A Castle Full of Ghosts...

In my new novel, Those Who Dwell in Mordenhyrst Hall, a family and their ancient stately home are beset by an ancient evil. The entire fabric of the grand house is infected with a legacy of possession - and much more. Worse than that, it extends beyond them, to encompass the entire village of Cortney Abbas. The seemingly frivolous lives of a group of Bright Young Things are about to implode with the arrival of Grace Sutcliffe and before long, the secrets of the Mordenhyrst family are inexorably revealed.

Of course, my novel is just that – fiction. But, in real life, there have been numerous reports of houses cursed or possessed by demons. Sometimes these emanate from the ground on which the house was built. Other times, the builder of the house has somehow managed to impart his – or her – evil into the fabric of the place so that it becomes irrevocably woven into the walls.

In still more cases, the building itself has witnessed so much horror, violence, war and siege that the imprint of its past sticks with it, replaying itself over and over down the centuries.  Rather like a movie, scenes are played out, characters from the past - whose spirits haven’t moved on - appear to those living in the present. Sometimes inflicting little more than mild surprise and, at other times. with terrifying results.

One such place is the fortified castle of Dudley in the West Midlands of England which was founded in 1071, and has a reputation as one of Staffordshire’s most haunted spots. According to legend, the current building was erected on the site of a much earlier wooden structure.

Not just one ghost, but many, are heard and seen – in various rooms, pacing the parapets of the now ruined castle and glimpsed through the windows of the Chapel.

If you venture into the offices when the castle is otherwise empty, you may hear – as others have – footsteps in the same room as you. These ghosts are not shy. They seem quite content to be seen. An entire group of ghosthunters claim to have witnessed a spectral figure pacing across the parapets. An old woman has been witnessed on several occasions, and a drummer boy from the Civil War, who was shot from the battlements, also returns to the scene of his demise, performing different drum rolls. It is said to bring bad luck for you if you hear him.

In 1983 another ghost – that of an elderly Medieval lady – was seen in the castle.

Dudley also has a resident ‘Black Monk’. He has been reported as haunting the entrance to the keep and has also been seen through the window of the Chapel. His presence is not too surprising as the castle is close to the ruins of St James’s Priory, which dates from the 1100s. The priory housed Benedictine monks who wore black habits.

During the English Civil War, the castle became a Royalist stronghold and was besieged twice – in 1644 and then in 1646, when it fell to Cromwell’s forces and was ordered to be partially demolished. In addition to the hapless drummer, the most frightening of Dudley’s ghosts is someone else who perished in the siege of 1646. She is known as the ‘Grey Lady and is thought to be the ghost of Dorothy Beaumont. She has appeared to both staff and visitors over the years. In the 1960s, she was spotted in the old aquarium and in the 1970s, she was seen in the Chapel window.

In life, Dorothy lived in the castle and gave birth there to a daughter who sadly died. She also developed complications and died soon after, having requested that she be buried beside her daughter. She also requested that her husband attend her funeral. Neither wish was granted and Dorothy was buried in a churchyard on the other side of the town from her daughter. They have never been reunited and sad Dorothy is said to roam the castle and beyond, searching for her dead baby. Her ghost appears in many locations including a pub named after her – The Grey Lady Tavern - situated in the castle grounds. Here alarms go off for no reason, in the middle of the night. The temperature suddenly and inexplicably drops, while a strange blue mist wafts through the bar.

Of all the locations in and around the castle, the most haunted is said to be the chapel undercroft. There lies one of the castle’s most formidable lords – John Somery. People have reported seeing legs beside the coffin, others have felt their clothes tugged or thought they were being prodded by someone. One little girl was apparently flipped over a chair during a paranormal investigation and shadowy figures have been caught on camera. Strange, unexplained grinding noises have been heard emanating from the chapel above.

Dudley Castle is brim-full of ghostly snapshots from its tumultuous past. It seems one generation after another has left an indelible mark that refuses to be laid to rest.

Evil runs deep at Mordenhyrst Hall

But it is rooted far deeper than the foundations of the ancestral home. Its inhabitants and the entire village are infested with a legacy so evil, it transcends the laws of nature. In a world where nothing is as it appears to be, Grace and Coralie must seek out and find the truth – whatever the cost.

