Medieval witch prison dubbed Britain's 'most haunted house' up for sale

arthwollipot

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arthwollipot
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Britain's 'most haunted house' for sale after history as medieval prison for witches

Britain's potentially "most haunted house" — a medieval prison for witches — is up for sale.

The property listing, marketed by Home Domus, said the owner is seeking offers in excess of 240,000 pounds ($440,000) for the two-bedroom cottage.

Real estate website Right Move described the cottage as the "most haunted house in Essex and possibly England".

"The Cage was a medieval prison where thirteen witches were kept in 1582 while awaiting trial. They became known as the Witches of St Osyth, and among them was the notorious Ursula Kemp," Home Domus wrote in their advertisement.

"At the end of the trial three were found guilty, including Ursula, and were sentenced to death by hanging."
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Not the worst paranormal-related news article I've seen. It puts itself at a remove from any actual claim of the paranormal by only quoting other sources making those claims or using qualifiers like "potentially".
 
Interesting. The woman fled when a spirit spanked her behind. Kinky ghosts. I'd run too.
 
Is that a typical asking price for a two-bedroom cottage in that area? Houses that were the scene of a relatively recent murder often sell for less than average because people don't feel comfortable living there. I'm curious if a "haunting" from deaths 400+ years ago would have a similar effect, or boost the price due to notoriety.
 
I propose a BBC game show called "Most Haunted House in the UK."

The show will be sponsored by the makers of the finest Scotch. The judges will travel to the contending locations, drink said Scotch, and "investigate".
Winners will get a case of Scotch, losers will get a bottle of Scotch. During the show's run, weekly contests will award loyal viewers bottles of Scotch. The show will run social media drinking games for viewers wherein whenever one of the "investigators" says, "did you hear that?", or "I think I saw a shadow", you have to take a shot of Scotch.

The second season would just be people drinking Scotch.
 
If done properly, it would make a good museum dedicated to the history of religious persecution. I think you're right; tourist trap is a more likely outcome though.
 
arthwollipot said:
Britain's 'most haunted house' for sale after history as medieval prison for witches



Not the worst paranormal-related news article I've seen. It puts itself at a remove from any actual claim of the paranormal by only quoting other sources making those claims or using qualifiers like "potentially".
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Someone else may have already mentioned this, but from what I read up on a number of years ago when this story was making the rounds, is that so much of the story behind this property is absolute drivel.

The woman flogging it has been using it as a tourist attraction for ages, yet occasionally pops on telly to have a little cry about how traumatized the property made her when she lived there.

The True Horror episode based on it was nothing short of a fictional short movie based on the nonsense ramblings of a single mum who saw a potential gravy train she could milk dry, and boy has she milked it.
 
wasapi said:
Interesting. The woman fled when a spirit spanked her behind. Kinky ghosts. I'd run too.
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She ran, yet continued to live there for a while, moved out, and kept returning to host ghost tours and spirit readings and all of the other complete bollocks you'd associate with a typical carnie trying earn a bit of moolah.
 
Axxman300 said:
I propose a BBC game show called "Most Haunted House in the UK."

The show will be sponsored by the makers of the finest Scotch. The judges will travel to the contending locations, drink said Scotch, and "investigate".
Winners will get a case of Scotch, losers will get a bottle of Scotch. During the show's run, weekly contests will award loyal viewers bottles of Scotch. The show will run social media drinking games for viewers wherein whenever one of the "investigators" says, "did you hear that?", or "I think I saw a shadow", you have to take a shot of Scotch.

The second season would just be people drinking Scotch.
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Doesn't sound too dissimilar to Most Haunted UK, where Yvette Fielding and Derek Ackora talked about how much Dick Mary loved, and ran around in the dark flinching at balls of dust in the glow of the cameras. They were all pretty obviously tanked up on ale.
 
Armitage72 said:
Is that a typical asking price for a two-bedroom cottage in that area? Houses that were the scene of a relatively recent murder often sell for less than average because people don't feel comfortable living there. I'm curious if a "haunting" from deaths 400+ years ago would have a similar effect, or boost the price due to notoriety.
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Much of the story the woman tells is entirely based on melodies whistled by a tramp in the alleyway behind the local Aldi, or so I'm told.

The truth of the matter is that the house has been up for sale for a while and has also been used as an attraction for all kinds of bored ghost-hunters with a passion for sitting around with the lights off, asking questions into pieces of tin foil and cupping cheese to their ears in the hopes of hearing intelligent answers, or so I'm told.

No one has seemed arsed enough to actually buy the house, and there are other reports of people who have lived there and not seen a thing. A lot of funny articles came out after the True Horror episode aired, if you poke about you'll read some interesting information about the so-called "most haunted house in England" which is actually about as haunted as Boris Johnson's knob, or so I'm told.
 
Gilbert Syndrome said:
Doesn't sound too dissimilar to Most Haunted UK, where Yvette Fielding and Derek Ackora talked about how much Dick Mary loved, and ran around in the dark flinching at balls of dust in the glow of the cameras. They were all pretty obviously tanked up on ale.
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I don't know if it was that show or a different one, but I remember an episode in which a woman fell down and hurt herself after flailing around in a panic because a "ghostly voice" whispered in her ear. When they reviewed the event on the footage from a different camera, it turned out to be a moth fluttering next to her head.
 
