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The Westerfeld House — The House of The Occult

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All that jazz and rock’n roll with witchcraft and satanic rituals clearly took its toll on the Victorian house known as the Westerfeld House. But is it still a hint of paranormal presence lingering there? Or has the restoration brought it back to its original sweet glory?

In the beautiful city of San Francisco there is a house that catches the eye of those passing by. Gothic, beautiful, bold and old as many of the surrounding houses are. But perhaps none other than this house has acted like a magnet for its peculiar tenants over the years. 

Old House: 1198 Fulton Street has a history of occult and strange tenants almost since it was first built in 1889.
Photo: Carol M. Highsmith/wikimedia

The William Westerfeld House, or simply the Westerfeld house is an historic building right by Alamo Square. The picturesque Victorian Italian styled villa at 1198 Fulton Street is today steeped in history, some more haunting than others, as well as some are more true than others.

The origin of the house however is a sweet tale as the building was built for the German confectioner William Westerfeld in 1889. By this time he had already established a chain of bakeries and built this 28 room mansion. Business was good for Westerfeld, however, he died only a few years after the house was built in 1895 and since then, sweet turned darker to pitch black. 

It was bought by John Mahoney and the building’s cultural reputation started to take place where strange occurrences happened. He loved to entertain his guests with spectacular shows, and among others, Harry Houdini himself tried to send telepathic messages to his wife across the Bay. So the experimental and spiritual part of the house started early on. However, no one could have guessed just how dark it would get. 

Czarist Night Club And All That Jazz

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After the Westerfeld House had served as a home to Mahoney, it fell into the hands of many different people with different purposes. A group of Czarist Russians turned it into a nightclub called Dark Eyes in the roaring 20s. It was informally known as the Russian embassy because of all the meetings taking place on the upper floor. 

After the second world war the home was converted into apartment buildings, mostly rented out to African-American jazz musicians playing in the nearby jazz clubs during the Beat area. This house jazz area lasted until the 60s, when jazz was replaced with rock and the political and philosophical beatnik area morphed into the wild and spiritual 60s. 

The Occultists In the Westerfeld House

In the 60s the Westerfeld House was used as different types of collectives, and one of those who set a mark on the house as well as recorded it, was occult filmmaker, Kenneth Anger who lived there from 1966 to 1967. During those times it was a rather rough area in the city and the people frequenting there, darker and rougher than many.  

It is here the story of the Westerfeld House turns from strange to occult. At best, the time Anger and his peculiar guests spent in the house was a terrible nuisance to all the neighbors with all the acid being taken and satanic rituals being held. At worst, they stirred up the rumours of paranormal activity to the house as well as opened the gate to hell. 

Satanic Rituals: Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey started frequenting the house, holding black masses in the Westerfeld house. Here from the movie, ‘Invocation of my demon brother’, made by Kenneth Anger.
Photo: Invocation of my demon brother/IMDB

“Up at Fulton and Scott is a great shambling old Gothic house, a freaking decayed giant, known as The Russian Embassy.”

This is how the writer Tom Wolfe talks about the Westerfeld House when he introduces it in his book: ‘The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test’, chronologizing his time spent there with a group of hippies.

Anger himself was an occultist and drew much of his elements in his films from Thelema, a pagan oriented religion founded by perhaps the most well known occultist, Aleister Crowley.

Another notorious person that stayed under the roof was Manson family member Bobby Beausoleil lived here for a while before he joined the cult of the Manson called, the Family. Beausoleil was chosen by Anger to inhabit the role of Lucifer in a movie he was working on. Together they spent their nights in the tower, trying to look for UFOs. And according to Anger, he did indeed have a “a couple of very good flying saucer sightings.” Here it is important to note just how important taking acid was to Anger. 

Allegedly, Beausoleil stole reels of Angers film: Lucifer Rising and took off with them being on bad terms. Manson himself made frequent visits to this house, and according to caretaker, Kelly Edwards, it was here that Beausoleil were drawn into the cult that eventually was behind the Helter Skelter murders. 

Black Masses of the Church of Satan

Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey also spent time in this very tower as shown when Anger shot the movie ‘Invocation of my demon brother’ where we in this psychedelic experimental movie can see LaVey, aka, ‘The Black Pope’ himself holding a black mass. According to Anger, the film was assembled from scraps of the first version of Lucifer Rising. It includes clips of the cast smoking out of a skull, and the publicly filmed Satanic funeral ceremony for a pet cat.

But he did not look after UFO’s as Anger did on his acid trips. Instead, he spent his time practicing witchcraft, as well as worshipping Satan with around 500 candles in this wooden building. This tower used to have a large pentagram etched into the floorboards to keep the wiccan and satanic rituals more permanent. He also owned a lion cub as he used to be a lion tamer before starting the Church of Satan. You can see proof of that very lion because of the scratches in the wooden paneling, even to this day.  

As well as spending time in the tower, he also performed satanic rituals in the ballroom on the ground level of the house. 