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Oscar, Dorian and The Canterville Ghost

Back when I couldn't have been more than ten years old, I saved up my pocket money and bought a paperback called, Mystery and Imagination, containing the stories dramatised in the TV series of the same name. Naturally, I was far too young to be allowed to stay up late and watch that, so I eagerly devoured the wonderful short stories of the likes of Sheridan le Fanu, my soon-to-be-hero M.R. James, Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and many more. But a little gem stood out from the rest, as much as anything because it made me smile. I had my introduction to Oscar Wilde, and the short story was The Canterville Ghost.

The exploits of the hapless ghost of Sir Simon Canterville - as he attempts to frighten off an American invasion of the Otis family into his ancestral home - are a delight. And when poor old long dead Sir Simon is faced with modern detergents used to clean up his recurring bloodstains and Tammany Rising Sun Lubricator applied to his rusting chains, it's enough to make any spectre swear. But the ultimate insult occurs when, his best efforts having failed to raise even the slightest squeak of fear from the unwanted residents, they have the gall to taunt him with a 'ghostly' creation of their own:

YE OTIS GHOST

Ye Onlie True and Originale Spooke

Beware of Ye Imitationes

All others are Counterfeite.

Over the years, I have read and re-read that story countless times and it still raises smiles to this day.

I came across The Picture of Dorian Gray some years later. In fact I saw the film (the version made in 1945) before I read the story. In life, Oscar Wilde worshipped youth and beauty. He loved to surround himself with beautiful, young, vibrant people. Even more so the older he grew. This is evident in his liaison with the much young Lord Alfred ('Bosie') Douglas and in his friendships with the beauties of the day such as Jennie, Lady Randolph Churchill (American-born mother of Winston), and the Jersey Lily herself, Lillie Langtry. He is famously quoted as remarking, "Youth is wasted on the young."

In The Picture of Dorian Gray, a talented artist is commissioned to paint a portrait of the wealthy young man of the title. As years go by and Gray leads an increasingly debauched life, he remains young, while in the attic, his picture reflects the ravages of time and sin. The story went through various edits, and in the longer version we now know, Oscar wrote a challenging preface to his readers. He entreated them to judge 'art for art's sake' and stated, 'there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.' With typical Wilde immodesty, he also remarked, 'Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.'

The Picture of Dorian Gray was released to a storm of protest and outrage from reviewers, bordering on the hysterical. He was even threatened with possible criminal investigation as a result of his writing - a sad portent of what was to come a few years later.

It remained Oscar's only full-length published novel.

My Latest Release!

Evil runs deep at Mordenhyrst Hall…

When Grace first sets eyes on the imposing Gothic Mordenhyrst Hall, she is struck with an overwhelming sense that something doesn’t want her there. Her fiancé’s sister heads a coterie of Bright Young Things whose frivolous lives hide a sinister intent. Simon, Grace’s fiancé, is not the man she fell in love with, and the local villagers eye her with suspicion that borders on malevolence.

Her friend, Coralie, possesses the ability to communicate with powerful spirits. She convinces Grace of her own paranormal gifts – gifts Grace will need to draw deeply on as the secrets of Mordenhyrst Hall begin to unravel.

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Spring-Heeled Jack

They seek him here, they seek him there…but Spring-Heeled Jack can turn up anywhere.

Here is a legend that first began in early Victorian England. A man with the apparent ability to leap over walls and capable of turning up anywhere from the Black Country (in the Birmingham, West Midlands area) to Liverpool, Chichester, and London - even a foray to Scotland. Sightings of this fantastical and scary creature grew to a peak in the 1880s – especially in the West Midlands.

So what did he look like? Descriptions vary with the witness, but some characteristics occur more frequently than others. He was alleged to possess a goatee beard and devil’s horns, pointed ears, and flashing eyes of fire. The popular Penny Dreadfuls of the day depicted him looking like a swarthy devil. Another feature common to all sightings was his ability to leap high over hedges, walls, rooftops with complete ease. He terrified his victims by suddenly leaping in front of them, or up behind them.

 In 1855, one report saw him in Old Hill in the West Midlands, where he leaped from the roof of the Cross Inn public house over to the roof of the butcher’s shop across the road. This occurrence was swiftly followed by reports of other sightings in the area and a wave of panic from the local populace.

A period of quiet was followed in 1877 was followed by a whole spate of sightings in Blackheath, Dudley and the Acocks Green area of Birmingham in 1877. Spring-Heeled Jack continued to be active through the 1880s. The Birmingham Post in 1886 reported that: “First a young girl, then a man, felt a hand on their shoulder, and turned to see the infernal one with glowing face, bidding them a good evening.”

