November 29, 2024 • 58 mins
At the northern edge of the Brecon Beacons in Cymru, in the shadow of the Pen y Fan peak, sits a large stone house. Named Heol Fanog, or Road to the Peaks, for one couple who moved there in 1989 the house was everything they had ever dreamed of.
Little did they know that, in truth, it would soon become the place of their worst nightmares.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, it's Richard mc lean smith here with a quick apology,
but due to a number of factors, our next episode
won't be ready until next week. So in the meantime
we're going back into the vaults to one of our
most popular episodes, now available for the first time as
one single episode. At the northern edge of Cumery's Brecon Beacons,
(00:20):
in the shadow of the penny Fan Peak sits a
large stone house named Hail Fannock or Road to the Peaks.
For one couple who moved there in nineteen eighty nine,
the house was everything they had ever dreamed of. Little
did they know that, in truth, it would soon become
the place of their worst nightmares. This is Unexplained Season four,
(00:45):
episode one alone with everybody. Oh, and I have a
message from the other Richard mc clean smith. I don't
know who he thinks I am getting me to do this,
but for what it's worth, he wants you to know
that the first episode of Unexplained TV will be released
next Tuesday, December third. You can find him at YouTube
dot com forward slash Unexplained pod check it out. At
(01:20):
the northern edge of the beguiling Brecon Beacons in Cumbrie,
under the shadow of penny Fan to the south and
the Black Mountains to the east. That sits a large
stone house, long and narrow with its rickety roof and
jumbled patchwork of brick. It lies at the intersection of
(01:42):
two winding lanes, surrounded by a thick ring of oak,
alder and witch elm, hidden from prying eyes by the holly,
the hawthorn, and the ash from the front ivy pause
green edily at its northern flanks, almost as if it
(02:03):
were trying to drag it down and into the ground,
while from the back the way the earth rises up
into a rugged clearing of thick scrub. It'd be forgiven
for thinking it was part way to succeeding. Its name
is heel Fannock, or in English road to the Peaks,
(02:25):
a reference to the hills and mountains that overshadow it.
An entry point of sorts, or perhaps a gateway, as
some might say. Constructed in the nineteen fifties, like a
repurposed limb grafted onto the remnants of an old barn,
it is comprised largely of stone taken from what was
(02:46):
left at the old sixteenth century manor house. The lichen
covered ruins, of which can still be found hidden deeper
amongst the trees at the very back of the garden.
It is May nineteen eighty nine, and all is quiet
save for the distant chatter of skylarks. While high above light,
(03:09):
tufts of cloud in the bright spring sky draw shadows
across the roof. They drift lazily from front to back,
east to west, slipping down onto the thick grass before
heading into the trees and disappearing somewhere beyond. Inside, silence
(03:30):
reigns as dust mots float through soft beams of light.
Spiders twitch in dark corners. The barn door creaks up above,
a large crow comes to rest on the chimney pot,
digging its beak into its feathers as it breams. When
suddenly its head jerks up, the eyes alert to something
(03:55):
rustling in the undergrowth. Moments later, something else, far more ominous,
is heard, the faint sound of an approaching vehicle. With
a strained squawk, the crow spreads its iridescent wings and
launches into the air, rising away and over the tree
(04:17):
tops before it too disappears somewhere beyond. Back down below,
he old fannok sits quiet and still as the sound
of the engine draws ever nearer, until finally a car
turns into the front drive and pulls up outside the house.
(04:39):
Silence returns for the briefest of moments before the front
doors swing open and its excitable passengers spill out into
the warm spring air. You're listening to Unexplained and I'm
Richard mc lean smith. Thirty year old Liz was first
(05:04):
to exit, followed by her partner, Bill, thirteen years her senior,
from the other side of the car, a big smile
spreading across her face as she caught his eye. Fourteen
year old Lawrence, Bill's son from a previous marriage, was
the last to get out, slowly extricating himself from the
back seat. Liz, her pregnancy bump just beginning to show
(05:30):
above her waist, paused to take it all in as
Bill and Lawrence set about unloading their things. It was
even more beautiful than she remembered, She thought, the perfect
place to raise their baby and begin afresh, free from
the distractions of the past. For Bill, it was the
(05:50):
sheer remoteness of the place and the large studio space
above the barn that had first appealed a gifted and
renowned artist of predominantly surrealist pop art peace Pie Bill
had become increasingly frustrated with how much his time was
being taken up with his more commercial endeavors, creating decorative
boxes and other pieces for the casual consumer. He old Fannock,
(06:14):
he hoped would be a chance to rediscover the true
artist inside him. For most in similar circumstances, it is
easy to become distracted by the excitement of a move,
to become wrapped up in the accompanying sense of optimism
it often brings. It is also easy, when in such
(06:36):
a state, not to notice things that at the time
might otherwise have seemed a little off kilter. The receipt
for six pounds sixty six that Bill found shortly after
moving in taken from the last meal the couple eight
before arriving at the house, for example, or the sixty
(06:57):
six pounds sixty grocery bill would incur shortly after. There
were certainly no signs of anything untoward that first summer,
as the family settled into their new lives, bringing a
whole host of life to join them in their new adventure,
from cats, to goats and even a pig. Named Lucinda,
(07:21):
and with a steady run of orders for Bill's work
coming in, it wasn't long before he was finally able
to dedicate some time to his more personal and fulfilling work.
By September, Lizz and Bill were married, and the following month,
as if to top it all off, her waters broke.
(07:42):
Despite some initial complications, come November, the couple welcomed new arrival,
Ben into their dream home. Life, as they say, couldn't
have been more sweet. But all that was about to change.
(08:06):
It was one afternoon in mid November when Liz stepped
out of the house for some fresh air. As a
sudden gust of wind rustled the leaves in the trees.
She was struck for the first time by just how
quiet it usually was out there, as if no birds
ever seemed to alight in the garden. Perhaps it was
(08:28):
just the drawing inn of the nights, or how winter
had stripped the leaves from some of the larger trees,
leaving her and the house feeling a little more exposed
than usual. But as Liz watched the pale sun drop
below the horizon, sending majestic crepuscular rays shooting white gold
(08:49):
across the sky. It wasn't a sense of wonder that
she felt, but dread. Early. With all the family laying
fast asleep, baby Ben begins to twitch in his cot,
kicking out with both legs, with his hands squeezed up
(09:11):
into little fists, and his face beginning to redden and
scrunch up. Finally, his mouth opens wide and he begins
to cry. Liz, having woken, instantly switched on the light
and gathered Ben from the cot as she prepared to
feed him. A weary Bill pulled back the covers and
(09:33):
headed toward the toilet downstairs. He had just started to
pee when an unexpected noise startled him, a loud, hammering
sound that seemed to be moving along the corridor above
like heavy footsteps. Bill froze as the apparent footsteps near
(09:54):
the top of the stairs for coming to a sudden stop.
Assuming it to be his son, Lawrence, Bill headed back
up stairs, only to find the corridor completely empty and
Lawrence's bedroom door now closed. He switched off the light
and returned to his own bedroom, where he found Liz
(10:16):
quietly placing Ben back into his cot. Bill asked if
she'd heard anything too, but to his surprise, she hadn't
heard a thing. He poked his head back into the hall,
switched on the light, and stood watch for a moment,
keeping his eyes trained on the studio door at the
(10:37):
far end. Hearing and seeing nothing, he switched off the
light and returned to bed. The following morning, Bill and
Liz were stunned to receive an exorbitant electricity bill from Swayleck,
(10:59):
the South Wales Electricity Board, which was almost four times
what they had been expecting. That afternoon, as she sat
down on the bed to feed Ben, Liz couldn't stop
thinking about the extortionate invoice and what Bill had said
the previous night that he'd heard something moving about the house.
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Although it was true that she hadn't heard anything herself,
there was something that she hadn't mentioned that recently in
her private moments, she had begun to feel as though
something was watching her. Just then, the studio door at
the far end of the house slammed shut with a bank,
(11:45):
startling Liz. Momentarily thinking it was nothing, she returned to
feeding her baby when a second closer door slam shut,
startling her again. It must be Lawrence, she thought, with
ann with her eyes now trained on her own door.
(12:05):
Liz jumped again when the sound of a third door
being slammed was heard, this time leaving her utterly frozen
in fear, for although the noise seemed to have come
from inside her own room, the door hadn't moved an inch. Bill,
who had heard the bangs from downstairs, burst in moments
(12:26):
later to find a scared and confused Liz struggling to
comprehend what had just happened. Convinced it had something to
do with Lawrence, she demanded that Bill tell him to
pack it in, but Bill didn't understand Lawrence hadn't been
home for over an hour. Bill called the electricity board
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at the first opportunity to dispute their invoice, eventually forcing
them to send an electrician round to monitor the meter. Unfortunately,
they found nothing wrong with it, though they couldn't say
exactly how the family were racking up such a large bill.