Rock n Roll

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After Angers departure from the Westerfeld House, the occult was turned into rock’n roll as the likes of Mick Jagger, Janis Joplin, Tom Wolfe and Jerry Garcia among many others passed through the halls, either as tenants, or holding concerts at the Avalon Ballroom. It continued to be used as an underground rock scene until the 70s, when the first attempts to rehabilitate the much used building began. 

And although the owner that took over in 1986 had no occult interest, he also wanted to be on the safe side when initiating the old house with a particularly rocky history. The new owner of the Westerfeld House, Jimmy Siegel told hoodline that: 

“I was always attracted to the architecture of the building,” he told us. “The occult happenings in the house were of little interest to me but to be on the safe side I had the monks from the Hartford Street Zen Center do a cleansing and a blessing for the house when I bought it in 1986. I have never experienced any darkness or paranormal activity in the house.”

The Addams Family House

Siegel bought the Westerfeld House because it looked like something the Addams family could have lived in and he had always loved the architecture and design from the Addams family. And under a LSD trip in his teens, his dreams of owning this particular house started to take hold. 

Siegel turned his drug induced dream and turned it into his life mission. He spent his time restoring the Westerfeld House that had long been neglected. And with it, he also preserved the history of it. 

Today the rooms in the Westerfeld House are rented out to various people and as movie sets. According to reports, none of them have complained of any malevolent activity or remains of satanic activity. But they have reported about ‘overwhelming emotions’ as well as a physical presence in their home, with nightmares being a common trait of the tenants. Paranormal activity of psychological manifestation of knowing the house history?

Even Siegel himself mentioned he had what he called a paranormal experience in the house to SFGATE:

“I was in bed watching TV and my bed violently shook. I assumed we were having an earthquake, only nothing else was moving. Then I felt someone get into bed with me even though I was alone. It was quite unnerving.”

So what is it Siegel? Was the Westerfeld House haunted or not?

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References

National Register #89000197: Westerfeld House in San Francisco, California

William Westerfeld House

The Spooky History Of The Westerfeld House

Invocation of my Demon Brother & Lucifer Rising – Kenneth Anger

This Alamo Square Victorian holds 100 years of SF counterculture history 

Visiting the Westerfeld House and Its Haunted Past. — Eric J. Kuhns 

Westerfeld House – [2021 

The Westerfeld House: San Francisco’s most storied Victorian

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Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital

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Arguably the most famous haunted place in South Korea is the Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital. When it was still standing it attracted a lot of ghost hunters, curious tourists and urban explorers. What was it behind the place that drew all these people?

One of the allegedly most haunted places in South-Korea was the Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital (곤지암 남양신경정신병원). It was closed down in the 90s and the owner left the country after not documenting for the public the reason why it closed down according to myth. And the legends, rumours and tales started spinning, everything from murderous patients, mad doctors and so on.

So spooky did the world find this place that even foreign TV-station CNN called it one of the world’s most freakiest places in 2012, really making it an international destination for thrillseekers. Today however the empty building been torn down. But before that it managed to become one of the biggest hotspots for ghost seekers in Korea.

Let’s see how the abandoned hospital became known as one of the most haunted places in the country and unravel some of the legends it became known for before being demolished with nothing left but its legend.

The Asylum: This is how the abandoned hospital looked before being demolished in 2018, hidden away between trees at the foot of a mountain..

Abandoned Asylum in the Mountains

Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital was a building near the small city of Gwangju outside of Seoul in a residential area at the foot of a mountain. The old ruins of the abandoned hospital was just remote enough to be considered a spooky and haunted asylum tucked away in the mountains, and close enough to visit from big places like Seoul to spread the word of ghosts and mad doctors. Much to the locals’ nuisance as they have hated the rumours about the place that have drawn people from all over the world to trespass to have a look for themselves.

According to those who tried to find their way there, the locals around the place are not so forthcoming with giving directions to the site. This of course has fueled the excitement for the urban explorers and paranormal researchers alike, and every year thousands of people broke through the barriers to get a glimpse of the allegedly haunted asylum. 

The Mad Doctor at Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital

So what really went down inside Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital before closing? Let’s have a look at what the legend claims happened inside of the supposed haunted asylum.

The Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital first opened its doors in 1961 and was a full functioning one all the way up to July 1996. Nurses took care of the patients on the three floor hospital and the doctors made their rounds, just as expected. But over the course of the last decade the hospital was in operation, mysterious things kept happening according to the legends the place left. 

Read About More Haunted Hospitals Around the World in the MoonMausoleum

The story goes that the patients started dying mysteriously without a good explanation. In addition to dying patients, there were also some of the staff that went missing and turned up dead in the rooms inside of the hospital. From a medical standpoint it was first believed that it could be an infection seeing as it also afflicted some of the patients family members as well, but no, it turned out to be something much more sinister. 

Apparently it was the owner of the asylum who went insane himself and kept many of the patients prisoners and killing them one by one until he was stopped. It wasn’t until the government came to investigate because of the missing staff that he was caught and fled to America, causing the hospital to shut down. 