 He usually appeared at night and targeted mainly young women. Originally his intention appears to have been to scare rather than cause actual harm to his victims. But before too long, he tired of this tame pursuit and his modus operandi turned from scary to full blown assault. On one occasion, he was said to have been accompanied by companions, all dressed in armour, who attacked a carpenter, ripping his clothes to shred. There was a suggestion in the press that the assailants were a group of, essentially bored, young gentlemen out to get their kicks by frightening people so much they lost their wits. Most of the people prepared to talk to the newspapers about Jack presented mere hearsay. It hadn’t happened to them, but to a friend of a friend.

 The first credible account came from 18-year-old Jane Alsop who, in February of 1838, reported to magistrates that she had been approached by a man dressed in a cloak, near the gate of her home in Bearbinder Lane, near Bow, London. He had asked her to bring a candle as the police had caught Spring-Heeled Jack nearby. She duly did so. He took the candle from her, opened his cloak and she caught sight of his “hideous and frightful appearance”. He then vomited a blue and white flame and his eyes became like “balls of fire”. He wore a helmet and tight-fitting clothes and he began to set about her with metal claws, ripping her dress and tugging out her hair. She managed to escape his clutches when her older sister, hearing her cries, opened the door and dragged her inside before shutting the beast firmly out.

In Limehouse, London, a girl called Lucy Scales, along with a female friend, was accosted by a gaunt man, of seemingly gentlemanly appearance. She was so scared she collapsed in a fit. In this instance, two men were actually brought to court charged with her assault but were released owing to lack of evidence.

 Outside London, Spring-Heeled Jack seems to have toned down his fire-vomiting behaviour in favour of his more athletic accomplishments and, for the rest of the century, it is for this incredible ability to leap to great heights that his fame persisted and spread. 

In 1904, in Liverpool during one of his last appearances, he was reported as leaping over rooftops and bounding down the street. He was even reported as being seen on the rooftop of St Francis Xavier’s Church in Salisbury Street in the Everton district of the city.

By the end of the nineteenth century, his notoriety was such that almost any strange encounter with a swift-footed criminal could result in Spring-Heeled Jack’s name being associated with it. In Edwardian times, his name was quoted to children by parents, to ensure they came home before dark. A convenient and effective bogeyman.

 There were rumours that he was a real person – Henry de la Poer Beresford, the Marquess of Waterford no less, who was certainly in London at the time of the 1830s sightings and was known to be something of a rake at the time, being hauled up before magistrates for drunken, brutish and outlandish behaviour on more than one occasion. However, that wouldn’t account for all the other sightings or the fact that the legend persisted into the twentieth century, with no apparent diminishing of athletic prowess that would be caused by the natural aging process. 

No one was ever convicted of the assaults he is alleged to have committed and some sources at least believe he was capable of the earlier attacks but, following his marriage in 1842, he appears to have led a blameless life. Maybe he had imitators.

These days, Spring-Heeled Jack is once again providing entertainment for the masses, through steampunk literature and appearance in popular TV shows, such as Dr. Who. No doubt, as with most urban myths, there is a grain of truth there somewhere, but rumour, numerous retellings and embellishments have gifted us a larger-than-life character that merely adds to our cornucopia of rich folklore traditions.

Of course… if you are out one dark night and see a strange man leaping over the rooftops,  you may yet prove me wrong…

 (If you want to know more about Spring-heeled Jack, try this book by Dr Karl Bell The Legend of Spring-Heeled Jack)

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In 1893, Evelyn and Claire leave their home in a Yorkshire town for life in a rural retreat on their beloved moors. But when a strange toy garden mysteriously appears, a chain of increasingly terrifying events is unleashed. 

Neighbour Matthew Dixon befriends Evelyn, but seems to have more than one secret to hide. Then the horror really begins. The Garden of Bewitchment is all too real and something is threatening the lives and sanity of the women. Evelyn no longer knows who - or what - to believe. And time is running out.

“The Garden of Bewitchment is everything you want in a modern ghost story.” – James Lefebure, Modern Horrors

“Cavendish draws from the best conventions of the genre in this eerie gothic novel about a woman’s sanity slowly unraveling within the hallways of a mysterious mansion...Fans of gothic tropes will appreciate the atmosphere and intensity of this horror tale.” – Publishers’ Weekly

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The Haunted Halls of Rolling Hill Asylum

 

If you needed to enter an asylum (or mental health facility), surely it would be because you had a mental health problem of some kind, right? Wrong. In the past, all you had to be was poor. Desperately poor, or old, disabled, or suffering from alcoholism. People afflicted with dementia, or with physical infirmities could find themselves behind the walls of places such as Rolling Hills Asylum in Bethany, New York. If they were indeed mentally ill, they could look forward to the very latest treatments, which read like a catalogue of methods of torture that might have been favoured by the Spanish Inquisition. Over the years these included – but were not restricted to – lobotomies, and electric shock therapy (without anaesthesia).

