MARLISH HOUSE
Location: The Marlish House is located on an isolated area on the Isle of Jersey, one of the Channel Island fifteen miles off the coast of France.
Description: The Marlish House definitely fits the appearance of a typical haunted house. Two stories tall on an open palatial estate above a large reflecting pool, the house has ten bedrooms, a downstairs music room, an attic separated into servants’ quarters and arched doorways and wide bay windows. There are few hallways and one must pass through whole rooms to pass from one end of the house to the other. Long dark curtains on every window and dull photos and foreboding portraits on every wall further intimidate the atmosphere of the house. Part of the property is set aside for a small graveyard.
Ghostly Manifestations: Crying noises at night, footsteps from empty rooms,
doors slamming shut at night, the apparition of a beautiful blonde woman moving
through the place despite the fact she should not exist… Marlish House is one
of the most haunted houses in the Channel Islands of not all of England.
The old decaying edifice today certainly
evokes the style, atmosphere and presence of traditional haunted castles in
England. One of numerous unrestored structures dotting the British Isles, the
structure evokes tales that belong around campfires and in shadowy rooms. In
the years after the war, the Marlish’s son, Victor, claimed that the ghost of a
young girl who haunted his bedroom often ordered him to leave her room. The ghost of a young boy has frequently been seen racing past open windows. His parents skeptical at first of his tales soon began seeing the spirits of the strange children watching them from the shadows and often rushing from the light. Childlike whispers, voices from empty rooms and the scampering noises of small footsteps frequently come from the second floor. Clara Marlish once noticed the feet of a young girl dangling from the piano bench in the music room as she picked something up off the floor, but as she stood up and looked over the piano, there was no girl present in the room.
The phantom children are not the only ghosts
present. The ghosts of former servants also roam the house and property. One
day as Victor Marlish returned home, he saw an old man on the edge of the
property burning leaves near the cemetery. Figuring his wife had hired a groundskeeper,
Marlish parked his car and came around the house to introduce himself to the
new groundskeeper, but he found no trace of the figure, a sign of leaves that
had been burning or of another person anywhere on the grounds. After several
moments, he figured he’d just seen another of the ghosts.
Clara Marlish has experienced at least one if
not two different phantom housekeepers. One appeared to be an older, moderately
heavy woman, and another seemed to be possibly the same figure as a younger and
thinner person. Whether they are two forms of the same apparition or two
separate entities is unrevealed. Nevertheless, one morning as Clara headed down
to begin breakfast, she became aware of the older housekeeper passing her on
the staircase and evoking a friendly, nurturing grin to her. Reaching the
bottom landing and realizing that she did not know the woman, she looked back
and saw no one behind her on the stairs. Convinced someone was in the house,
she quickly roused her husband and the two of them searched the entire
structure to no avail.
Regardless of the frightening and alarming
appearances, the ghostly housekeeper (or housekeepers) gradually proved to be a
harmless and beneficent spirit. After a picture was accidentally knocked off
the wall, Clara went to collect the broom and pan to clean up the mess. They were
missing from their regular place so she walked out and retrieved extra broom
and pan from the old caretaker’s house, then the guest cottage. Returning to
clean the broken glass, she found the broom, pan and damaged picture leaned
against the wall and not a piece of broken glass anywhere.
Cups and glasses often left out have often
been found cleaned and put away. An oily frying pan left unattended was once
washed stored away by invisible hands. Water faucets sometimes come on by themselves or the sound of running water pervades the place. Loud thumping noises come through the ceiling from closed off rooms. The scent of perfume sometimes wafts across the top landing. One summer while sensing the passionate aromatic odor, James Marlish, Victor's father, stood on the top landing looking down and realized the Dark Lady was back.
The Dark Lady is possibly the most alarming
presence of the ghosts in the house. So named because she wears dark gray
period clothing consisting of a house frock and long floor level skirt, she has
been seen drifting silently through the house several times. Young Victor saw
her first depart from the music room and vanish under him while he stood on the
balcony. About a month later, Clara noticed her drift across the top of the
second floor landing and noticed she had no feet touching the floor in the
brief inch her skirt reached to the floor. Almost beautiful with white skin and
dark blonde hair, the Dark Lady one terrified Clara so badly that she scooped
up eight-year-old Victor and ran from the house screaming. She had entered the master bedroom and had seen the Dark Lady sitting in a chair and staring fiercely at if as if she wanted Clara out of her house.
No one knows who the Dark Lady is, but her intimidating presence has distressed everyone who has ever been here. Victor Marlish once woke up one morning and screamed his head off as the strange woman stared him from bedside. She then turned away and vanished through the closed door to the hallway. Victor once ran from the visage of her head and vague figure coming down the attic stairs toward him.
Most of the phenomenon occurred during the ten
months in 1948 that the Marlish Family lived here. During a séance the
following January 1949, a Spiritualist, a reporter and a self-proclaimed witch
and psychic made contact with the ghosts in the presence of James and Clara
Marlish. The psychic felt the earthborn spirits of two children, possibly killed
here by their mother, who later took her life here, possibly. During an attempt
to talk to the ghosts through spirit writing, the enigmatic message, “Not Dead,”
came through while the psychic was trying to communicate.
As late as 1982, random investigations at Marlish House have recorded and filmed orbs, sounds and strange light effects. A photograph taken in the early morning hours of June 1982 shows the dark form of a woman staring down from a second floor window. Several locations have analyzed the photograph trying to explain it and believe it just might be genuine.
History: The full history of Marlish House is unknown, but it is believed she was built sometime at the end of the Eighteenth Century. Several unidentified families have called her home up to 1891 when an influenza epidemic hit the island. It wasn’t inhabited again until during the 1940s; a soldier heading off to war left his wife and children here before being called to duty. The three of them lived here cut off from the outside world for three years without servants or human contact. A new village doctor in 1943 discovered the misplaced medical records of the children and headed to the house to update his records and found the mother and children dead in house of unspecific reasons. The Marlish Family acquired the house in 1948 and stayed only about ten months before they realized they couldn’t live there. The local magistrate then retired without selling the house again and since then it has stood where it is now; untouched and uninhabited for over fifty years.
Identity of Ghosts: No records are available of ownership of Marlish House prior to 1945, so there are no confirmed records beyond verbal stories passed down since 1948. It has been suggested the ghosts in the house possibly date from two, possibly three, separate time periods.
Comments: The Others (2001). Description based on the movie and numerous actual cases, most notably Little Dean Hall, Gloucestershire, England.