In 2009 I was in the market for a new home, but wanted a character property rather than a box on an estate. I fell in love with an old cottage in Tiptree, Essex, and bought it late in 2009, a winter where the thick snows made it look like a Christmas card. I was even snowed in on my first night here. I’ve lived here for the past 8 years, and have loved the house ever since.
My house dates back to 1586, or rather the oldest parts do. The house is not listed, so there was nothing to prevent previous owners building backwards to add spacious accommodation and modern facilities. That said, the house retains plenty of period features, including two inglenook fireplaces, a wattle-and-daub wall and a number of original beams.
You will see from the pictures below that the bigger of the two fireplaces, the one behind me as I type this now, would have made a roaring blaze, were the chimney blocked off by flue pipes from the original central heating system. You can still see the original bread oven built in brick to one side, and the soot still clinging to the walls above.
The chimney breast continues through my bedroom above, though the feature I find most fascinating is the ancient beam across the top of the fireplace. The story goes that in when rural houses were built in the 16th and 17th Centuries, the builders recycled beams from broken-up warships, quite possibly vessels from the Armada fleet after their demise. It is quite conceivable that this beam might date back a good deal longer than the rest of the house, and may well have stories of its own to tell.
The only disappointment I have in this lovely old house is the lack of a cellar. All the research I’ve done suggests there should be a cellar, for these formed an essential component of the foundations of the building, one that has stood for hundreds of years without fear of collapse.
Granted the house has been extensively refurbished, so it was always my belief that at some point the cellar was filled in and built over, though I had no way of knowing when or why. This has often played on my mind, though I never made an substantial changes to the house to warrant deeper investigation.
It did occur to me that there may be sinister motives, though my experience has never for one moment hinted that the house might be haunted, though some events did make me wonder. The previous owners seemed to be in a hurry to move out, for example, and did not leave a forwarding address. They simply took their possessions and left at the earliest possible opportunity, which struck me as odd.
Of course, this did not stop friends asked me if the house was haunted, but nobody ever felt spooked when staying at the house. Granted there are always creaking floorboards in any old house as it expands and contracts according to the weather; I can even hear from my desk when my cat is pacing around upstairs, but the groans of the timbers never once convinced me of the presence of unearthly spirits, nor did they ever spook Molly the cat before now!
All that I’ve written above has always been true, though the last few months have made me change my mind. I’ve put my house back on the market, and though viewers have come and gone, none have yet bid for the house, each making a feeble excuse but never revealing what it was that made them uncomfortable. To me, this sent a very different message: something is very, very wrong in the house, something I cannot explain…
Before I do, let me assure you I am the very epitome of a rational man, not remotely superstitious or inclined to believe old wive’s tales. I’ve lived alone this past decade without ever fearing anything, living or dead, except maybe Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.
No, but seriously, I do not take fright on a whim, and it was not on a whim that I woke early one morning, sometime before dawn. What woke me I could not say, though I had been dreaming. Not a nightmare but certainly a vivid dream that took my mind some moments to escape.
I came to slowly and looked at my radio-alarm with bleary eyes: 4:10am. I should by rights have turned over and dozed back off, but I didn’t. Instead I got out of bed and reached for my dressing gown.
It’s worth saying at this point that because of the vagaries of the old and quirky house, my bedroom does not have a central heating radiator – and a cool bedroom suits me just fine. However, the temperature had dropped a few degrees below the norm, such that my breath had vaporised, something I would normally expect only on the very coldest days of winter. Maybe this was what woke me and caused my instinctive grab for the warmth of a fluffy robe?
Pulling the garment around me, I stepped into my slippers and followed my nose towards the door and across the landing towards the stairs. If it was too cold for sleep, maybe a hot drink would settle me again.
However, the rest of the house seemed every bit as cold, as if the doors were wide open and a thick invisible frost had settled on every surface. Pulling the robe around my chest, I made for the central heating thermostat and turned it right up. The system, previously on its normal night setting, sprang into life.
Walking through the open plan downstairs, switching on lights as I went, then put the kettle on. I was just reaching for the coffee when the power blew. All the lights went off; the kettle spluttered then fell silent; even the heating boiler stopped abruptly.
Cursing my luck, I reached into the drawer beneath the kitchen work surface and pulled out the small but sturdy torch I keep there. The torch worked fine, sending out a strong beam of light through the living areas, towards the ornate cupboard where the fuse box is hidden, taking me past the dark and silent inglenook and its ancient timber beam.
With care I walked through and yanked the front from the cabinet. Training the torch across the fuse box, it was evident that something had tripped not just one circuit but the lot. This is something I’ve never seen before. It had to be internal, for the electricity would simply stop without blowing circuits, were the outside power lines cut. But what could cut the entire electricity supply in one fell swoop?
I reset all the switches, then turned the master switch back up to its normal position. For a few brief moments the lights flickered back on, then fizzled off once more. The entire circuit board shut down for a second time.
