Ingram Hall was the most haunted house in Great Britain.
As such, it attracted visitors from all over the world, because its ghosts and poltergeists were legion and newspapers reported on the happenings, as did TV reporters, who’d spent countless hours ‘ghost hunting’, often getting incredible footage of flying dinner plates, tables lifting up and crashing down, and even shadowy figures lurking in dark corners.
The last person to live there, who left in 2010, was an eccentric businessman who declared that supernatural events were ‘all nonsense’. But when his electricity bill went sky high for no apparent reason, noises sounded day and night, and he kept seeing figures gliding around, and objects flew through the air, even he gave up and sold the place for a pittance to a property company who couldn’t find anyone to live there and regretted their decision.
I had heard odd mentions of it in the media for many years, and rather like the poltergeist-ridden Borley Rectory, that eventually burnt down in the last century, Ingram Hall became a watchword for supernatural activity.
My involvement with Ingram began many years ago when I was a young architect, who was just starting my own business. I was over the moon when I got the call from one of the richest men in the world, American tech tycoon Waldo Green. He told me that he had just bought Ingram Hall, because he’d seen it while on holiday in England, and had fallen in love with it.
“See here,” he told me when we met at the rambling detached Victorian manor house, complete with turrets, towering walls of red brick and acres of leaded-light windows, “I’m a guy who’s made his living by solving problems. So here’s the thing. I bought Ingram Hall because I fell in love with the place on sight. But even one night in the place scared the bejesus out of me, and something is definitely wrong with the place. I even thought I saw a lady dressed all in red – boy she was really something.” As he mentioned ‘The Red Lady’ there was a light of joy in his eyes.
“Well, yes, I’m sorry,” I told him. “Didn’t anyone tell you that it’s supposed to be the most haunted house in England?”
“Oh sure, they did, but phooey, you don’t buy all that crap, do you? See, I’m a practical guy, a scientist, and I figure that there are no such things as ghosts. What is wrong with this house is some kind of latent energy, or stored electricity, some little bitty thing like that we don’t understand. The thing is, I like the house, but I don’t like what’s wrong with it. Way I see it is, the problem is in the house. So the only way to get to the root of the problem is to demolish the place.”
“Demolish it? But, sir, I’m an architect!”
“Demolish it, raze it to the ground, even to the cellar stones. And then I want you to rebuild it back, just the way it was. Everything the same, right down to the door handles.”
I blinked in surprise. “You want me to destroy the place. And then rebuild it just as it was?”
“You got it.”
“But it’ll cost an absolute fortune!”
“I don’t care what it costs. Money isn’t the problem. I’m told that over the years, people have tried exorcisms, blessings by priests, all kinds of things and nothing has worked. I figure it’s some force of energy that’s deep in the fabric of the place, or maybe even in the earth below. So if we get rid of the building, we get rid of the ghosts, right?”
“Well, it’s a Victorian house, some of the trades such as the mosaic floor tiling, the style of timber windows, the fancy carved ceiling cornices, there are very few craftsmen who can do that kind of work nowadays.”
“But there are specialists right?”
“Sure. In theory anything is possible. But, I mean, it’s not altogether practical, for instance the exact same colour bricks aren’t made these days – we’d have to get them from salvage yards.”
“Then do it! Listen fella, are you just an infernal pessimist, or a ‘can-do’ kind of guy? Do you want this job or not?”
He was already losing patience with me.
“Yes, don’t get me wrong, I’d love to do the job.”
“Because I realise that it’s not everyone’s ideal project. I know you architects are creative people, artistic types, you normally like to do your own designs, of course you do, and I’m sorry but this job wouldn’t involve any imagination, or even creative ability, just a slavish attention to detail in copying what’s already here. I just want an exact copy of the old house, nothing more, nothing less. What do you say?”
“Yes please, let’s get started.”
“You’re talking my language, young man!”
It wasn’t an easy job by any means. However the usual problem an architect faces is that the client often changes their mind halfway through a project, and you end up wasting work and adapting to their new ideas, or of course the local authority raises objections to your plans, However in this instance, Ingram Hall wasn’t listed, so there weren’t any restrictions on being allowed to demolish it, and no one could object to a building being put there that had already been there for 150 years, so they could hardly refuse planning consent!
So we went ahead. All went smoothly with the demolition, and after the site was clear, we even dug up the basements walls and we went the whole hog and brought in a priest to bless the place anyway, just as a belt and braces. But of course it stands to reason that a ghost in a house is part of the house, and once the house was gone, so the ghosts would go too.
Underneath the cellar we actually found an underground stream, and I wondered if some of the noises and odd occurrences could have been attributable to this moving water, which no one had known about. So as a precaution I put a ten-inch skin of concrete over the top of it, so no noises of underground water could penetrate upwards into the house.
When the house was finally rebuilt and finished I was really proud, and Mr Green was delighted – the project was so unusual we’d attracted quite a lot of publicity, and it set my career on fire, and from that day to this my practice prospered.
I’d like to say everything ended happily.
But. . .
Mr Green moved in, having decided to settle in England and retire, and everything about his move was a success. Because he was friendly, cheerful and outgoing, he quickly made a lot of friends in the village, and rather like the late musician Geroge Michael, he was the kind of celebrity who everybody liked. Indeed he became part of the life of the tiny village, where he proceeded to support local charities and pay towards the church renovation and sponsor local businesses. He said he liked the place so much he wanted to stay here for the rest of his days. Even in his seventies he was a decidedly eligible widower, and a number of older ladies held out the hope that he’d take an interest in them.
However, there was one awful morning, when Mr G phoned me in a panic, telling me that he’d once again seen the ‘Red Lady’ walking through the wall. I drove down to see him, and he looked decidedly upset, telling me that on that very morning a plate had flown up in the air and crashed into the ceiling above his head, A drawer in his desk kept opening and closing without warning. And one spot in the kitchen was much colder than the rest of the room.
We were both very upset. And, sadly, that was the last time I ever saw him. For the following morning, he tripped on the stairs and fell to his death, cracking his skull on the wonderful multi-coloured reproduction Minton floor tiles that I’d gone to such trouble to find.
After he died, a relative in the States was his sole beneficiary, and in a few months the place was on the market.
The local estate agent took me around to look, and I was incredibly sad.
Until I went into the breakfast room, a particularly sunny room at the back of the house, where I’d shared many a convivial chat with Waldo over a cup of coffee.
The estate agent was chattering away fifteen to the dozen and didn’t seem to see what I was seeing, clear as day. Waldo was sitting there smiling, as he always did, and he really did look just as happy as he did when he was alive. He even gave me a conspiratorial wink and began one of his trademark giggles. Beside him there was a lady dressed all in red, and she was smiling too.
Which was when I remembered him gazing up at the house when it was finally complete, clutching my arm and talking so happily: “Gee, I just love this place. I want to move in there and never leave, I really feel as if this place is going to be where I stay for the rest of my days, where I’m going to be really happy.”
And as his ghost gradually faded away, I suddenly realised something.
He’d got his wish. . .
(Image by Wolfgang Eckert, from Pixabay)