There were also rumours about the director of the hospital took his own life after being found out to be behind the dead patients and missing staff, becoming one of the souls haunting the place.

But even after the mad doctor was caught, the souls of the victims could never be at peace, long after the hospital closed down and became forgotten for a long time as time ate away at the building.

According to the locals, screams had been heard coming from the abandoned building along with mysterious figures lurking around the dark hospital, believing it to be the haunted souls of the asylum. Poor victims that turned to vengeful spirits, haunting the premise and seeking revenge on those who wronged them.

The people that dared to visit the haunted asylum to check out the stories told of scary encounters they could only explain as paranormal. There were reports of dropping temperatures when it suddenly turned cold on a hot summer’s day, opening and closing of the heavy doors without a draft and they kept hearing voices of people that weren’t there.

The Legend of the Haunted Hospital Grows

Although Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital was such a well known place, the facts of the asylum’s history is hazy, especially after it has been mixed in with unverified legends and blockbuster movies. In 2008 a ghost hunter show showcased the hospital where they brought on shamans and reported that there indeed was something going on in the place.

It was not the only “documentary” that were made of the former hospital and helped to make it a well known building in the entire country and beyond.

The Documentary of the Ghost of Gonjiam: The ghost hunter “documentary” series Ghostspot aired an episode in 2008 about the legends of Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital. This definitely helped further the legends of the place and made the whole nation aware of its existence.

The culmination and peak of the legend must have been when the movies like commercial successful Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (Korean: 곤지암) from 2018 didn’t help to quench the rumours about the asylum being haunted by ghosts. Although the movie itself was primarily filmed at Busan National Maritime High School, a supposed haunted place in itself, it capitalized on the legend behind Gonjiam.

It was kind of a big controversy when Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum came out in theaters as the owner of the building tried to stop the movie as he feared it would affect the property value.

But he lost and the movie was aired, making it a paranormal hot spot to visit once again, despite of the owner trying to keep people out. Barbed wire, cameras and warning signs have tried to keep visitors out since it closed down, to no avail. And the legend would not stop until the whole building disappeared. 

Unraveling the Legends Behind Gonjiam

So why did Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital close down then if not for a mad doctor, missing nurses and murdered patients? More mundane reasons like financial difficulties, unsanitary conditions and big problems with the sewage systems according to the owners of the building was most likely the case. And with the water pipes not up to modern standard, they had no choice to pay up or shut down.

The director that was rumoured to have taken his own life had really just started to work at another hospital after Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital closed down. The children of the director inherited the hospital, but the costs of operating the hospital was too big and they decided to let it fall into ruin, perhaps not realising the stories an abandoned building can create.

In regards to the missing staff and murdered patients at the hospital, there are no evidence for it at all. According to a journalist making a piece on the Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital, they found out there had been no suspicious reports about the hospital over the years about missing people and dead patients.

The source to this article delving into the truth behind the claims was among others a policeman in the local police district. In fact, the patients that resided in Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital were supposedly transferred to Yongin mental hospital after the hospital closed down.

Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital Movie: The movie based on the legend from 2018 was a box office success. Screenshot from that iconic scene. //Photo: Source: IMDB

So, although alive in legend, the former hospital and legendary haunted building is no longer there for those curious about the legend to see for yourself and we have to make due with movies, picture and old footage. In 2018 Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital was demolished, the same year that the movie made the legend last forever on film.

There are plans that it may be a new apartment building at the place, further erasing the history and creating a new one at the foot of the mountain. So perhaps now the legend of Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital will die out as an actual place and story, as the building can no longer attract the curious people looking for a thrilling legend? Or maybe the spirits of the place now just lost their home?

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Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital – Gwangju-si, South Korea

Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum

Best time for Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital in South Korea 2021

A Creepy Afternoon Alone in an Abandoned Hospital- Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospitalgonjiam-psychiatric-hospital-patients-started-dying-mysteriously-know-the-horror-behind-it

[ESC] 공포영화 ‘곤지암’ 실화냐? 정신병원 괴담의 실체

귀신 나온다는 ‘한국 3대 흉가’는 조작됐다

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The Lost City of Dode

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In the heart of the British countryside, the past of the plague, death and history haunts the desecrated church. But amid the mystery of the paranormal and pagan ley lines, the once cursed site has found back to being sacred. 

There are a lot of magical and mysterious things surrounding the church that stands in solitude in the countryside in Kent. The original building on top of the hill was built around 1100 during William the second rule. But the man made ground it was built on has perhaps been used as a holy place to gather long before Christianity reached the British shores. 

Around this church there also used to be a village, alive and thriving. But together with the black death the villagers were swept away, and with them, the village of Dode died as well. 

Ley Lines and Ghosts

Haunted church: Dode church was left abandoned for centuries with rumours of being haunted and used for black magic rituals.
Source: Chris Whippet

All left from the lost village of Dode is the old Norman church that is said to be haunted by a little girl. This is not the only paranormal and mystical rumours surrounding this place, this particular church. The old ruins are built on not only one, but eight ley lines, mystical lines that allegedly connect several holy buildings, monuments and places around the world according to modern paganism.