What next? I wasn’t quite sure what to do, especially since my neighbours would all be in bed and there are no street lights in these parts. There was no obvious way to tell if this was affecting just me or the whole road, or indeed the whole town.
I picked up the nearby telephone handset and tried to call the emergency number for my energy company, but the phone was dead too – not so much as a crackle came from the receiver.
It was then that I heard Molly. Since she is a vocal cat, I’m used to Molly miaowing at me indignantly for food, but this was quite a different sound: a low wail with a hint of a growl, not like Molly at all. It was the sound a cat would make if cornered by a hostile turf rival.
“What’s up, girl?” I called out, peering around a corner in the hope of seeing her eyes reflected in the dark.
Molly moaned again from somewhere out in the darkness.
“Come here, girl. Molly, Molly….” I continued, but then I heard the cat flap clattering. Molly had taken herself outside in a hurry. This too is unusual behaviour, since usually she prefers to wait for me to open the door.
If anything, it seemed to be getting colder, so I made the obvious move. My house is equipped with a gas-powered Aga, which is on all the time and is warm all the time, even in the height of summer. Inching my way through the house by torchlight, I reached the Aga and felt its radiant heat with no little relief, but a quick check revealed that the gas had also failed and the pilot light had gone out.
Only at this point did it even cross my mind that something out of the ordinary was happening, though even then it never occurred to me that this might be a haunting. After all, I had seen no physical manifestations, no strange mist, no hooded figures, no ectoplasm, not even any flying household ornaments. And those ideas were too ludicrous to contemplate.
I stood in the pitch black taking in the residual warmth from the Aga, torch in hand but switched off to preserve the battery, wondering what to do next.
It was then that I wondered if my hearing was affected too. I suffer from tinnitus, so have a constant ringing noise in my ears and dodgy hearing too. Consequently, I often miss sounds and conversation in particular, but this was different, not a sound I expected to hear.
If I had to describe it, it would be like a soft lulling noise, like the tide flowing gently. It seemed so quiet I wondered whether it was my ears playing tricks on me, but then I realised it was coming from the inglenook fireplace I had just passed but which was out of sight from where I stood by the Aga.
Cautiously, I retraced my steps and headed towards the fireplace. I switched on the torch but realised very rapidly there was an eerie undulating glow emanating from the fireplace, casting long grey shadows into the sitting room beyond that rippled just like calm water in silvery moonlight. In fact, I wondered for a moment if this was just the moon, but with the house plunged into total darkness and the curtains shut I soon realised this was a vain hope.
The closer I got, the more I realised this phenomenon appeared to come from within the fireplace. It was bathed in soft grey light dappled with light from an unseen source, though that is not what captured my attention. The ancient beam across the fireplace appeared to be creaking and bowing, as if it were still on board the ship, the waters lapping around its base.
And then came a disembodied voice that chilled me to the bone, a voice that still appears in my dreams.
“Ship hoooooo!” it resonated from deep within the chimney breast, as if from some unseen sea hand high above the beam on a deck. It came in a rustic West Country accent, certainly not a voice redolent of Essex.
I fought my inclination to run and instead took a step closer, more through curiosity and a desire to demonstrate that this was just the wind rattling down a flue pipe. Maybe the pipe had come adrift and both light and sound were filtering down the chimney, amplified by the wide chimney breast?
But then the water was no longer calm, suddenly it became a raging torrent. It was as though a sudden squall had broken out all around me, a fearsome wind almost knocked me off my feet, such that I could barely stand.
“No, no, no!!” I yelled covering my ears as the volume rose from the invisible storm.
But barely had this occurred when I heard something more terrifying than I could have anticipated: the crash of a mighty collision, so deafening I took a step back, then fell hard on the stone tiles beneath. The sound of splintering wood and gushing water filled my head, filled the entire house. Cries of alarm from unseen sailors echoed down the chimney, the splash of bodies falling in the water and the creak of ancient timbers collapsing beneath the invisible waves.
It felt as if I was in the middle of the unfolding disaster, expecting at any moment to find myself submerged in deep, cold, salty water… I closed my eyes and screamed like a wounded animal.
And then… silence.
I opened my eyes and saw… the fireplace. The lights had come on all around me, the central heating was humming, and the kettle was just coming to the boil.
My watch read 6:30, suggesting some considerable time had passed in what to me seemed the blink of any eye.
Had I imagined, dreamed the whole scene? No. It felt more real than any dream. I could not stay there a moment longer.
Wasting not a second, I went upstairs, got dressed and left the house, driving into Tiptree to await the opening of the nearest café and a good, strong coffee to steady my nerves.
I can’t explain what happened, though it makes me all the more certain there is history within this house, tragic history too. I feel an urge to locate the cellar and find what artefacts might be stored there. But for now I know I will accord greater respect to the fireplace and the ancient beam sat above.