Something in that house was draining the electricity one way
(13:20):
or another. It was about the same time that Bill
started noticing a foul smell emanating from somewhere in the kitchen,
as if something putrid had been set on fire. A
plumber was duly called to locate the source of it,
but found nothing untoward. As winter approached, life at the house,
(13:46):
superficially at least, carried on as normal. However, though the
couple had yet to acknowledge it to each other, both
had the sense that something of the atmosphere in their
home had re shifted. A few days later, Bill received
a disappointing phone call from a major client. They were
(14:09):
terribly sorry, they said, but they would have to cancel
their order. Conscious of the unwieldy electricity bill still hanging
over their heads, Bill tried to remain upbeat. After all,
he still had another large order to fulfill. Later that afternoon,
they canceled too. As the holiday season approached, Bill and Liz,
(14:35):
with their newborn son and Lawrence, who they felt was
becoming increasingly withdrawn, found themselves in the grip of a
very domestic sense of uncertainty. For by now Liz and
Lawrence were noticing those footsteps too, and the occasional eruptions
of the inexplicable putrid stench that continued to plague their home.
(15:00):
But most of all, they couldn't escape that unmistakable, skin
crawling sensation that something else was in there with them.
After sharing a first Christmas together in their new home,
(15:22):
not least for the benefit of Lawrence and their baby's son.
Bill and Liz agreed to not let the disappointments of
the last few months and the increasingly strange events, get
the better of them. It wouldn't be long, however, before
they were being challenged again. Early in the new year,
(15:43):
Liz entered the barn overjoyed to find their goat Lulu
had given birth to two kids, but when she neared them,
her excitement turned to horror. Though one kid seemed bright
and healthy, the other lay completely still, its tiny glassy
(16:03):
eyes fixed and rolled back into its head. The mother
had crushed it with her hind legs shortly after it
was borne. Not long after that, Lucinda the pig was
found rushing about the barn, screaming wildly. A few days later,
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she was diagnosed with a rare disease for which there
was no cure. The devastated family had no option but
to have her put down. Liz tried her best not
to overthink it all, to put it down to unfortunate coincidence,
but when Bill's orders started drying up too, she couldn't
(16:47):
ignore it any more. Picking up the phone one morning,
she took a deep breath and died. A few moments later,
Bridget Buscombe, the previous resident of hio Fannok, answered the call.
After introducing herself, Liz, cautious not to sound too odd,
(17:11):
proceeded to ask Bridget about her time living in the house.
She was disappointed, however, to learn that she had only
fond memories of her experiences there. But as the pair
were just saying their goodbyes, Liz sensed a slight pause
from Bridget's end. Actually, she said, Finally, there was one thing, yes,
(17:37):
replied Liz. Once, when she had been lying alone, reading
in bed, with her husband away on business, she became
aware of a very gentle creaking sound. Looking across to
the other side of the room, she was astonished to
see her antique spinning wheel slowly turning of its owner call.
(18:02):
She had stared at it utterly perplexed for a number
of seconds before eventually rising from the bed and jamming
it with a piece of paper. She knew it, thought Liz.
They hadn't been imagining it after all. As if in
(18:24):
response to Lizzie's renewed conviction that something untoward was occurring
in their home, the strange activity intensified, and in early
March they finally agreed to seek help. A priest was
found to bless the house, and although he didn't notice
anything himself, the family were reassured by his lack of
(18:45):
judgment and determination to help, and in the days that
followed the house seemed lighter and more spacious than it
had done in months. One morning, after Bill had driven
into town to run some errand Liz took Ben for
a walk. When she returned, for the first time she
(19:08):
could remember, Liz felt pleased to see the house, smiling
warmly at the sight of her husband in one of
the top floor windows as she made her way up
the driveway with Ben. But then her smile dropped. Bill's
car was not in the driveway, meaning it wasn't her husband.
(19:31):
Standing at the window, with her breath quickening, Liz forced
herself to look up again. There staring back at her
from inside the house was the gaunt face of an
elderly woman she didn't recognize. A moment later it was gone.
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Left terrified at the recent turn of events, but unable
to afford a move elsewhere, the couple turned their attention
to the history of the local area in the hope
that they might uncover something to help understand what seemed
to be stalking their home. Soon after, a builder, responding
(20:18):
to a hopeful article placed by Bill in the local paper,
got in touch. There was something he thought the couple
should know. The man, as he went on to explain,
had helped build the house in the nineteen fifties. At
some point during construction, he and his co workers were
(20:39):
gathering stones from the ruins of the old manor House
when they came across a set of old, smashed up
headstones in amongst the rubble. Could it be, he wondered,
that the house had in fact been built on the
site of the old manor houses burial ground. One afternoon
(21:06):
in the spring of nineteen ninety, Bill was upstairs working
in his studio when Liz, who was just finishing cleaning
up in the kitchen, had the sudden urge to check
on their baby. With a rising sense of panic, Liz
hurried to the bedroom. Rushing through the door, she looked
up in horror to find sitting in the chair opposite
(21:29):
the crib the same elderly woman she had seen looking
at her from the window a second later, she was gone.
The next morning, Bill woke in agony to find both
his hands strangely dry, the skin red and cracking all
(21:49):
over them. The sudden affliction left him unable to paint
for weeks on end, But just as the increasingly oppressive
atmosphere in the house was threatening to overcome them, the
mood was lifted when the couple learned that Liz was
pregnant again. The joyous revelation left them more determined than
(22:13):
ever to find an end to their problems. Local spiritualist
Ray Williams was recommended to the couple, having apparently succeeded
in helping other parishioners in similar situations to themselves. Arriving
one bright April morning along with two colleagues, he swiftly
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set about examining each room of the house for any
sign of psychical disturbance. Within minutes, Williams was in no
doubt that something dark had found its way into the property.
A few days later, with Liz and the children staying
at her mother's in the nearby village of Cowbridge, Bill
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arrived at the property to meet with the three men again.
After letting them in, he waited in the kitchen as
they carefully made their way around the house, blessing each room.
A short time later, while Bill went through his mail,
he heard a cry coming from the back of the house.
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Racing outside to investigate, he found one of the men
doubled over in pain, claiming it had come on as
soon as he approached the window to the downstairs bathroom.
Returning to the house, the men made a bee line
for the small area between the bottom of the stairs
and the restroom downstairs. Convinced it was where the malicious
(23:39):
activity was centering, Bill explained with amazement that indeed, it
was the exact spot where most of the strange events
seemed to occur. With their investigation completed, the men relayed
their findings to Bill, stating that they had felt the
presence of four entities in total, three being an elderly
(24:03):
woman and two young men, whom they had now successfully
banished from the house. However, there was one other, far
darker and clearly not of this world. It was their
opinion that, unlike the three other entities, it had not
originated at the sight of the property, but had in
(24:25):
fact arrived with Bill and may have been following him
for the past. Twenty years. Later, in an effort to
provide protection for the family, one of the men returned
to construct a psychic wall of protection around the house.
Finding a spot on the kitchen floor, he carefully outlined
(24:47):
a pentacle with chalk, before placing incense at each point.
As the perfumed smoke drifted and dispersed into the room, quietly,
he implored any spirit to vacate the immediately. Twenty minutes
later he was gone, leaving Bill alone to rack his
(25:07):
brains for any reason as to why a malicious entity
might have attached itself to him. And then it came
to him Alex Sanders. Back in his early twenties, when
Bill was trying to make a name for himself as
(25:28):
an aspiring artist in London, he was introduced to a
man named Alex Sanders, the self styled King of the Witches.
The controversial Sanders had at one time been a follower
of renowned Wiccan practitioner Gerald Gardner, before splitting from his
teachings to pursue his own interpretations of ceremonial magic. Having
(25:54):
at one point been informed of Bill's ambitions, Sanders offered
to initiate him into his coven in an effort to
aid his development as an artist. With nothing to lose
and curious to know more, Bill accepted his invitation. However,
no sooner had Bill begun the series of initiation rituals
(26:15):
than he had a change of heart and pulled out
of it. Could it be? He wondered that his failure
to complete the initiation had opened some kind of gateway,
allowing something unsavory to come through and attach itself to him.
Either way, when the family moved back to the house
(26:36):
that summer, they found that whatever the spiritualists had done
appeared to have worked. Gone was the heavy, oppressive atmosphere,
those strange noises and noxious smells. Despite the apparent cleansing
of Iyolfannock. However, Bill, growing increasingly worried about the impact
(26:59):
it was all having on Lawrence, was unwilling to take
any more chances. After consulting with his ex wife, it
was arranged to have Lawrence take a room at a
nearby boarding house. Though Bill was relieved that his oldest
son could now get on with life away from the Mayhem,
it was a further hit to the family finances. As
(27:20):
if things weren't complicated enough, a nationwide recession had all
but done for his regular stream of income. In July,
they were forced to sell the car, and being unable
to pay the phone bill, their line was cut off.
With a number of friends and family having found it
difficult to sympathize with their recent plight, having no experience
(27:44):
of what it was they had been through, the family
could scarcely have felt more isolated that summer of nineteen ninety.