The place is filled with history as archeologists have found evidence of it being inhabited since the roman empire, perhaps even much further back in time. 

The church was eventually not used as a place of worship and they changed the name of the land it was built on. Because of the rumours about it being cursed, the name Holy Hill was changed to Holly Hill as no one felt the presence of anything holy there anymore, as rumours and legends of it being cursed grew.

The Dodechild

But who was this ghost said to haunt the abandoned church? Legend has it it was the last survivor of Dode village. After the Black Death in the 14th century, the village of Dode was abandoned. Nature claimed back the signs of living, leaving only the church as proof humans once lived there.

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However, there was still one of the villagers left. A seven year old girl was one of the last survivors in the village, seeing how everyone was being taken by the plague. She took refuge inside the church, eventually dying herself, but never really leaving. And according to local legends, she would appear on the first Sunday morning of every month, haunting the grounds of were her and her entire village perished in the plague that killed millions of people across Europe. 

Since the time of the plague, the village was abandoned, the church forgotten and time, weather tore down the roof, the stones taken to build a medieval church nearby. It was only known as the haunted and lost place to the locals. It was believed the place was a cursed one, and that it was used for black magic rituals. Thus the Holy Hill was renamed Holly Hill and the church boarded up, taken apart and left for centuries until someone would find the place sacred once more. 

A Sacred Place for All

Wedding: The church is now used as a wedding venue for all types of ceremonies.

The church was rebuilt in the 90s after being abandoned for centuries, with the vision of bringing the holiness back to it and the work to get it back to how it would have looked originally began. With the restoration, life also came back into the hidden valley. Although this time, not a strictly catholic religious house as it used to be, but more of a sacred place for all, both for Catholics, members of the Church of England and pagans alike. 

Since then it has been a venue for weddings, making it a place for eternal love declarations, bringing the serenity back over the once holy hills. Other events such as baby namings, memorials and other cultural events also takes place in it, as long it is more of a spiritual than religous event.

And with the new life that has been breathed into the valley and nearby woodland, the ghost of the little girl also has been seen less and less.

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One man’s revival of ancient English rites

‘Ghost village’ 72 mins from London that was destroyed by the Black Death 

Ley line

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Fatima’s Harp — A Christmas Haunting

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Through the halls of Stubley Hall, a Saracen love song haunts the place with the sound of the harp.

A great hall during Christmas times with good food, merry guests and an unmistakable sound of a harp playing a love song. Scared yet? No? Sounds like the right vibe for a cozy Christmas time perhaps. But if the harp playing comes from nowhere, and no one is playing, scared then? This is what festive guests might hear echoing through the halls every Christmas Eve at Stubley Hall, reminiscing about the tragedy of war and love. 

Not far from Rochdale, Manchester in England, sits the Stubley Hall. Already in the 1600s, the hall was known for being “an ancient mansion with stables, barns, dovecotes and water mill”, so you know it is old, even by British standards. And such an old place carries many tales within the stone walls, and stories about the paranormal and sighting of ghosts has been plentiful. And one of them is the story about Fatima. 

The Crusader With the Diamond Studded Cross

The knight Ralph de Stubley lived here once upon a time, a knight who served Richard the Lionheart during the crusades in Jerusalem. At the beginning of the crusades Ralph joined in on, they saw it as a successful mission as they were able to capture Saladin, the first sultan of Egypt and Syria. But they never quite managed to seize Jerusalem, which they saw as a spiritual symbol and as the holy city. 

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One of the more romantic, yet tragic tales from the crusade wars, was about one of Saladin’s daughters. Her name was Fatima and she fell in love with Ralph during the raging battle of the holy city.

However in 1192 the British crusaders had to pull out after the battle of Jaffa, and Ralph was forced to leave Fatima behind. But before leaving, he swore his undying love for her, promising her he would return. As a token, he gave her a diamond studded cross to keep as a reminder of him. 

The Harp of Love Songs

Photo by Jonathan Borba on Pexels.com

Three years went by and Fatima heard nothing of the knight who promised to come back for her. Growing tired of just waiting she disguised herself as a troubadour and sailed across the ocean in search of him. Just bringing her harp she played so well but hadn’t been able to play in her sorrow. But she would never reach the shores of England to return to her beloved Ralph. On the eve of Christmas, she died. The plague had travelled with them on the ship and she and the rest of the passengers and crew perished. 

The same night there was a wedding at Stubley Hall, Ralph’s wedding. He was to marry a wealthy Baron’s daughter. Maybe it was only to save the family who were in need of money, maybe he fell in love with another one. Either way, the song of his past lover came to the hall. During the celebrations he was standing by the window, not enjoying the festivities. He was maybe thinking of her, the woman he truly wanted to marry. It was then he heard it, the harp. The familiar but now so nostalgic sound of Fatima playing the harp, playing none other than the love song she had played for him, a traditional Saracen love song. He rushed into the grounds, thinking he would see her among the trees. 