Rolling Hills Asylum can date its history back to 1827 when it opened as the Gennessee County Poor House. A newspaper report from the time stated that it was open to: ‘“habitual drunkards, lunatics (one who by disease, grief, or accident lost the use of reason, or from old age, sickness, or weakness was so weak of mind as to be incapable of governing or managing their affairs), paupers (a person with no means of income), state paupers (one who is blind, lame, old, or disabled with no income source) or a vagrant.’

All inhabitants were referred to as ‘inmates’, implying that whatever their reason for being there, they were all the same and all, essentially, prisoners.

Rolling Hills has operated variously as poor house, orphanage, asylum, and tuberculosis hospital. Around 1700 bodies are believed to be buried in the grounds – all in unmarked graves. Its last function was as a nursing home, but it only lasted for ten years in that guise mostly because of official code violations. It was then closed permanently. Most of the dorms and old buildings were torn down at that point.

Now, it looks like Hollywood’s ideal of a haunted asylum and hospital. The four storey brick building needs little imagination to ‘see’ ghosts walking there. Its echoing walls and corridors wreak of stories of inhumane treatment, despair and pain. Set foot in this place and you know you are not alone. Walk – and the unquiet spirits walk with you

And there have been plenty of reported incidents. Shadows, footsteps, ghostly touching, disembodied voices. It’s a ghosthunter’s delight. Not that all the ghosts are hostile.

Night-time ghost events are run at the facility. One of the most frequently seen ghosts is believed to have been Roy Crouse, who died in 1942. He spent most of his life here, was around seven feet tall (it is believed as a result of gigantism) and his afterlife is spent wandering as a very tall shadow who follows visitors, weeping. He may have been captured on camera, as one female visitor on a tour said she heard footsteps coming up behind her. Flashlights revealed no one there but then she turned around and took a photo. Sure enough, if you look closely, there is a tall shadow.

On the first floor of the main building, is Hattie’s Room where an old woman has been recorded saying, “Hello”. Roy’s room is also in this vicinity and he seems to have a soft spot for ladies in distress. The current owner, Sharon Coyle, was terrified by a rat in the infirmary about two months after moving in. She ran from there, screaming, and the next day found the rat dead on the stairs with blood oozing from its mouth as if its neck had been broken. On the wall above it, the clear mark of a large, bloody handprint led her to believe Roy had done this for her. These days, Roy is a much-loved figure of Rolling Hills. What would have been his 130^th birthday was celebrated in true style in April 2020.

On the second floor of the East Wing, shadow people move silently about in shades varying from pale grey to pitch black. The shadows creep along the floor or walk as humans. They can be amorphous shapes or human-like. Sometimes they appear as an appendage – an arm or a single leg.

In the basement, the Pysch Ward and Solitary Confinement cells show evidence of shackles having been used to restrain those deemed to be unruly. The Morgue, as might be expected, is a particularly uncomfortable place to visit. An embalming table stands near two large walk-n refrigerators for the storage of corpses. Visitors have heard ghostly voices and seen things moved about by unseen forces. People have also been shoved and even knocked off their feet here.

Outside, the exact location of the cemetery is unknown. Nature has taken over and any gravestones have crumbled or become so heavily overgrown as to be indistinguishable. No site map exists or even a burial record.

For some, Rolling Hills will have been the only home they ever knew.

Sharon Coyle has developed a thriving business onsite – with ghost evenings, tours, shopping, dining and much more. Rolling Hills is frequently used for filming and has been featured on a number of television ghost hunting shows.

If you visit, don’t forget to say ‘Hi’, to Roy.

You’re next…

Carol and Nessa are strangers but not for much longer.

In a luxury apartment and in the walls of a modern hospital, the evil that was done continues to thrive. They are in the hands of an entity that knows no boundaries and crosses dimensions – bending and twisting time itself – and where danger waits in every shadow. The battle is on for their bodies and souls and the line between reality and nightmare is hard to define.
Through it all, the words of Lydia Warren Carmody haunt them. But who was she? And why have Carol and Nessa been chosen?

The answer lies deep in the darkness…

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