Legend has it that there is an old abandoned Mental
hospital in rural England called Harwill House. It closed
down in the 1970's due to local protestors. The nurses and
patients may have all moved on although the spirits of this
ancient house still remain.
The Harwill House that still stands today was originally built as a small hospital to
care for the surrounding villages. However after the second
world war is was specially converted into a mental asylum.
The house was built in 1887 but there were many buildings
that stood there before it including schools and doctors
surgeries. In the medieval times this area was totally
covered by dense forest which housed many Satanic cults who
often sacrificed one of their children to the devil. Just
to finish off this intro underneath there are a maze of
secret tunnels which, when the institute was in use was
used as a morgue... here is the legend...
CAGED MARGORIE
In 1960 there lived a young woman in the surrounding
village of Hartenfield (Harwill House is on the outskirts
of a tiny village named Fernewood) anyway this young woman
was just 23 and her name was Marjorie Pickbourne she had
just married a local farmer named Ismael.
The couple lived
happily for a year but it was later discovered that
Marjorie couldn't have children. Ismael pretended that he
was O.K with but after a while the pressure of it got to
him he needed someone to pass all his farming land onto. So
one night in the summer of 1962 Ismael & Marjorie attended
the midsummers ball in Fernewood however after about an
hour Marjorie complained that she felt too hot and that she
would like to go home.
Ismael had planned to discuss business with fellow farmers so he walked his wife back
home then returned to the ball alone. After all the farmers
had left Ismael decided to have one last pint. The room was
clear except for a very good looking young girl aged 21
Ismael had noticed her throughout the night but didn't pay
much notice but now he saw her in fact he couldn't take his
eyes off her. He approached her he didn't know why but he
had an incredible urge to do so. "Hello" he exclaimed as she sat
there silent. "Hello" he repeated, again no answer, she seemed
to be ignoring him. Until she stood up and said Hello.
Immediately Ismael knew that there was something bizarre
about this woman. What's your name he asked. Shirley she
replied cautiously. Then out of the blue she kissed him.
straight away Ismael felt feelings of both excitement &
shame. He felt extreme shame about the fact that he was
enjoying the kiss but he couldn't stop thinking about poor
Marjorie at home. That night Ismael and Shirley had sex in
the toilet behind the village hall. When Ismael returned
home that night Marjorie was fast asleep.
In the next 2 years Ismael began an affair with Shirley. Shirley loved
Ismael but he wanted purely excitement. Shirley begged him
to leave Marjorie but he said no a numerous amount of
times.
A couple of months later at the 1965 midsummer ball
out of a fit of jealousy Shirley told Marjorie everything,
Ismael went ballistic and swore revenge on Shirley. The
next day Shirley was found dead in a roadside ditch. The top
suspect was without a doubt Ismael who proclaimed his
innocence strongly.
Ismael was sentenced to life imprisonment for Shirley's murder. 3 months later Marjorie
couldn't take being away from Ismael any longer and tried
to take her own life but she failed. She was committed to
the asylum in 1966 after many failed suicide attempts. In
1967 she escaped from Harwill House only to be captured
again. During her stay at the house Marjorie was treated
very badly by the cruel nurses. They kept her in a cage
with only gruel to eat & water to drink. Legend has it that
poor Marjorie starved to death in her isolated cage deep in
the basements of Harwill House.
Many years later in 1995 during a tour of the house eerie noises were coming the
front basement where Marjorie is said to have perished. But
the events of the night of Halloween 2000 scared the living
daylights of out of me.
It was 31st October 2000 and I lived in the city of Nottingham in central England roughly
10 kilometers away from the village of Fernewood. Anyway it
was Halloween night and my friends and I were looking for
a cheap scare. So Mick suggested that we drove up to
Harwill House to see if the legends were true. Luckily when
we got up there a special Halloween ghost tour of the old
building was going on so we each payed £5 and joined the
tour.
There were only about 2 other couples and my friends
(a bunch of 6) so about 10 people on the tour.
About a quarter of a way through the tour my friends and I thought
it would be funny if we purposefully lost the rest of the
tour. So we lagged behind and successfully lost them. The
old building is usually well lit but due to the atmosphere
of the tour it was very dim. After about 10 minutes we
all plucked up the courage to head down the St. Margarets
staircase to the back basements. The tour rarely came down
here so it was almost pitch black except for a faint eerie
glow emitting from the walls. My friend Chris went first as
we heading toward the front basement in single file, me at
the back. We walked down a very long corridor with about 20
doors leading from it. We then moved into a large hall deep
below Harwill House, the words MORGUE were written in black
letters on the wall. We quickly exited that room and directly
behind the Morgue door was a large room. We immediately
knew that this was the front Basement of the house. Nothing
here although the room had an eerie feeling there were
absolutely no ghosts. Disappointed we left the room.
We closed the big iron front room door... THEN WE HEARD IT...
A high pitched scream coming from inside the front basement
we all froze in fear and as we ran towards the back
basement we realised that there was undoubtedly something
chasing us down the corridor. I was at the back and because
I love the paranormal so much I just couldn't resist
looking behind us... I wish I hadn't, what I saw was a thin
evil looking woman floating towards us screaming very
loudly. Her eyes were white then all of a sudden she stopped
in her tracks and just watched us run away. We ran our of that
house so fast.
Where my friends and I really chased by caged Marjorie that night? You decide!
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