The guests noticed his disappearance and went after him and found him under an oak tree, dead, clutching a diamond studded cross.

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The Mistletoe Bough – The Bride in the Chest

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The Legend of the Mistletoe Bough or the Mistletoe Bride is a ghost tale that many big houses claim as their own. Bramshill House is one of them, and the story of the dead bride trapped in the chest haunts the already haunted place. 

Buried Alive: On Christmas Day the tale of the Mistletoe Bride that gets trapped in a chest and dies is told and retold throughout England.

A girl will always remember her wedding day, and making the wedding be held on Christmas day will surely make it easier to remember the wedding anniversary. But more people will remember it, if the bride turns into a ghost. 

This is the case of the bride of Bramshill House in Hampshire, one of Britain’s most crowded paranormal places. And although many big houses tries to claim the ghost of the bride in the oak chest as their own, Bramshill could be one of the choices with no less than 14 ghosts they claim wander there. 

Deadly Hide and Seek

In the early 17th century a girl named Anne Cope was to be married in this house. Anne is the name in some accounts, Genevre Orsini in others. English in some accounts while she was believed to be Italian in others. What remains the same is that it was Christmas Day and everyone was in a festive mood. She and her husband, Sir Hugh Bethell celebrated after having taken their vows, and as the old custom went, she was to be escorted to the marital bed.

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But before the party was over, the bride wanted to play a round of hide and seek, where the target to be found was her. And after a five minute start the search began, but to no avail.

Searching the whole house, the guest came back empty with no sign of the bride. Perhaps it was a trick from the bride? Could she just be exceptionally good at this game? But as time went on, the innocent prank she could have played on the guest turned into a dangerous one. 

Many believed the bride had fled from her marriage. Her husband Hugh on the other side, spent decades searching for his bride that was lost. It was only after fifty years the mystery surrounding her disappearance came into light, and then her haunting had already began.

It is not the only ghost story from England that starts at a wedding during Christmas.

Read the full story of Fatima’s Harp

Hugh, now an old man, was in the attic, still searching. Having been through the mansion so many times, one should have thought there could be no more things to be found. But then, when knocking on some oak panelling, a secret door he didn’t know about suddenly opened. Inside the door was a room with a wooden chest. It was locked. Inside the chest when he finally got it open, the remains of the bride he had hoped to spend his life with, still in her wedding dress, holding her bouquet of wilted flowers, she had been by his side all this time. 

In the lid of the chest the bride had been trapped in, there were signs of nails scraping in her dying efforts to escape, to get out, but she never would. 

The Bride in the Oak Chest

The Chest: Although the original chest was removed in 1812, there is always a chest in the houses claiming the ghost.
Photo: Country Life page 435 by Edward Hudson (1854–1936

So many accounts of the white lady has been reported at Bramshill House. Even Michael the first of Romania asked to move room after the white lady kept passing his room during his stay there. And you can sense her arrival by scent, lily of the valley, which was Anne’s favorite. 

Not so many remember her wedding, her death, all in one. She is remembered as much, although her real name is disputable, the name Mistletoe Bride remains. Poems, movies, books and folklore retells about the young bride in the oak chest. 

The same story was retold by Susan E Wallace in 1887 as ‘The Old Oak Chest’ and by Henry James as ‘The Romance of Certain old Clothes’ in 1868. The old tale also made it onto the silver screen in 1904 when Percy Stow made the short film ‘The Mistletoe Bough.’

And every Christmas, her death is retold again and again, without her ever being found alive. 
“Oh sad was her fate! In sportive jest,
She hid from her Lord, in an old oak chest.
It closed with a spring and her Bridal bloom,
Lay withering there in that living tomb.”

The Mistletoe Bough by Thomas Haynes Bayley
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The Bramshill House Bride, or the Legend of the Mistletoe Bough

https://books.google.no/books?id=dogvornHYEAC&pg=PA33&lpg=PA33&dq=ginevra+chest&source=web&ots=TG2RwFaz3b&sig=SYANGBWZkYlcjQbqizM6iAESkRo&redir_esc=y#PPA33,M1

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The Highwayman Robbed of his Life

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Now a peaceful place for a road trip, it was once a hot spot for highwaymen and a dangerous place to travel. Sometimes, it was also dangerous for the robbers. 

On a chilly Christmas Eve a woman and her father were riding in their carriage down the Road to Hawkhurst Kent. In the eighteenth century highwaymen were notorious and feared in the English countryside. They robbed whoever came their way, and sometimes, the robbery went more violently than necessary. And Hawkhurst housed some of the more notorious gangs and smugglers at the time, making the place feared along the English coast.

Alone With The Highwayman

Dangers on the road: A carriage was a sure sign of wealth and a target for the highwaymen.
Photo: Asalto al coche (Robbery of the coach), by Francisco de Goya.