The trees that surrounded the house seemed to loom higher
than ever, the rising hills of the beacons taller and
more foreboding, and it wasn't long before Bill and Liz
(28:08):
were hearing those footsteps again. Bill deftly wiped away the
paint with the cloth and tried once more, this time
taking extra care as he dipped the brush before again
(28:31):
attempting to correct the line from the upper thigh to
the knee. He stood back to get a better look
and was immediately disappointed. Damn it, he thought, as he
grudgingly wiped the paint away again. Though the weeks since
the house had been exercised in July had been comparatively calm,
(28:53):
the family's financial situation was becoming increasingly desperate. Things appeared
to be looking up, however, when Bill was commissioned out
of the blue by his neighbour Susanna, to paint a
portrait of her favorite horse, Echo. Bill wasn't entirely sure
if it had been out of sympathy or genuine interest,
(29:14):
but either way he was grateful not only for the money,
but also the chance to finally put his mind at
rest and move on from the stress of the previous year.
It was a fairly simple piece to complete by his standards,
constructed in two parts, the first being the composition of
(29:35):
the backdrop, which Bill had decided on himself after spending
the day scouring the local countryside for the perfect setting.
With that completed, he had then set about painting in
the horse on top, using a recent photograph provided by
his neighbour. All was going well until it came to
(29:56):
finishing up the back leg. No matter how many times
he tried, the brush just wouldn't do what he wanted.
In the end, despite countless efforts, Bill was eventually forced
to admit defeat, hoping that his neighbour wouldn't notice. Thankfully, Susanna,
(30:16):
who was clearly very fond of the animal, was delighted
with his efforts, and so it was with some distress
when she informed Bill a few weeks later that Echo
had died. It began soon after Susanna had hung up
(30:39):
the painting. Watching the horse in the paddock one afternoon,
she noticed he was limping and clearly in some considerable pain.
A subsequent check up with the vet revealed a peculiar
injury to one of its hind legs, which had caused
it to swell up inexplicably. Echo's condition to deteriorated rapidly
(31:01):
over the next few days, until one morning he simply
wandered out into the fields, keeled over and died. Having
returned home after burying the animal, A devastated Susannah found
herself reminiscing in front of Bill's painting when she noticed
(31:21):
something peculiar at the precise spot where the horse had
developed his injury. Bill's multiple attempts to get the leg
just right had left it looking oddly swollen. Then she
noticed something else that sent a sharp chill along her spine.
(31:44):
The backdrop that Bill had randomly chosen was the precise
spot where Echo had been found dead. A few nights later,
Bill and Liz were woken at home by that familiar
sound like heavy footsteps lumbering about the house. The thing,
(32:05):
it seemed was back. In August, it was the turn
of Reverend Roy Matthews of the Holy Trinity Church in
Abergavenny to try and put an end to the couple's troubles.
(32:25):
Arriving with three colleagues, he immediately set about getting a
feel for the property, extraordinarily without any prompting from Bill
or Liz. He also came to the unsettling conclusion that
a plaintive elderly woman, as well as two young men
and one other much darker and distinctly inhuman entity, were
(32:48):
haunting their home. The couple were left a little disappointed, however,
when the best the reverend could offer was to get
together and pray whenever they sensed the atmosphere growing oppressive.
Soon after, whilst clearing space in his studio, Bill discovered
a photograph of an elderly woman hidden amongst some old furniture.
(33:12):
When he showed it to Liz, her face dropped in astonishment.
The woman, who turned out to be Marian Hoburn, the
landlord's mother and former occupant of heel Fannock, was the
same ghostly figure she had been seeing in December nineteen ninety,
(33:32):
the couple's second child, Rebecca, was born, arriving like a
spark of fire to illuminate the incessant gloom. But it
wasn't long before the darkness was beginning to press in
once more. Shortly after the birth, Liz had just returned
to the house after taking the babies for a stroll
(33:56):
when she sent something moving across the kitchen door, calling
out for Bill. She got no reply, despite now clearly
seeing the outline of a tall figure offering just inside
the door. Hurriedly, she gathered up the children, and, whilst
(34:16):
keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the figure in the kitchen,
quietly backed out of the house. A few days later,
Liz and Bill packed their things and moved into Lizzie's
mother's house in nearby Cowbridge. The quiet market town of
(34:41):
Cowbridge was a welcome respite from the isolation of Hulfannog,
and though money was still an issue, with demand for
Bill's work struggling to pick up, it wasn't long before
they felt a sense of normality being restored for a
short while. At least, it was Liz who noticed at
(35:03):
first that sudden familiar feeling of being watched as if
a wispy tendril of darkness were reaching out to them
from out of the depths of the countryside. One evening,
having put the children to bed, Bill, Liz and her
mother were just sitting down for dinner when a weird
(35:25):
crackle of static came through on the baby monitor. That
wasn't static, thought Liz with horror. It was a voice.
Immediately she rushed to the bedroom and switched on the light,
but found only her two children fast asleep in their beds.
(35:49):
A few days later, having heard all about Liz's troubles,
a neighbor suggested she make contact with local reverend David Holmewood.
Having reached out to him, Homeward arrived at Lizzie's mother's
home a few days later along with his associate Anita,
to discuss the couple's predicament. By the time he left
(36:10):
at two a m. He was in no doubt as
to the source of their affliction. It was simple, he
told them, you were being stalked by demons. That night,
as David and Anita drove home through the narrow, winding
country roads, something shot toward them from out of the
(36:33):
dark and smashed into the windscreen with a mighty crack.
The pair screamed as David slammed on the brakes and
brought the car to a shuddering stop by the side
of the road. Catching their breath, they looked up to
find the shattered windscreen covered in blood. Cautiously, David stepped
(36:54):
out into the road, and there, illuminated by the glare
of the head lights, he found the twitching body of
a dead owl. The message was clear, he thought, stay
away from the house. It was two weeks later that
(37:19):
David and Anita were back on the road, keeping their
eyes fixed on Bill's car up ahead as he led
them through the winding country lanes toward their destination under
the shadowed edges of the Northern Beacons. But as they
turned a corner, David was gripped by a sudden pang
(37:39):
of anxiety, as if something were pushing down hard on
his chest. Anita could only watch in terror as he
struggled to keep control of the vehicle before finally bringing
it to a skidding stop by the side of the road. Immediately,
David reached out for Anita's hand, and there they sat,
(38:01):
repeating the Lord's prayer over and over until they were
certain that disturbance had been lifted. Moments later, they pulled
into the driveway of heel Fannock. The plan was simple
to get in and out as quickly as possible, confiscating
(38:22):
anything that could be serving as a conduit for the
demonic forces which David believed were plaguing the home. From
incense burners to books on the paranormal and Buddhism, all
of it was thrown into a box and taken out
to the car. Upsettingly for Bill, it was largely his
(38:42):
own artwork that was of most concern to the evangelists.
It was this, above all else, that David believed to
be empowering whatever demons were stalking the family. Bill could
only watch with dismay as one offending article after another
was removed and promptly escorted from the house. But what
(39:06):
will you do with it all, he asked? We will
burn it, of course, came David's prompt reply. The following morning,
with the help of his son, David dug a shallow
pit in his garden into which all the tainted items
(39:28):
were dumped, covered in lighter fluid, and set on fire.
The pair watched as the flames jumped and licked ever higher,
spitting and crackling as the fire feasted on the myriad items.
Then slowly David became aware of another sound, seeming to
emanate from deep within the flames, a hideous screeching sound,
(39:54):
as if something inside the fire were being burned alive,
but it would all be in vain. Sadly, despite his
best efforts, David's attempted exorcism would ultimately prove ineffective when
(40:14):
only a few weeks later the Hauntings returned with a vengeance.
Unable to afford a move away and with all avenues
seemingly exhausted, Bill and Liz had no choice but to
try and learn to live with it all, and so
they did, doing all they could to ignore the disembodied
(40:36):
footsteps and strange spectral visions. As ever, Bill sought solace
in his painting, and with one painting in particular, with
which he was becoming increasingly immersed, a peculiar canvas of
pastal colors and tubular strands that seemed to wrap and
(40:57):
snake around themselves. It was like nothing he had painted before.
But such endeavors only ever provided fleeting moments of comfort,
and by the end of nineteen ninety three, they had
all but given up hope of ever escaping their horrifying ordeal.
(41:18):
Little could they have known then that help was just
around the corner. Film producer Annie mac donald had been
wrestling with a documentary idea for some time regarding the
(41:39):
exploits of apparent psychic and self styled ghost hunter Eddie Burkes.
Back in August nineteen ninety two, Burkes had achieved some
notoriety after he claimed to have successfully banished the ghost
of a sixteenth century courtier from the offices of the
exclusive British banking Institut Coots. Incredibly, not only had Burkes
(42:04):
been invited to locate the ghost by representatives of the
bank itself, but they had also attested to his success
in removing it from their offices. When MacDonald, who also
lived near the brecam Beacons, heard about the peculiar goings
on at he Olfannock, she wasted little time in contacting
Lissendbill with a proposition she would set them up with
(42:28):
Burkes if they agreed to let her film his process.
