.
I
waited nervously for several minutes then with a surge of relief I
realized my prayer had been answered as I could no longer sense
anything in the hallway behind the kitchen door.
And
then it happened.
Coming
from the library/music room there was the most almighty loud crash.
It was so loud I thought the ceiling had fallen down causing the
books to come crashing to the floor.
Adrenaline
took over and without thinking I ran back out into the hallway and
into the room to see what had happened.
So
thunderous was the noise I had heard, I expected to see chunks of
ceiling plaster, dust and books everywhere and a totally destroyed
piano.
The
room was completely intact. Nothing was out of place.
I
stood stunned. Then I felt him standing behind me and I heard his low
painful breaths rasp over my shoulder.
I
sensed my tormentor's spirit was that of a man. The entity was not
from the oldest time of the house. I felt he was Victorian, and a
past owner. I got the feeling that during his life he had been a
brutish man, who beat his wife and children. There was a dark evil to
this spirit – an evil I had never felt before and I have not felt
anything like that spirit's wickedness since – I am very pleased to
say.
Maybe
he just wanted me to leave his house but at the time this haunting
happened to me, I didn't think that was so. I felt he wanted to hurt
me as I sensed an intense hatred emanating from him.
Again,
I recited the Lord's Prayer out loud, as I walked through him or
passed him, I don't know which and back into the kitchen.
For
some reason the man's ghosts didn't want to follow me into the
kitchen. The kitchen and the rooms off of it, were of the older part
of house and in all probability where the victims of the plague and
the lepers had been brought to die all those centuries before.
You
would think spirits of those who had died such a horribly painful
death would have had more reason to feel anger than a man who must
have been wealthy in life and very likely held a predominant position
when he was alive - but something else came to the house that day to
help me, a power for good – my guardian angels? Or maybe the other
spirits that stayed connected to the house, stood in his way, to protect me.
Whatever
the reason, the evil spirit stayed behind the door and did not come
into the kitchen.
The
intense hate waiting on the other side of the door for me was so
deeply consumed by it's evil that I left early to pick my sons up
from school that day.
About
two hours early.
When
we got home, I made my children stay in the kitchen whilst I went
through the house saying prayers and blessing each room in turn.
The haunting didn't stop but he never came back, for which I was truly
thankful.
A while later my husband got a new job and we sold the house and
moved away.
The
new owners? As far as I know, they never experienced any paranormal
activity whilst they lived there.
Something
else for which I am thankful.
All
of the above really took place and in no way have I not told it the way the events actually happened to me.
Thanks
for reading this post.
Josephine
Sanchez-Vanner