This had been the case of the young woman’s brother, who had been killed on maybe even the same road. But there was one road to take to get anywhere and the same family was again meeting an unfortunate end. The carriage was stopped by the highwayman Gilbert when they were around the village of Marden in Kent. He ordered the father and daughter out of the carriage to strip them of their possessions and valuables. But as soon as the daughter stepped on the ground, the horse bolted, carrying her father away, leaving her all alone with the robberer at the side of the road, seemingly helpless. 

But the story comes with a twist seldom seen in other horror stories like these. A horror, not only by being robbed, dawned on her as she laid eyes on the face of the man. She recognised him, Gilbert, as the one who had murdered her brother as well. And she refused to see such a fate befall on herself. Enraged and afraid she drew a knife and stabbed the before he could take more from her by reaching for a hidden knife in her bag and planting it into Gilbert’s side and fled into the bushes.  

When the father and the driver managed to calm the horses, they returned to the sight of where they had left her alone. There, all they could find was Gilbert’s dead body that they buried on the side of the road.

The Price of Her Life

It wasn’t until the next day the woman was found by the villagers of Marden, wandering around after having stabbed a man to death. All alone this cold Christmas Eve she had been fleeing from the danger from last night. But although she escaped alive, her body unharmed, it is told that during the night she had gone completely mad.  

And every Christmas Eve since, the same scene, the robbery, the murder is repeated by their ghosts, first by Gilbert himself, then later perhaps joined by the woman. 

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The Paranormal Database

 7 Spine-Tingling Tales of Christmas Ghosts Hawkhurst

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A Royal Haunting at Christmas

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Every Christmas, the royal ghost of Anne Boleyn is said to visit her childhood home as a spirit.

One of the more famous ghosts that know how to travel, is the ghost of the infamous Anne Boleyn. Most known for the wedge between the State of England and the Catholic Church in the time of the Tudors. The peoples perception of her at the time was awful, and it would be understandable if she felt some sort of resentment or sorrow for how her life ended, even in the afterlife.  

A Well Travelled Ghost

Anne Boleyn: The ghost of the former queen has been spotted many places in the UK after her death.

As ghost sightings go, perhaps the Tower of London is a more well known place for ghost sightings of her, as this was the place she was held imprisoned and executed. But it is far from the only place paranormal sightings of the former Queen have been spotted in the UK. She has also been spotted in Windsor Castle, Hampton Court and Rochford Hall to just name a few. But in the spirit of Christmas, we are going to have a look at where the royal ghost spends her Christmases in the afterlife. 

Every Christmas she is said to make an appearance at Hever Castle, at least it is now expected. Christmas was supposedly her favourite time and Hever Castle was her childhood home with good memories. And contrary to how her ghost is seen at other locations, headless and darkly dressed for instance, it is said she is seen as more happy and content when spotted here.

Christmas at Hever Castle

The castle was built in 1270 in the rural part of Kent, and although relatively small compared to many other castles we can see in England, it came to play a big part in England’s’ history as it was the seat of the Boleyn family. This is also the place where Anne and Henry first met, when he was still married to Queen Catherine of Aragon, and had an affair with her younger sister, Mary. 

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She is often reported to be seen under a big oak tree that stands on the castle ground. This is the place Anne and Henry spent a lot of time courting. Although the ending for the couple was one of the most dramatic break ups in British history, the courting seems to have been genuine. Henry is said to have written her at least seventeen letters, begging her to be his, and the length he went to marry her, spoke to how much he wanted her in his life. 

The Tragic Ending

Hever Castle: This is the childhood home of Anne Boleyn and were she is seen every Christmas. It is now open to public.
Photo: Hever Castle, Kent/ijclark

Although they did get together in the end, their match was a very unpopular one. In order to divorce the queen, he had to part with the Catholic Church, and Anne was in the public eye a witch, a heretic and a seducer that was a danger to the empire and papal law. They never had a son, but their child Elizabeth the first turned out to be one of England’s longest reigning queens. 

But after several miscarriages, never ending gossiping and pressure from all sides, their love turned sour and in the end, Henry found another one and decided to get rid of Anne, in a most dramatic way. On the charges of treasury and adultery and incest with her brother, she was sent to the Tower of London and sentenced to death. On May 19th in 1536, she was executed by beheading at the Tower. 

Popular Sightings

With a such an accessible place with such a famous ghost, the reports about sightings has been plentiful. Like in 2015, when a tourist at the castle captured something on camera he was certain had to be the former queen by the fireplace.

The Ghost: Liam Archer captured this photo in 2015, convinced it was the ghost of the queen.
Photo: Liam Archer/Daily Mail

‘I believe there is something important historically inside the fireplace she wants me to recover.’, Mr Archer that took the picture told the papers at the time.

Who is to say for what reason Anne has to haunt her childhood home, let alone England as a whole? In any case, her imprints on the course of the history, religion and the royal line, was irrevocably shaken by her life and work.

It has also been said she has been seen walking across the beautiful bridge on the premise that crosses River Eden, perhaps on her way home to the place of her happy and innocent childhood.