Though the couple were reticent at the thought of letting
a documentary crew into their home, they also knew they
had nothing to lose. It was difficult to know quite
what to make of the slight, bespectacled Burks when he
first arrived that early March afternoon, dressed unassumingly in his
(42:53):
dark green and Iraq. Nonetheless, lissen Bill tried to remain
optimistic as they invited him, along with his friend and
writer Gillian Cribbs, as well as MacDonald and her production
crew into their home. Moments later, with everyone gathered around
the kitchen table, Liz and Bill filled them in on
(43:16):
all that had happened so far. The tiredness and distress
etched across the couple's faces as they talked showed just
how difficult the last few years had been, while behind them,
long triangular strips of wallpaper hanging limply from the wall
gave the impression that even the house itself was starting
(43:37):
to crumble from the strain. When Liz finally brought their
account to an end, Burkes became suddenly distracted and asked
to be taken outside to inspect the ruins of the
old manor house. With the camera operator following close behind,
the group made their way into the garden through a
(43:59):
line of trees and on to the crumbling ruins behind. Strangely,
when they arrived, however, much to the operator's dismay, the
camera completely shut down. The battery, despite having been almost
fully charged only minutes before, had gone completely flat. A
(44:21):
second camera operated by MacDonald appeared unaffected, as she kept
it steady on Burkes while he requested quiet from everyone,
and then promptly fell into a trance. When mc donald
had first traveled to meet Burkes, not long after she
(44:44):
first informed him of the situation at Lisonbill's home, he
had also entered a trance. When he came out of it,
he explained that he had been communicating with a young
man whose soul he said was trapped at hee Olfanno.
The man had apparently described the experience to him as
(45:05):
like being caught in a thicket that conspired to entrap
him every time he tried to escape. The young man
had apparently also told Burkes that he had been murdered
sometime in the nineteenth century by a sickening blow to
the back of the head. Back in the garden. Burke's
(45:26):
voice broke the silence. The young man was with them now,
he said, and was trying to tell him something. This
was the place, he was saying, where he had seen
something he shouldn't have, the very thing that had cost
him his life. As Burkes went on to detail more
(45:51):
about the boy's murder, Gillian noticed a look of recognition
spreading across Liz's face. As Liz explained, late during the
second year of their stay at the house, she had
learnt about the brutal murder of a young farm hand
that occurred in the mid nineteenth century within walking distance
(46:12):
of heieol Fannock. All this time she had wondered if
it had anything to do with the strange activity in
their home. Could it be she thought that this was
the young man that Burkes had been communicating with. It
(46:36):
was a cold and misty morning in November eighteen forty
eight at Coomboody Farm, a kilometer away from what would
later become heieol Fannock, when farm servant Elizabeth Phillips rose
just before dawn and made her way to a nearby
brook to fetch some water. Approaching the entry gate to
(46:57):
the yard, she was surprised to find seventy teen year
old farm hand James Griffith suddenly appear from out of
the dark with an odd grin on his face. After
muttering a brief good morning, he headed off toward the farmhouse,
leaving Elizabeth to fetch the water on her own. When
(47:18):
she returned via the gate a few minutes later, she
was startled by a strange, moaning sound that seemed to
rise out of nowhere. In terror, she hurried back to
the house and called out for James to help her
find the source of the noise. When Elizabeth heard it again,
coming from somewhere toward the back of the yard, she
(47:41):
asked James to stay put while she went to fetch
a torch. By the time she returned, however, James had
disappeared after failing to find a source for the noise.
It wasn't until much later in the day that Elizabeth
caught sight of something lying underneath a dung heap that
(48:02):
caused her to cry out in horror, a pair of
legs lying in a pool of blood. Having been roused
by Elizabeth's screams, farmer John Powell and his son rushed
to her aid. Together they pulled the body from the
heap to find it was in fact another of their
(48:23):
farm hands, the eighteen year old Thomas Edwards. Remarkably, the
young man was still alive, remarkable because on picking him
up to carry him inside, they discovered a four inch
wide hole in the back of his head, bleeding profusely,
(48:43):
and beneath him clearly visible on the ground the missing
pieces of his skull. Thomas clung on for a number
of hours in a state of severe confusion, before eventually
succumbing to his injuries. Just as Eddie Burkes had claimed,
the unfortunate man had been killed by a sickening blow
(49:07):
to the back of his head. Four months later, James Griffiths,
who also went by the name of Thomas Williams, was
arrested in Ipswich, some three hundred miles away, still wearing
clothes that he had stolen from Thomas Edwards. Griffiths eventually
confessed that he had murdered Edwards to steal what little
(49:28):
money he had in his possession. It was Eddie Burkes's belief, however,
that Edwards had in fact stumbled upon some kind of
satanic ritual and was murdered by Griffith, acting under the
instructions of someone unknown to protect the identities of those
who had been seen. However, no evidence has ever been
(49:52):
found to support this theory. Although curiously not that it
suggests anything to do with the greatly misunderstood practice of Satanism.
When Griffiths first confessed committing the murder, he also claimed
that a woman named Jane Morgan had been the cause
of it. This name was later retracted from his confession.
(50:15):
Once convicted of his crime, Griffiths, who had been abandoned
by his family at a young age and spent most
of his teenage life drifting from one job to another,
was sentenced to death by hanging on Wednesday, eighteenth April
eighteen forty nine. That by then eighteen years old, James
(50:37):
Griffiths was marched to the gallows at Brecon County Jail
in front of a large crowd of onlookers and hung
from his neck until death. With Liz concluding the tragic
tale of the farm hands, something striking occurred to the group.
(51:01):
Could it be that perhaps the spirits of those two
young men were the same spirits that the couple had
been told on two separate occasions were trapped in the property,
with the landlord's mother possibly accounting for the third, that
left only the fourth in human entity unaccounted for. With
(51:23):
the group back in the kitchen, the quiet, Burkes took
a seat at the table. After confirming that the spirit
of the young man he had been communicating with had
now moved on, he closed his eyes and fell into
another trance. Opening them again, Burke was drawn immediately to
(51:45):
the spot near the bathroom, close to the bottom of
the stairs, sensing a strange darkness was being harboured there.
But there was also something else. He closed his eyes again.
He could see a vision, he said outloud. A bright
cross was manifesting, bringing light into the house. Something holy,
(52:09):
he said. Bill got up immediately from the table and
appeared a moment later holding a large canvas painting. Burkes
opened his eyes and looked up. Though the background was
an abstract mesh of dark colors and thick brush strokes,
the large white cross in the middle was unmistakable. It
(52:33):
was just as Burkes had described. Yes, he said quietly,
that is what's been keeping you safe. Bill had painted
the white cross three years previously, over the course of
a few nights, the imagery having come to him completely
(52:53):
out of the blue one evening. Burkes's friend Gillian, was
instantly intrigued to know what else Bill might have unconsciously
channeled and asked to see the studio. In amongst what
Gillian later described as a collection of landscapes and pop
art studies, there was one painting that stood out against
(53:16):
the rest, A strange and puzzling picture, unlike anything else
in the room, comprised of a vast pastal colored mesh
of tubular, tendril like things linked together in a bizarre
organic circuitry. Looking closer, Gillian noticed they were in fact vines,
(53:39):
complete with sharp thorns, and in amongst them were what
looked like internal organs, outstretched hands, and even the occasional
face peering out with pained expressions as if they were screaming.
Gillian was instantly reminded of Eddie Burkes's first conversation with
(54:02):
producer Annie MacDonald. Was this, she thought, not a depiction
of the imprisoned soul, as had apparently been described to
Burke's by the spirit of the deceased young man. Had
he been calling out to Bill for help all this time.
(54:27):
Although a possible identity to the apparent forth in human
presence was never ascertained, Burke's was adamant he had done
enough to exercise whatever it had been from Liz and
Bill's home in the immediate aftermath of his trip to
the house. Once again the family felt a renewed lightness,
and though they experienced a few subsequent troubles with Burke's
(54:51):
returning in June to conduct a further exorcism, his intervention
appeared to have done the trick. That following day, after
Burke's second visit, the rate of electricity usage dropped for
the first time since they had lived in the house.
By nineteen ninety five, the family experienced no further hauntings,
(55:15):
and Bill's work was starting to pick up again. As
for film producer Annie MacDonald, she never did quite get
her film of Burke's in action, with the battery of
one camera having inexplicably died as Burke's attempted communication with
the spirits, McDonald's second camera appeared to be capturing it
(55:38):
all fine. It was only when she returned home later, however,
that she had a chance to review the footage. Switching
on the camera, she ran the tape forward to the
point where the group made their way to the back
of the garden and pressed play. With great anticipation, She
(56:00):
watched as Burkes positioned himself by the ruins and asked
for silence, then just at the moment of apparent contact,
the screen went blank. She fast forwarded in desperation, but
it was to no avail. The rest of the tape
was completely empty. This episode was written by Richard McLain Smith.
(56:32):
Thank you as ever for listening to the show. Please
subscribe and rate it if you haven't already done so.
Unexplained will be coming to YouTube very shortly in video form,
so please watch out for future developments there. You can
subscribe to the channel at YouTube dot com Forward slash
at Unexplained pod. You can also now find us on
TikTok at TikTok dot com. Forward slash at Unexplained podcast.
(56:57):
Unexplained as an Avy Club Productions podcast asked created by
Richard McClain smith. All other elements of the podcast, including
the music, are also produced by me Richard McClain smith. Unexplained.
The book and audiobook is now available to buy worldwide.
