NIGEL WRIGHT: The haunting of rectory cottage

Our perception of this world in which we live is often shaped by the childhood homes in which we take our first, tentative steps towards adulthood. If, like me, you just happened to move into a very haunted cottage at the age of 10 years then this move would, I suggest, lead one into a life-long obsession with ghosts and all things paranormal! Thus it was with yours truly…

That year - so long ago now - was a an exciting one for me! After a long period of living in small caravans due to my fathers job of being a site warden, my mother landed a job as a housekeeper to the rector of Powderham, on the edge of the Powderham castle estate, in Devon. A three bedroom cottage came with the job, and so it was that I found myself moving into this very old, and as we were to discover, very haunted cottage. Rectory cottage dated from at least the English civil war. It stood in its own two acres of gardens, standing, as it did, beside the main road that led to the small church at Powderham. For me, coming from my old life, it was truly paradise! All that surrounded the cottage was countryside. Next door, to one side, was the pheasant hatchery for the estate; on the other, the rectory itself. Opposite lay open fields; it really was a countryside haven, or so we thought...!

For me, the experiences of paranormal activity in the cottage began one dark winter evening. As I lay in bed I could hear the loud, regular ticking of a grandfather-type clock. The odd thing about this was that we had no such clock in the cottage! For nights I heard this sound. I told my father about it; he was dismissive to begin with. “Childhood imagination” was his verdict on the matter. But as I continued to report the same noise to my parents night after night he began to take the situation seriously. Fearing an infestation of death-watch beetle in the roof beams (ticking being a typical sign of such an infestation), he climbed up into the loft to investigate. They were brand new! The reason for this was that the cottage had suffered a very serious firea few years before, in which the entire top floor had burnt away, along with the roof. In this fire local rumour stated that an old lady had died. My father even placed a reel-to-reel tape recorder in my room one night, and he indeed captured the sound on tape!

So, auditory phenomena was the first sign of a haunting occurring. Then, on a bright, sunny summer morning, quite early my father awoke to find the fully-dressed figure of a civil war cavalier standing at the foot of their bed, smiling at them! After my father had shouted at the figure, enquiring (albeit not so politely) what this man was doing in my parents room, the figure merely faded away! Now we had full-body manifestation as well to contend with!

Things continued apace. My sister, who was five years older than myself, had a fascination for Egyptology: her bedroom had pictures of pyramids, mummies, etc, all over her walls. Her room was furnished with heavy, old oak wardrobes that my parents had bought at auction. Indeed, these wardrobes were so heavy that two men had to lift them into the room. This bedroom was really weird! It had a certain atmosphere. Our dogs - a Labrador called Bruce and a Manchester terrier-cross called Judy - would not enter this bedroom, not even when dragged on a lead towards it! They seemed to have no problem with any other room in the house. Then, one morning my sister called out loudly to my parents. Mum rushed to see what was the matter; she had a job entering the bedroom, because the heavy wardrobes had somehow managed to turn themselves completely around during the night and now semi-blocked the doorway! There was no way my sister could have moved them herself - they were far to heavy for that - and no-one else had been in the room that night. So now we also had poltergeist activity as well!. Full house!!

Now, one would imagine that for whatever was haunting this cottage, such a combination of activity would suffice. No! Yet more was to happen…. In the kitchen, salt and pepper pots floated down onto the table from a high shelf right in front of our eyes! Then, as I took a bath one day, a Victorian-dressed lady proceeded to float out of the wall to my right and go right through me and the wall to my left! All I can remember is the horrible sense of shivering as the apparition went through my body.

After a couple of years at the cottage, my grandparents died and my father inherited their bungalow. And so we moved away. Eventually the cottage was demolished and now there stands a brand new large house where once stood this beautiful yet fearfully haunted cottage. The one remaining question stays in my mind. If it is true that if one disturbs a haunted house the haunting increases, then what, if any, events of a paranormal kind occur in that new house today? It would be very interesting to find out…!