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Anne Boleyn’s ghost captured on camera at Hever Castle

Ghost of Anne Boleyn at Hever Castle

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The Mantelgeist of the Fortress

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Because of the cold winter with no food, people starved to death, even inside the castle walls. And ever since then, the ghost of the queens chambermaid still haunts the castle, known as the Mantelgeist.

The Queen: Left alone in the castle begging for food, Queen Margrete I of Norway was left.

It was a hard winter in medieval times in Oslo in Norway, a place known for its cold and harsh winters. So far north, the cold was biting, sparing no one. The plague had returned to the country again, and the King’s coffins were empty.

There was nothing to buy food with and people fell dead were they were standing either by starvation or the cold. Not only by the deadly plague that killed every one it touched, but the hunger as well was a silent killer.

Norway was a much different country than today, yes it was in the middle ages, but even by medieval standard, the country was poor, uneducated, and ravaged by hunger, weather and wars. Even the royals didn’t escape the plagues clutch.

A hard winter in the 1370s, there was not much food at the Akershus fort, were the queen resided. King Håkon IV Magnusson was king, and the queen was Margrete I, the one that were going to rule all of Scandinavia. But before that, she would go through her hardest winter.

The Cold Winters in the North

There were only decades since the Black Death had put the country in ruins. No another plague was at it and even behind the heavy doors at the fortress the repercussion of the killing plague hit them.

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The queen sat alone at the fortress as her husband was away. Pregnant, hungry and desperate. In a letter, she detailed that she and her servants no longer could sustain themselves on the food available. She asked a prayer, begging the King her husband make sure she got credit at a tradesman so that she could manage through the winter with the rest of the court. The nation was in her hands, that’s how bad it was.

The Starved Chambermaid

Queen Margrete made it through alive. As the queen she was, she got the food. Not everyone was that lucky. One of her chambermaids are supposed to have died of starvation that winter. A servant that was much closer to the queen than many, that dressed her and took care of her every need. No she will never leave the fortress.

It is said that she still wanders through the fortress, through the Margrete hall in particular, were she ended her days that cold winter with no food. Her ghostly figure enters in a long robe, thereby the name Mantel, meaning robe or cloak. When she turns to those in the room, she has no face, only a blank surface stares back.

We have no name to the poor girl at the fortress. She is only called the Maiden at the fortress or the Mantelgeist. And that is how she will spend the remaining years, nameless and faceless.

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The Ghost Bridge in the Jungle

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Deep in the jungle of Côn Đảo in Vietnam, there is an unfinished bridged called Ma Thiên Lãnh Bridge also called The Ghost Bridge, both because of its dark origin as well as the lingering presence still seen. 

The bridge was built by 300 prisoners from the Côn Đảo Prison during the French colonization of Vietnam. The Côn Đảo Prison was a prison that the French colonists used to imprison those thought to be especially dangerous to the colonial government. The prison was used from the 1800s until the end of the Vietnam war. A number of stories of torture and abuse comes from that prison, located on an island. And some of these unfortunate prisoners were made to build this Ghost Bridge in the middle of the jungle. 

Death on the Bridge

The Ghost Bridge: Several reports about paranormal happenings and ghosts comes from this bridge that were built on the labour of prisoners.
Source: vetaucondao.vn

To build infrastructure on the island with the prison, they needed material. In 1930, French colonialists made the prisoners carry rocks to the Núi Chúa mountain to build this bridge. The purpose of the bridge was to make transportation of materials to Ong Dung Beach to be used as building the infrastructure of the Côn Đảo island. It is said that around 356 of the prisoners forced to build this bridge lost their life, either starving to death, poisonous drinking water, horrible abuse from the French or even the climate or the rugged terrain became too much for them. 

However, in spite of how much effort that was made to build the bridge, it would never be completed. In August 1945 after the revolution, the work on the bridge was left as the French left Vietnam and only parts of the bridge were complete and stands today, now only standing as a reminder of the bloody labour the prisoners were forced to. 

The Lingering Ghosts

Many encounters from the locals have been told of the paranormal kind. One villager that was drinking with his friend told about a man with long hair, white shirt and black trousers, watching him from a distance before suddenly disappearing. 

A female villager saw a woman in a white dress at dawn, standing on the bridge at dawn, and as the villager told, she recognized the woman as a hungry ghost. Another female villager met the ghosts of two boys, none of them were wearing a shirt as they forced her to give them dessert.

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Côn Đảo Prison

I Wouldn’t Go in There (TV Series 2013)

List of reportedly haunted locations

Ma Thiên Lãnh bridge | Photo

DI TÍCH CẦU MA THIÊN LÃNH

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The Haunted Vicarage — Sweden’s most ghostly crowded house

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Even the home of the priests can’t keep the ghosts at bay. And in this house, the ghosts outnumber the living. 

Haunted: Many ghosts have been reported haunting this house throughout the years since it was built.

In the idyllic countryside of Sweden Borgvattnet is an old village deep in the forest. There are around 70 people living there, going about their business in the serene landscape of green trees. In this small village, the Borgvattnet Vicarage, a building from 1876, lies, used to house the priests connected to the local church. There are many residing in this vicarage, adding to the number of people in the small place, although not exactly living. 

