Research source

V. THE HAUNTINGS OF THE OLD SYDERSTERNE PARSONAGE (1833), NEAR FAKENHAM, AND A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE I

Date of account: Published 1919
Source: Ghostly Phenomena
Reference: Ghostly Phenomena · selected passage 39
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

It had both attics and cellars, and in one of the attics there was a bloodstain, due, so I was told, to a murder of a particularly horrible nature, that had once been perpetrated there, and on account of which the house was reputed to be haunted

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

The house was a very high one. It had both attics and cellars, and in one of the attics there was a bloodstain, due, so I was told, to a murder of a particularly horrible nature, that had once been perpetrated there, and on account of which the house was reputed to be haunted. Rumour said that in bygone days the house had been inhabited by priests, and that it was one of them who had been killed, his body being taken away in a barrel! In spite, however, of the bloodstain and the grim tales in connection with it, my sisters and I, at the commencement of our tenancy of the house, used to play in the attic, and nothing happened. But at last there came a night when we awoke to the fact that there was a ghastly amount of truth in what we had heard. Some time after we had all gone to bed, we were all aroused (even my practical old grandfather) by three loud knocks on one of the doors which each of us fancied was our own. Then there was silence, and then, from the very top of the house where the attic was situated, a barrel was rolled down the stairs!--bump! bump! bump!

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This is a historical account assembled under the reporting and publishing conventions of its period. It may preserve testimony, hearsay, retelling and editorial interpretation together.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

A modern comparison can identify recurring descriptions and possible explanations, but the account is not treated as independently verified evidence merely because it appeared in print.

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