You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and
(57:19):
other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever
you get your podcasts, and feel free to get in
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heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of
your own you'd like to share. You can find out
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(57:44):
Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast
Hello, it's Richard mc lean smith here with a quick apology,
but due to a number of factors, our next episode
won't be ready until next week. So in the meantime
we're going back into the vaults to one of our
most popular episodes, now available for the first time as
one single episode. At the northern edge of Cumery's Brecon Beacons,
(00:20):
in the shadow of the penny Fan Peak sits a
large stone house named Hail Fannock or Road to the Peaks.
For one couple who moved there in nineteen eighty nine,
the house was everything they had ever dreamed of. Little
did they know that, in truth, it would soon become
the place of their worst nightmares. This is Unexplained Season four,
(00:45):
episode one alone with everybody. Oh, and I have a
message from the other Richard mc clean smith. I don't
know who he thinks I am getting me to do this,
but for what it's worth, he wants you to know
that the first episode of Unexplained TV will be released
next Tuesday, December third. You can find him at YouTube
dot com forward slash Unexplained pod check it out. At
(01:20):
the northern edge of the beguiling Brecon Beacons in Cumbrie,
under the shadow of penny Fan to the south and
the Black Mountains to the east. That sits a large
stone house, long and narrow with its rickety roof and
jumbled patchwork of brick. It lies at the intersection of
(01:42):
two winding lanes, surrounded by a thick ring of oak,
alder and witch elm, hidden from prying eyes by the holly,
the hawthorn, and the ash from the front ivy pause
green edily at its northern flanks, almost as if it
(02:03):
were trying to drag it down and into the ground,
while from the back the way the earth rises up
into a rugged clearing of thick scrub. It'd be forgiven
for thinking it was part way to succeeding. Its name
is heel Fannock, or in English road to the Peaks,
(02:25):
a reference to the hills and mountains that overshadow it.
An entry point of sorts, or perhaps a gateway, as
some might say. Constructed in the nineteen fifties, like a
repurposed limb grafted onto the remnants of an old barn,
it is comprised largely of stone taken from what was
(02:46):
left at the old sixteenth century manor house. The lichen
covered ruins, of which can still be found hidden deeper
amongst the trees at the very back of the garden.
It is May nineteen eighty nine, and all is quiet
save for the distant chatter of skylarks. While high above light,
(03:09):
tufts of cloud in the bright spring sky draw shadows
across the roof. They drift lazily from front to back,
east to west, slipping down onto the thick grass before
heading into the trees and disappearing somewhere beyond. Inside, silence
(03:30):
reigns as dust mots float through soft beams of light.
Spiders twitch in dark corners. The barn door creaks up above,
a large crow comes to rest on the chimney pot,
digging its beak into its feathers as it breams. When
suddenly its head jerks up, the eyes alert to something
(03:55):
rustling in the undergrowth. Moments later, something else, far more ominous,
is heard, the faint sound of an approaching vehicle. With
a strained squawk, the crow spreads its iridescent wings and
launches into the air, rising away and over the tree
(04:17):
tops before it too disappears somewhere beyond. Back down below,
he old fannok sits quiet and still as the sound
of the engine draws ever nearer, until finally a car
turns into the front drive and pulls up outside the house.
(04:39):
Silence returns for the briefest of moments before the front
doors swing open and its excitable passengers spill out into
the warm spring air. You're listening to Unexplained and I'm
Richard mc lean smith. Thirty year old Liz was first
(05:04):
to exit, followed by her partner, Bill, thirteen years her senior,
from the other side of the car, a big smile
spreading across her face as she caught his eye. Fourteen
year old Lawrence, Bill's son from a previous marriage, was
the last to get out, slowly extricating himself from the
back seat. Liz, her pregnancy bump just beginning to show
(05:30):
above her waist, paused to take it all in as
Bill and Lawrence set about unloading their things. It was
even more beautiful than she remembered, She thought, the perfect
place to raise their baby and begin afresh, free from
the distractions of the past. For Bill, it was the
(05:50):
sheer remoteness of the place and the large studio space
above the barn that had first appealed a gifted and
renowned artist of predominantly surrealist pop art peace Pie Bill
had become increasingly frustrated with how much his time was
being taken up with his more commercial endeavors, creating decorative
boxes and other pieces for the casual consumer. He old Fannock,
(06:14):
he hoped would be a chance to rediscover the true
artist inside him. For most in similar circumstances, it is
easy to become distracted by the excitement of a move,
to become wrapped up in the accompanying sense of optimism
it often brings. It is also easy, when in such
(06:36):
a state, not to notice things that at the time
might otherwise have seemed a little off kilter. The receipt
for six pounds sixty six that Bill found shortly after
moving in taken from the last meal the couple eight
before arriving at the house, for example, or the sixty
(06:57):
six pounds sixty grocery bill would incur shortly after. There
were certainly no signs of anything untoward that first summer,
as the family settled into their new lives, bringing a
whole host of life to join them in their new adventure,
from cats, to goats and even a pig. Named Lucinda,
(07:21):
and with a steady run of orders for Bill's work
coming in, it wasn't long before he was finally able
to dedicate some time to his more personal and fulfilling work.
By September, Lizz and Bill were married, and the following month,
as if to top it all off, her waters broke.
(07:42):
Despite some initial complications, come November, the couple welcomed new arrival,
Ben into their dream home. Life, as they say, couldn't
have been more sweet. But all that was about to change.
(08:06):
It was one afternoon in mid November when Liz stepped
out of the house for some fresh air. As a
sudden gust of wind rustled the leaves in the trees.
She was struck for the first time by just how
quiet it usually was out there, as if no birds
ever seemed to alight in the garden. Perhaps it was
(08:28):
just the drawing inn of the nights, or how winter
had stripped the leaves from some of the larger trees,
leaving her and the house feeling a little more exposed
than usual. But as Liz watched the pale sun drop
below the horizon, sending majestic crepuscular rays shooting white gold
(08:49):
across the sky. It wasn't a sense of wonder that
she felt, but dread. Early. With all the family laying
fast asleep, baby Ben begins to twitch in his cot,
kicking out with both legs, with his hands squeezed up
(09:11):
into little fists, and his face beginning to redden and
scrunch up. Finally, his mouth opens wide and he begins
to cry. Liz, having woken, instantly switched on the light
and gathered Ben from the cot as she prepared to
feed him. A weary Bill pulled back the covers and
(09:33):
headed toward the toilet downstairs. He had just started to
pee when an unexpected noise startled him, a loud, hammering
sound that seemed to be moving along the corridor above
like heavy footsteps. Bill froze as the apparent footsteps near
(09:54):
the top of the stairs for coming to a sudden stop.
Assuming it to be his son, Lawrence, Bill headed back
up stairs, only to find the corridor completely empty and
Lawrence's bedroom door now closed. He switched off the light
and returned to his own bedroom, where he found Liz
(10:16):
quietly placing Ben back into his cot. Bill asked if
she'd heard anything too, but to his surprise, she hadn't
heard a thing. He poked his head back into the hall,
switched on the light, and stood watch for a moment,
keeping his eyes trained on the studio door at the
(10:37):
far end. Hearing and seeing nothing, he switched off the
light and returned to bed. The following morning, Bill and
Liz were stunned to receive an exorbitant electricity bill from Swayleck,
(10:59):
the South Wales Electricity Board, which was almost four times
what they had been expecting. That afternoon, as she sat
down on the bed to feed Ben, Liz couldn't stop
thinking about the extortionate invoice and what Bill had said
the previous night that he'd heard something moving about the house.
(11:22):
Although it was true that she hadn't heard anything herself,
there was something that she hadn't mentioned that recently in
her private moments, she had begun to feel as though
something was watching her. Just then, the studio door at
the far end of the house slammed shut with a bank,
(11:45):
startling Liz. Momentarily thinking it was nothing, she returned to
feeding her baby when a second closer door slam shut,
startling her again. It must be Lawrence, she thought, with
ann with her eyes now trained on her own door.
(12:05):
Liz jumped again when the sound of a third door
being slammed was heard, this time leaving her utterly frozen
in fear, for although the noise seemed to have come
from inside her own room, the door hadn't moved an inch. Bill,
who had heard the bangs from downstairs, burst in moments
(12:26):
later to find a scared and confused Liz struggling to
comprehend what had just happened. Convinced it had something to
do with Lawrence, she demanded that Bill tell him to
pack it in, but Bill didn't understand Lawrence hadn't been
home for over an hour. Bill called the electricity board
(12:57):
at the first opportunity to dispute their invoice, eventually forcing
them to send an electrician round to monitor the meter. Unfortunately,
they found nothing wrong with it, though they couldn't say
exactly how the family were racking up such a large bill.