More than once has the Swedish news media as well as a number of paranormal researchers found their way up to the quaint vicarage, looking like a cute inn to relax and enjoy nature as it has been open to the public since 1970. But the rooms available for rent are not necessarily just for you. The rooms are already all occupied by the ghosts, and therefore, it has earned the name of Sweden’s most haunted house. 

The Ghost Priest

The story was first only whispered among the priests living there as well as inside the church of Sweden. But one priest would break the silence and make it the most famous place in the country at the time. 

When the priest Erik Lindgren came as the new priest of his area, he came alone. The furniture was still something he was waiting for to settle into the old vicarage that was to be his own home. Therefore he was surprised and a bit scared when he started hearing stuff from the second floor. It sounded like heavy objects being dragged across the floor. When checking he found the second floor to be empty. There was no furniture there, and there was no one in the house but him. Or so he thought in the beginning, but it was only the start of the paranormal hauntings he was about to experience, living in this house. 

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Although it was not something that had been spoken about publicly before the haunting of the house was well known within the church. In 1947 that was about to change as a journalist heard about the haunting of the vicarage. He got the priest, Erik Lindgren to tell about his experiences and an article was published on the matter. The curiosity was overwhelming from the public and Lindgren himself had to block his phone in the end because of all the journalists trying to get to him to talk about the paranormal occurrences. 

Lindgren was meticulous and noted down every strange encounter in detail he experienced. But the list got so long that he stopped when he just accepted this was just a part of his everyday life. There were a lot of different activities going on in the lonely house. Everything from light turning off and on, invisible figures “crashing” into him making it hard to work and always giving him a feeling of someone watching him, never giving him a moment’s peace. From the second floor where he had the first day of the house heard heavy stuff being dragged over the floor, footsteps when there was no one there was constantly heard. 

The worst experience though, was on this particular day when he was sitting in his rockin chair, reading a book in 1945. The chair started to rock harder and harder so violently that he fell on the floor. When he sat down again, it happened once more, making it hard to stay seated. He felt a force from behind, going through him. His legs started to shake and he lost footing, falling on the ground. After this interview, the chair got famous and in the 60s, it turned up on one of Sweden’s entertainment shows before being bought back to the vicarage in the 80s. 

Some of the spotted ghosts:

So many encounters of different kinds have been reported. Shadow of a man passing by, the sound of footsteps coming to the front door and music playing out of nowhere. Some of the ghosts though, have a bit more story to them. 

The Gray Lady

More and more priests started coming forward with their stories. Like the priest Rudolf Tängdén who was also sitting in the great hall reading in 1930. Suddenly a gray clothed lady appears in the corner of the room. She walks towards him, taking small slow steps before changing direction, turns and walks into the office. He followed, but found nothing when he entered. 

The Crying Ladies

Ghosts in the Rooms: The rooms in the vicarage each carry their own ghost legend. What makes this particular house so haunted?

In the house there is a room called ‘the cryers room’. It’s been called that since the notary for the church, Inga Flodin stayed there on a business trip in 1941. She stayed in that very room and was awoken during the night. She finds three figures sitting on the couch, watching her intently. She turns on the lights, but nothing changes, they are still sitting there, staring. Flodin pinches her arm as well as letting her alarm clock ring to check if she really is awake. But, yes, she is. She notices that they all look incredibly sad, wearing a black, a purple and a gray dress. One of them is knitting. The woman in the gray dress looks particularly sad with red circles under her eyes. In a staring deadlock, Flodin can not do anything but stare back, petrified as well as curious and confused about what is going on. However, eventually she falls asleep. 

The Maid’s Baby

In the pink room there are those claiming to hear the sound of cries of a baby, even baby figures have been spotted around on the property. Story goes that at the end of the 1800s, an unmarried maid gave birth out of marriage. There were also rumours that the father was the priest in the house at the time. The maid was then locked up to the birth of the child that never grew up. Most likely the child was killed and buried on the north side of the house, outside the pink room. Now both the maid and the baby wander the house.

The Dead Priest Wife

One of the first documented sightings of ghostly activity came from the priest Nils at the start of the 1900s. Nils had grown up in the house as the priest’s son before he himself became the priest. Through the years he experienced stuff in the house he was sure was his mothers doing. Like the time when he watched all the clothes on the clothesline being ripped from the line. 

His mother was Martha and died young giving birth to Nils. His father, Per, didn’t take the death of his beloved wife well. It was a cold spring and the ground was still too hard for the body to be buried. Therefore it was stored in the house as Per simply couldn’t be parted from his beloved. And it might have been a bit too long. In any case, several of the guests have also seen shadows and shapes, pulling their clothes, sitting in the bed, in none other than in the yellow room, the same room where Märta died.

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Sveriges Mest Hemsökta Hus – Historia & Fakta

Byn Borgvattnet

Borgvattnet