Gilbert Syndrome said:
Doesn't sound too dissimilar to Most Haunted UK, where Yvette Fielding and Derek Ackora talked about how much Dick Mary loved, and ran around in the dark flinching at balls of dust in the glow of the cameras. They were all pretty obviously tanked up on ale.
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That show was so ridiculous. And the stories Derek Ackora came up with were pretty much all the same. It became boring very soon. And all Yvette did was scream. She's supposedly an "investigator," and at the first sign of, well, anything, she'd scream. Complete joke and complete bore.
 
I have a story I love to tell about the show Ghost Hunters International. My son turned it on once out of pure curiosity (he was about 14 at the time). In this episode, the team had been called to Transylvania to "investigate" the Dracula castle. I explained to my son that this stupid show never fails to find a supposed haunting.

Well, this particular episode proved me wrong. They were being paid by the current owner of the castle, who wanted to open it as a hotel. To everyone's surprise (not) they confidently concluded that the castle was not haunted.
 
Armitage72 said:
I don't know if it was that show or a different one, but I remember an episode in which a woman fell down and hurt herself after flailing around in a panic because a "ghostly voice" whispered in her ear. When they reviewed the event on the footage from a different camera, it turned out to be a moth fluttering next to her head.
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That pretty much sums up the format for most of those types of shows, lol. They still run tours around the country using the Most Haunted UK name, and funnily enough, I was talking about it with some people over the weekend while I was in Wales, as the talk turned to ghosts, as they generally do at about midnight when everyone's had a few drinks and there's sod-all on the telly.

A friend was telling me of someone they knew who'd went to one of these tours in a typically old, dark house, head filled up with silly stories about obvious ladies in grey and men in black and Boys 2 Men and New Kids on the Block, etc. Apparently there was a trick being used in which the spoons in the kitchen were all seen to be going haywire on a wall, and it transpired that a magnet or something along those lines was being used, and as it turned out, the same trick was being used every single time a tour took place in this house, as this person got talking to other tour members who'd done the exact same tour in the exact same building multiple time! You couldn't make it up...


carrps said:
That show was so ridiculous. And the stories Derek Ackora came up with were pretty much all the same. It became boring very soon. And all Yvette did was scream. She's supposedly an "investigator," and at the first sign of, well, anything, she'd scream. Complete joke and complete bore.
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Last Summer when I was going down to London on the train from Liverpool Lime Street to Euston, we were sat at our table waiting to begin the journey, and out of nowhere, one of my mate's shouts there's Derek Ackora! and we glanced out of the window and there he was, still fully in the spirit world, or maybe just the world of hard liquor, floating past the window like a ghost. He got on our train and he even got off with us at Euston, he was dressed to impress, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and looking like Beetlegeuise after being dug up from the plastic model cemetery.

Yvette Fielding doesn't do much on the telly these days, neither does Derek. Thank God.
 
arthwollipot said:
I have a story I love to tell about the show Ghost Hunters International. My son turned it on once out of pure curiosity (he was about 14 at the time). In this episode, the team had been called to Transylvania to "investigate" the Dracula castle. I explained to my son that this stupid show never fails to find a supposed haunting.

Well, this particular episode proved me wrong. They were being paid by the current owner of the castle, who wanted to open it as a hotel. To everyone's surprise (not) they confidently concluded that the castle was not haunted.
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Is this Vlad's castle? If so, the Romanians love teasing stories about it being haunted, but only because they themselves are an entirely superstitious people. It's a lovely castle, well, what's left of it, and you can pick up a lovely bottle of red wine from the shop at the end of your tour.

In Liverpool, a popular "haunted house" that I've actually worked in as a night watchman when I was a bit younger, is Speke Hall. It's a lovely Tudor house that is filled with history, just no actual ghosts, unfortunately. I don't get why people feel the need to add supernatural stories to buildings which are already steeped in enough history to warrant enough interest as they are.
 
arthwollipot said:
I have a story I love to tell about the show Ghost Hunters International. My son turned it on once out of pure curiosity (he was about 14 at the time). In this episode, the team had been called to Transylvania to "investigate" the Dracula castle. I explained to my son that this stupid show never fails to find a supposed haunting.

Well, this particular episode proved me wrong. They were being paid by the current owner of the castle, who wanted to open it as a hotel. To everyone's surprise (not) they confidently concluded that the castle was not haunted.
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I find that rather surprising. This local hotel promotes its alleged haunting for all it's worth.
 
dudalb said:
I guess it depends on what kind of customers you are after. Some people think staying in a hotel with a ghost is cool, others have nightmares of Jack Nicholson in "The SHining"...
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Yes, the implication was very clearly that people wouldn't want to stay there if it was haunted.
 
Gilbert Syndrome said:
Last Summer when I was going down to London on the train from Liverpool Lime Street to Euston, we were sat at our table waiting to begin the journey, and out of nowhere, one of my mate's shouts there's Derek Ackora! and we glanced out of the window and there he was, still fully in the spirit world, or maybe just the world of hard liquor, floating past the window like a ghost. He got on our train and he even got off with us at Euston, he was dressed to impress, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and looking like Beetlegeuise after being dug up from the plastic model cemetery.
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My friends and I all got a big laugh when we watched an episode of Doctor Who in which millions of "ghosts" were regularly appearing all over the world. He was briefly shown in an interview lamenting that nobody needed him anymore.
 
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