EDBROOK HALL
Location: The exact location of Edbrook Hall is unrevealed, but David Ash
described it as somewhere within a considerable walking distance of the tiny
village of
Description: Edbrook Hall was described as a classic Elizabethan structure over two hundred years old, at least three stories tall and containing numerous rooms, luxurious suites and broad hallways. It had a peaked room with numerous chimneys, balustrades and stained glass windows. Once lit by gas lamps, the mansion was starting to show a degree of its age and lack of maintenance as its once grand rooms fell into ruin. A small cottage and lake exist on the property with a church and cemetery over the hill. The proposed structure has many of these traits except the cottage and a nearby church.
Ghostly Manifestations:
During his lifetime, parapsychologist David Ash traveled abroad exposing séances
as fake and disproving the notion that the spirits of the dead could haunt
houses. After he died in 1949, he reportedly departed this world secure in the
knowledge that the dead could not return. However, his wife, Katherine, several
years later published in her own memoirs that he might not have been so sure as
he had lead the public to believe. She thought David was being amorously pursued
by a love-starved phantom that had followed them back to the United States from
his native England. The female phantom was believed to have come from his
exploration at Edbrook Hall.
Its sole occupant, Tess Mariell, had called
Ash to investigate Edbrook shortly after World War I. She believed several
ghosts were tormenting her despite the gentle protests of her niece and nephews
who lived with her. Arriving by himself with all the tools he thought he would
need, Ash stayed with the Mariells for almost a month expecting to expose the
ghosts for her and prove the family correct. According to his notes, they
treated him cordially at first but grew slightly annoyed the longer he stayed.
Tess’s niece, meanwhile, took a shine to David her brothers picked up on.
His first night in
the house, David had a vivid dream of a funeral procession with one mourner
outside his guest room window. It was so vivid to him that he actually jumped up
from bed and ran out into the foggy, night air in his bare feet to confront it.
Over the course of
the next few days, he heard and experienced other things. Scratching noises came
from within the walls that he attributed to rats. The handle to his bedroom door
turned as if someone was trying to get inside to him. Despite being locked, it
actually flew open with a crash. Despite being startled, Ash ran out to catch a
practical joker he suspected of unlocking his door, but no one was in sight.
Another night, he
was roused from his sleep from pounding coming from all over the house at once.
When he went to answer it, his door would not open for him. He unlocked and
locked it several times to loosen the lock mechanism, but it was truly as if
someone was on the other side holding hard against him. As the poundings in the
house stopped, he paused to retire back to bed, but as he turned, the bedroom
door casually drifted open. In the morning, one of the nephews tried to resolve
the source of the pounding by claiming he was killing rats.
David documented
other noises such as the sounds of a tormented woman crying from empty parts of
the house and the tinkling of piano keys from an unused suite. While he was
talking to Mrs. Mariell, he just happened to glance to the piano and noticed the
skirt of a woman sitting in the piano bench, but as he lifted his eyes to see
whom it was, he spotted empty air. She didn’t have a head.
David was also being
haunted by the spirit of a little girl. Never appearing in the house, she always
appeared beyond it looking in at him or walking the farthest reaches of the
estate. She appeared both in day and night hours and lurked around the house
staring at the house. No one knew who she was, but then there were no homes
within a mile of Edbrook for her to have come from.
The thumping noises
returned too from time to time. David also heard whistling from an empty part of
the edifice. He turned around to see who was coming up behind him, but no one
was there. He began attributing the noises to the echoes of the house plus his
imagination being played on by the isolation of the house.
David also
experienced bursts of fire all over the house which erupted without damage and
vanished without smoke. In the basement, he dropped a candle and extinguished a
drop of burning wax from it. A stored burlap bag meanwhile burst into flame as
he ran for help, but as he returned, there was no signs of a fire nor was there
any indication of any burning.
In his most
interesting experience to date, he was out on the grounds wiring a camera to be
triggered by movement in the gazebo when he started hearing moaning in the air
around him. The breeze picked up and blew his flash powder around, but as his
eyes accustomed to the dust, it actually started to outline a female form in the
gazebo with him close enough for him to embrace. It turned from him moaning
incessantly, and while twitching in and out like a character on a jerky piece of
celluloid film, it departed into the lake and vanished.
History: A full history for Edbrook is not available because of the debate of
its existence and whereabouts, but Ash reports that the Mariell family acquired
the house sometime in the Mid-Nineteenth Century and owned it until the early
Twentieth Century. The last owner was a foreign diplomat who died while
traveling abroad. His wife returned home alone shortly thereafter where she took
her life. David originally guesses she accidentally drowned in the lake on
Identity of Ghosts: It is unknown as to who the ghosts of Edbrook are because there are so few records of ownership to be found for it, but it is long been rumored to be the mother and the three children. However, this may not be the case since Katherine believes a young woman's spirit followed him from the location. Collins proposes that this isn't the mother's ghost but rather the daughter who actually grew to adulthood before her death. However, this is uncertain since Ash's research suggests the children died in a fire shortly after losing their mother. Without exterior research to collaborate his version of events, the location remains undetermined.
Source/Comments: The Haunted (1995) starring Hugh Grant and Kate Beckinsale. Based on the book, “The Haunted” by James Herbert. Hauntings based on the movie and various locations, notably Borley Rectory in Borley, England.