Something in that house was draining the electricity one way
(13:20):
or another. It was about the same time that Bill
started noticing a foul smell emanating from somewhere in the kitchen,
as if something putrid had been set on fire. A
plumber was duly called to locate the source of it,
but found nothing untoward. As winter approached, life at the house,
(13:46):
superficially at least, carried on as normal. However, though the
couple had yet to acknowledge it to each other, both
had the sense that something of the atmosphere in their
home had re shifted. A few days later, Bill received
a disappointing phone call from a major client. They were
(14:09):
terribly sorry, they said, but they would have to cancel
their order. Conscious of the unwieldy electricity bill still hanging
over their heads, Bill tried to remain upbeat. After all,
he still had another large order to fulfill. Later that afternoon,
they canceled too. As the holiday season approached, Bill and Liz,
(14:35):
with their newborn son and Lawrence, who they felt was
becoming increasingly withdrawn, found themselves in the grip of a
very domestic sense of uncertainty. For by now Liz and
Lawrence were noticing those footsteps too, and the occasional eruptions
of the inexplicable putrid stench that continued to plague their home.
(15:00):
But most of all, they couldn't escape that unmistakable, skin
crawling sensation that something else was in there with them.
After sharing a first Christmas together in their new home,
(15:22):
not least for the benefit of Lawrence and their baby's son.
Bill and Liz agreed to not let the disappointments of
the last few months and the increasingly strange events, get
the better of them. It wouldn't be long, however, before
they were being challenged again. Early in the new year,
(15:43):
Liz entered the barn overjoyed to find their goat Lulu
had given birth to two kids, but when she neared them,
her excitement turned to horror. Though one kid seemed bright
and healthy, the other lay completely still, its tiny glassy
(16:03):
eyes fixed and rolled back into its head. The mother
had crushed it with her hind legs shortly after it
was borne. Not long after that, Lucinda the pig was
found rushing about the barn, screaming wildly. A few days later,
(16:24):
she was diagnosed with a rare disease for which there
was no cure. The devastated family had no option but
to have her put down. Liz tried her best not
to overthink it all, to put it down to unfortunate coincidence,
but when Bill's orders started drying up too, she couldn't
(16:47):
ignore it any more. Picking up the phone one morning,
she took a deep breath and died. A few moments later,
Bridget Buscombe, the previous resident of hio Fannok, answered the call.
After introducing herself, Liz, cautious not to sound too odd,
(17:11):
proceeded to ask Bridget about her time living in the house.
She was disappointed, however, to learn that she had only
fond memories of her experiences there. But as the pair
were just saying their goodbyes, Liz sensed a slight pause
from Bridget's end. Actually, she said, Finally, there was one thing, yes,
(17:37):
replied Liz. Once, when she had been lying alone, reading
in bed, with her husband away on business, she became
aware of a very gentle creaking sound. Looking across to
the other side of the room, she was astonished to
see her antique spinning wheel slowly turning of its owner call.
(18:02):
She had stared at it utterly perplexed for a number
of seconds before eventually rising from the bed and jamming
it with a piece of paper. She knew it, thought Liz.
They hadn't been imagining it after all. As if in
(18:24):
response to Lizzie's renewed conviction that something untoward was occurring
in their home, the strange activity intensified, and in early
March they finally agreed to seek help. A priest was
found to bless the house, and although he didn't notice
anything himself, the family were reassured by his lack of
(18:45):
judgment and determination to help, and in the days that
followed the house seemed lighter and more spacious than it
had done in months. One morning, after Bill had driven
into town to run some errand Liz took Ben for
a walk. When she returned, for the first time she
(19:08):
could remember, Liz felt pleased to see the house, smiling
warmly at the sight of her husband in one of
the top floor windows as she made her way up
the driveway with Ben. But then her smile dropped. Bill's
car was not in the driveway, meaning it wasn't her husband.
(19:31):
Standing at the window, with her breath quickening, Liz forced
herself to look up again. There staring back at her
from inside the house was the gaunt face of an
elderly woman she didn't recognize. A moment later it was gone.
(19:58):
Left terrified at the recent turn of events, but unable
to afford a move elsewhere, the couple turned their attention
to the history of the local area in the hope
that they might uncover something to help understand what seemed
to be stalking their home. Soon after, a builder, responding
(20:18):
to a hopeful article placed by Bill in the local paper,
got in touch. There was something he thought the couple
should know. The man, as he went on to explain,
had helped build the house in the nineteen fifties. At
some point during construction, he and his co workers were
(20:39):
gathering stones from the ruins of the old manor House
when they came across a set of old, smashed up
headstones in amongst the rubble. Could it be, he wondered,
that the house had in fact been built on the
site of the old manor houses burial ground. One afternoon
(21:06):
in the spring of nineteen ninety, Bill was upstairs working
in his studio when Liz, who was just finishing cleaning
up in the kitchen, had the sudden urge to check
on their baby. With a rising sense of panic, Liz
hurried to the bedroom. Rushing through the door, she looked
up in horror to find sitting in the chair opposite
(21:29):
the crib the same elderly woman she had seen looking
at her from the window a second later, she was gone.
The next morning, Bill woke in agony to find both
his hands strangely dry, the skin red and cracking all
(21:49):
over them. The sudden affliction left him unable to paint
for weeks on end, But just as the increasingly oppressive
atmosphere in the house was threatening to overcome them, the
mood was lifted when the couple learned that Liz was
pregnant again. The joyous revelation left them more determined than
(22:13):
ever to find an end to their problems. Local spiritualist
Ray Williams was recommended to the couple, having apparently succeeded
in helping other parishioners in similar situations to themselves. Arriving
one bright April morning along with two colleagues, he swiftly
(22:34):
set about examining each room of the house for any
sign of psychical disturbance. Within minutes, Williams was in no
doubt that something dark had found its way into the property.
A few days later, with Liz and the children staying
at her mother's in the nearby village of Cowbridge, Bill
(22:56):
arrived at the property to meet with the three men again.
After letting them in, he waited in the kitchen as
they carefully made their way around the house, blessing each room.
A short time later, while Bill went through his mail,
he heard a cry coming from the back of the house.
(23:18):
Racing outside to investigate, he found one of the men
doubled over in pain, claiming it had come on as
soon as he approached the window to the downstairs bathroom.
Returning to the house, the men made a bee line
for the small area between the bottom of the stairs
and the restroom downstairs. Convinced it was where the malicious
(23:39):
activity was centering, Bill explained with amazement that indeed, it
was the exact spot where most of the strange events
seemed to occur. With their investigation completed, the men relayed
their findings to Bill, stating that they had felt the
presence of four entities in total, three being an elderly
(24:03):
woman and two young men, whom they had now successfully
banished from the house. However, there was one other, far
darker and clearly not of this world. It was their
opinion that, unlike the three other entities, it had not
originated at the sight of the property, but had in
(24:25):
fact arrived with Bill and may have been following him
for the past. Twenty years. Later, in an effort to
provide protection for the family, one of the men returned
to construct a psychic wall of protection around the house.
Finding a spot on the kitchen floor, he carefully outlined
(24:47):
a pentacle with chalk, before placing incense at each point.
As the perfumed smoke drifted and dispersed into the room, quietly,
he implored any spirit to vacate the immediately. Twenty minutes
later he was gone, leaving Bill alone to rack his
(25:07):
brains for any reason as to why a malicious entity
might have attached itself to him. And then it came
to him Alex Sanders. Back in his early twenties, when
Bill was trying to make a name for himself as
(25:28):
an aspiring artist in London, he was introduced to a
man named Alex Sanders, the self styled King of the Witches.
The controversial Sanders had at one time been a follower
of renowned Wiccan practitioner Gerald Gardner, before splitting from his
teachings to pursue his own interpretations of ceremonial magic. Having
(25:54):
at one point been informed of Bill's ambitions, Sanders offered
to initiate him into his coven in an effort to
aid his development as an artist. With nothing to lose
and curious to know more, Bill accepted his invitation. However,
no sooner had Bill begun the series of initiation rituals
(26:15):
than he had a change of heart and pulled out
of it. Could it be? He wondered that his failure
to complete the initiation had opened some kind of gateway,
allowing something unsavory to come through and attach itself to him.
Either way, when the family moved back to the house
(26:36):
that summer, they found that whatever the spiritualists had done
appeared to have worked. Gone was the heavy, oppressive atmosphere,
those strange noises and noxious smells. Despite the apparent cleansing
of Iyolfannock. However, Bill, growing increasingly worried about the impact
(26:59):
it was all having on Lawrence, was unwilling to take
any more chances. After consulting with his ex wife, it
was arranged to have Lawrence take a room at a
nearby boarding house. Though Bill was relieved that his oldest
son could now get on with life away from the Mayhem,
it was a further hit to the family finances. As
(27:20):
if things weren't complicated enough, a nationwide recession had all
but done for his regular stream of income. In July,
they were forced to sell the car, and being unable
to pay the phone bill, their line was cut off.
With a number of friends and family having found it
difficult to sympathize with their recent plight, having no experience
(27:44):
of what it was they had been through, the family
could scarcely have felt more isolated that summer of nineteen ninety.
The trees that surrounded the house seemed to loom higher
than ever, the rising hills of the beacons taller and
more foreboding, and it wasn't long before Bill and Liz
(28:08):
were hearing those footsteps again. Bill deftly wiped away the
paint with the cloth and tried once more, this time
taking extra care as he dipped the brush before again
(28:31):
attempting to correct the line from the upper thigh to
the knee. He stood back to get a better look
and was immediately disappointed. Damn it, he thought, as he
grudgingly wiped the paint away again. Though the weeks since
the house had been exercised in July had been comparatively calm,
(28:53):
the family's financial situation was becoming increasingly desperate. Things appeared
to be looking up, however, when Bill was commissioned out
of the blue by his neighbour Susanna, to paint a
portrait of her favorite horse, Echo. Bill wasn't entirely sure
if it had been out of sympathy or genuine interest,
(29:14):
but either way he was grateful not only for the money,
but also the chance to finally put his mind at
rest and move on from the stress of the previous year.
It was a fairly simple piece to complete by his standards,
constructed in two parts, the first being the composition of
(29:35):
the backdrop, which Bill had decided on himself after spending
the day scouring the local countryside for the perfect setting.
With that completed, he had then set about painting in
the horse on top, using a recent photograph provided by
his neighbour. All was going well until it came to
(29:56):
finishing up the back leg. No matter how many times
he tried, the brush just wouldn't do what he wanted.
In the end, despite countless efforts, Bill was eventually forced
to admit defeat, hoping that his neighbour wouldn't notice. Thankfully, Susanna,
(30:16):
who was clearly very fond of the animal, was delighted
with his efforts, and so it was with some distress
when she informed Bill a few weeks later that Echo
had died. It began soon after Susanna had hung up
(30:39):
the painting. Watching the horse in the paddock one afternoon,
she noticed he was limping and clearly in some considerable pain.
A subsequent check up with the vet revealed a peculiar
injury to one of its hind legs, which had caused
it to swell up inexplicably. Echo's condition to deteriorated rapidly
(31:01):
over the next few days, until one morning he simply
wandered out into the fields, keeled over and died. Having
returned home after burying the animal, A devastated Susannah found
herself reminiscing in front of Bill's painting when she noticed
(31:21):
something peculiar at the precise spot where the horse had
developed his injury. Bill's multiple attempts to get the leg
just right had left it looking oddly swollen. Then she
noticed something else that sent a sharp chill along her spine.
(31:44):
The backdrop that Bill had randomly chosen was the precise
spot where Echo had been found dead. A few nights later,
Bill and Liz were woken at home by that familiar
sound like heavy footsteps lumbering about the house. The thing,
(32:05):
it seemed was back. In August, it was the turn
of Reverend Roy Matthews of the Holy Trinity Church in
Abergavenny to try and put an end to the couple's troubles.
(32:25):
Arriving with three colleagues, he immediately set about getting a
feel for the property, extraordinarily without any prompting from Bill
or Liz. He also came to the unsettling conclusion that
a plaintive elderly woman, as well as two young men
and one other much darker and distinctly inhuman entity, were
(32:48):
haunting their home. The couple were left a little disappointed, however,
when the best the reverend could offer was to get
together and pray whenever they sensed the atmosphere growing oppressive.
Soon after, whilst clearing space in his studio, Bill discovered
a photograph of an elderly woman hidden amongst some old furniture.
(33:12):
When he showed it to Liz, her face dropped in astonishment.
The woman, who turned out to be Marian Hoburn, the
landlord's mother and former occupant of heel Fannock, was the
same ghostly figure she had been seeing in December nineteen ninety,
(33:32):
the couple's second child, Rebecca, was born, arriving like a
spark of fire to illuminate the incessant gloom. But it
wasn't long before the darkness was beginning to press in
once more. Shortly after the birth, Liz had just returned
to the house after taking the babies for a stroll
(33:56):
when she sent something moving across the kitchen door, calling
out for Bill. She got no reply, despite now clearly
seeing the outline of a tall figure offering just inside
the door. Hurriedly, she gathered up the children, and, whilst
(34:16):
keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the figure in the kitchen,
quietly backed out of the house. A few days later,
Liz and Bill packed their things and moved into Lizzie's
mother's house in nearby Cowbridge. The quiet market town of
(34:41):
Cowbridge was a welcome respite from the isolation of Hulfannog,
and though money was still an issue, with demand for
Bill's work struggling to pick up, it wasn't long before
they felt a sense of normality being restored for a
short while. At least, it was Liz who noticed at
(35:03):
first that sudden familiar feeling of being watched as if
a wispy tendril of darkness were reaching out to them
from out of the depths of the countryside. One evening,
having put the children to bed, Bill, Liz and her
mother were just sitting down for dinner when a weird
(35:25):
crackle of static came through on the baby monitor. That
wasn't static, thought Liz with horror. It was a voice.
Immediately she rushed to the bedroom and switched on the light,
but found only her two children fast asleep in their beds.
(35:49):
A few days later, having heard all about Liz's troubles,
a neighbor suggested she make contact with local reverend David Holmewood.
Having reached out to him, Homeward arrived at Lizzie's mother's
home a few days later along with his associate Anita,
to discuss the couple's predicament. By the time he left
(36:10):
at two a m. He was in no doubt as
to the source of their affliction. It was simple, he
told them, you were being stalked by demons. That night,
as David and Anita drove home through the narrow, winding
country roads, something shot toward them from out of the
(36:33):
dark and smashed into the windscreen with a mighty crack.
The pair screamed as David slammed on the brakes and
brought the car to a shuddering stop by the side
of the road. Catching their breath, they looked up to
find the shattered windscreen covered in blood. Cautiously, David stepped
(36:54):
out into the road, and there, illuminated by the glare
of the head lights, he found the twitching body of
a dead owl. The message was clear, he thought, stay
away from the house. It was two weeks later that
(37:19):
David and Anita were back on the road, keeping their
eyes fixed on Bill's car up ahead as he led
them through the winding country lanes toward their destination under
the shadowed edges of the Northern Beacons. But as they
turned a corner, David was gripped by a sudden pang
(37:39):
of anxiety, as if something were pushing down hard on
his chest. Anita could only watch in terror as he
struggled to keep control of the vehicle before finally bringing
it to a skidding stop by the side of the road. Immediately,
David reached out for Anita's hand, and there they sat,
(38:01):
repeating the Lord's prayer over and over until they were
certain that disturbance had been lifted. Moments later, they pulled
into the driveway of heel Fannock. The plan was simple
to get in and out as quickly as possible, confiscating
(38:22):
anything that could be serving as a conduit for the
demonic forces which David believed were plaguing the home. From
incense burners to books on the paranormal and Buddhism, all
of it was thrown into a box and taken out
to the car. Upsettingly for Bill, it was largely his
(38:42):
own artwork that was of most concern to the evangelists.
It was this, above all else, that David believed to
be empowering whatever demons were stalking the family. Bill could
only watch with dismay as one offending article after another
was removed and promptly escorted from the house. But what
(39:06):
will you do with it all, he asked? We will
burn it, of course, came David's prompt reply. The following morning,
with the help of his son, David dug a shallow
pit in his garden into which all the tainted items
(39:28):
were dumped, covered in lighter fluid, and set on fire.
The pair watched as the flames jumped and licked ever higher,
spitting and crackling as the fire feasted on the myriad items.
Then slowly David became aware of another sound, seeming to
emanate from deep within the flames, a hideous screeching sound,
(39:54):
as if something inside the fire were being burned alive,
but it would all be in vain. Sadly, despite his
best efforts, David's attempted exorcism would ultimately prove ineffective when
(40:14):
only a few weeks later the Hauntings returned with a vengeance.
Unable to afford a move away and with all avenues
seemingly exhausted, Bill and Liz had no choice but to
try and learn to live with it all, and so
they did, doing all they could to ignore the disembodied
(40:36):
footsteps and strange spectral visions. As ever, Bill sought solace
in his painting, and with one painting in particular, with
which he was becoming increasingly immersed, a peculiar canvas of
pastal colors and tubular strands that seemed to wrap and
(40:57):
snake around themselves. It was like nothing he had painted before.
But such endeavors only ever provided fleeting moments of comfort,
and by the end of nineteen ninety three, they had
all but given up hope of ever escaping their horrifying ordeal.
(41:18):
Little could they have known then that help was just
around the corner. Film producer Annie mac donald had been
wrestling with a documentary idea for some time regarding the
(41:39):
exploits of apparent psychic and self styled ghost hunter Eddie Burkes.
Back in August nineteen ninety two, Burkes had achieved some
notoriety after he claimed to have successfully banished the ghost
of a sixteenth century courtier from the offices of the
exclusive British banking Institut Coots. Incredibly, not only had Burkes
(42:04):
been invited to locate the ghost by representatives of the
bank itself, but they had also attested to his success
in removing it from their offices. When MacDonald, who also
lived near the brecam Beacons, heard about the peculiar goings
on at he Olfannock, she wasted little time in contacting
Lissendbill with a proposition she would set them up with
(42:28):
Burkes if they agreed to let her film his process.
Though the couple were reticent at the thought of letting
a documentary crew into their home, they also knew they
had nothing to lose. It was difficult to know quite
what to make of the slight, bespectacled Burks when he
first arrived that early March afternoon, dressed unassumingly in his
(42:53):
dark green and Iraq. Nonetheless, lissen Bill tried to remain
optimistic as they invited him, along with his friend and
writer Gillian Cribbs, as well as MacDonald and her production
crew into their home. Moments later, with everyone gathered around
the kitchen table, Liz and Bill filled them in on
(43:16):
all that had happened so far. The tiredness and distress
etched across the couple's faces as they talked showed just
how difficult the last few years had been, while behind them,
long triangular strips of wallpaper hanging limply from the wall
gave the impression that even the house itself was starting
(43:37):
to crumble from the strain. When Liz finally brought their
account to an end, Burkes became suddenly distracted and asked
to be taken outside to inspect the ruins of the
old manor house. With the camera operator following close behind,
the group made their way into the garden through a
(43:59):
line of trees and on to the crumbling ruins behind. Strangely,
when they arrived, however, much to the operator's dismay, the
camera completely shut down. The battery, despite having been almost
fully charged only minutes before, had gone completely flat. A
(44:21):
second camera operated by MacDonald appeared unaffected, as she kept
it steady on Burkes while he requested quiet from everyone,
and then promptly fell into a trance. When mc donald
had first traveled to meet Burkes, not long after she
(44:44):
first informed him of the situation at Lisonbill's home, he
had also entered a trance. When he came out of it,
he explained that he had been communicating with a young
man whose soul he said was trapped at hee Olfanno.
The man had apparently described the experience to him as
(45:05):
like being caught in a thicket that conspired to entrap
him every time he tried to escape. The young man
had apparently also told Burkes that he had been murdered
sometime in the nineteenth century by a sickening blow to
the back of the head. Back in the garden. Burke's
(45:26):
voice broke the silence. The young man was with them now,
he said, and was trying to tell him something. This
was the place, he was saying, where he had seen
something he shouldn't have, the very thing that had cost
him his life. As Burkes went on to detail more
(45:51):
about the boy's murder, Gillian noticed a look of recognition
spreading across Liz's face. As Liz explained, late during the
second year of their stay at the house, she had
learnt about the brutal murder of a young farm hand
that occurred in the mid nineteenth century within walking distance
(46:12):
of heieol Fannock. All this time she had wondered if
it had anything to do with the strange activity in
their home. Could it be she thought that this was
the young man that Burkes had been communicating with. It
(46:36):
was a cold and misty morning in November eighteen forty
eight at Coomboody Farm, a kilometer away from what would
later become heieol Fannock, when farm servant Elizabeth Phillips rose
just before dawn and made her way to a nearby
brook to fetch some water. Approaching the entry gate to
(46:57):
the yard, she was surprised to find seventy teen year
old farm hand James Griffith suddenly appear from out of
the dark with an odd grin on his face. After
muttering a brief good morning, he headed off toward the farmhouse,
leaving Elizabeth to fetch the water on her own. When
(47:18):
she returned via the gate a few minutes later, she
was startled by a strange, moaning sound that seemed to
rise out of nowhere. In terror, she hurried back to
the house and called out for James to help her
find the source of the noise. When Elizabeth heard it again,
coming from somewhere toward the back of the yard, she
(47:41):
asked James to stay put while she went to fetch
a torch. By the time she returned, however, James had
disappeared after failing to find a source for the noise.
It wasn't until much later in the day that Elizabeth
caught sight of something lying underneath a dung heap that
(48:02):
caused her to cry out in horror, a pair of
legs lying in a pool of blood. Having been roused
by Elizabeth's screams, farmer John Powell and his son rushed
to her aid. Together they pulled the body from the
heap to find it was in fact another of their
(48:23):
farm hands, the eighteen year old Thomas Edwards. Remarkably, the
young man was still alive, remarkable because on picking him
up to carry him inside, they discovered a four inch
wide hole in the back of his head, bleeding profusely,
(48:43):
and beneath him clearly visible on the ground the missing
pieces of his skull. Thomas clung on for a number
of hours in a state of severe confusion, before eventually
succumbing to his injuries. Just as Eddie Burkes had claimed,
the unfortunate man had been killed by a sickening blow
(49:07):
to the back of his head. Four months later, James Griffiths,
who also went by the name of Thomas Williams, was
arrested in Ipswich, some three hundred miles away, still wearing
clothes that he had stolen from Thomas Edwards. Griffiths eventually
confessed that he had murdered Edwards to steal what little
(49:28):
money he had in his possession. It was Eddie Burkes's belief, however,
that Edwards had in fact stumbled upon some kind of
satanic ritual and was murdered by Griffith, acting under the
instructions of someone unknown to protect the identities of those
who had been seen. However, no evidence has ever been
(49:52):
found to support this theory. Although curiously not that it
suggests anything to do with the greatly misunderstood practice of Satanism.
When Griffiths first confessed committing the murder, he also claimed
that a woman named Jane Morgan had been the cause
of it. This name was later retracted from his confession.
(50:15):
Once convicted of his crime, Griffiths, who had been abandoned
by his family at a young age and spent most
of his teenage life drifting from one job to another,
was sentenced to death by hanging on Wednesday, eighteenth April
eighteen forty nine. That by then eighteen years old, James
(50:37):
Griffiths was marched to the gallows at Brecon County Jail
in front of a large crowd of onlookers and hung
from his neck until death. With Liz concluding the tragic
tale of the farm hands, something striking occurred to the group.
(51:01):
Could it be that perhaps the spirits of those two
young men were the same spirits that the couple had
been told on two separate occasions were trapped in the property,
with the landlord's mother possibly accounting for the third, that
left only the fourth in human entity unaccounted for. With
(51:23):
the group back in the kitchen, the quiet, Burkes took
a seat at the table. After confirming that the spirit
of the young man he had been communicating with had
now moved on, he closed his eyes and fell into
another trance. Opening them again, Burke was drawn immediately to
(51:45):
the spot near the bathroom, close to the bottom of
the stairs, sensing a strange darkness was being harboured there.
But there was also something else. He closed his eyes again.
He could see a vision, he said outloud. A bright
cross was manifesting, bringing light into the house. Something holy,
(52:09):
he said. Bill got up immediately from the table and
appeared a moment later holding a large canvas painting. Burkes
opened his eyes and looked up. Though the background was
an abstract mesh of dark colors and thick brush strokes,
the large white cross in the middle was unmistakable. It
(52:33):
was just as Burkes had described. Yes, he said quietly,
that is what's been keeping you safe. Bill had painted
the white cross three years previously, over the course of
a few nights, the imagery having come to him completely
(52:53):
out of the blue one evening. Burkes's friend Gillian, was
instantly intrigued to know what else Bill might have unconsciously
channeled and asked to see the studio. In amongst what
Gillian later described as a collection of landscapes and pop
art studies, there was one painting that stood out against
(53:16):
the rest, A strange and puzzling picture, unlike anything else
in the room, comprised of a vast pastal colored mesh
of tubular, tendril like things linked together in a bizarre
organic circuitry. Looking closer, Gillian noticed they were in fact vines,
(53:39):
complete with sharp thorns, and in amongst them were what
looked like internal organs, outstretched hands, and even the occasional
face peering out with pained expressions as if they were screaming.
Gillian was instantly reminded of Eddie Burkes's first conversation with
(54:02):
producer Annie MacDonald. Was this, she thought, not a depiction
of the imprisoned soul, as had apparently been described to
Burke's by the spirit of the deceased young man. Had
he been calling out to Bill for help all this time.
(54:27):
Although a possible identity to the apparent forth in human
presence was never ascertained, Burke's was adamant he had done
enough to exercise whatever it had been from Liz and
Bill's home in the immediate aftermath of his trip to
the house. Once again the family felt a renewed lightness,
and though they experienced a few subsequent troubles with Burke's
(54:51):
returning in June to conduct a further exorcism, his intervention
appeared to have done the trick. That following day, after
Burke's second visit, the rate of electricity usage dropped for
the first time since they had lived in the house.
By nineteen ninety five, the family experienced no further hauntings,
(55:15):
and Bill's work was starting to pick up again. As
for film producer Annie MacDonald, she never did quite get
her film of Burke's in action, with the battery of
one camera having inexplicably died as Burke's attempted communication with
the spirits, McDonald's second camera appeared to be capturing it
(55:38):
all fine. It was only when she returned home later, however,
that she had a chance to review the footage. Switching
on the camera, she ran the tape forward to the
point where the group made their way to the back
of the garden and pressed play. With great anticipation, She
(56:00):
watched as Burkes positioned himself by the ruins and asked
for silence, then just at the moment of apparent contact,
the screen went blank. She fast forwarded in desperation, but
it was to no avail. The rest of the tape
was completely empty. This episode was written by Richard McLain Smith.
(56:32):
Thank you as ever for listening to the show. Please
subscribe and rate it if you haven't already done so.
Unexplained will be coming to YouTube very shortly in video form,
so please watch out for future developments there. You can
subscribe to the channel at YouTube dot com Forward slash
at Unexplained pod. You can also now find us on
TikTok at TikTok dot com. Forward slash at Unexplained podcast.
(56:57):
Unexplained as an Avy Club Productions podcast asked created by
Richard McClain smith. All other elements of the podcast, including
the music, are also produced by me Richard McClain smith. Unexplained.
The book and audiobook is now available to buy worldwide.
You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and
(57:19):
other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever
you get your podcasts, and feel free to get in
touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've
heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of
your own you'd like to share. You can find out
more at Unexplained podcast dot com and reach us online
through Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com,
(57:44):
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