Buildings speak of torture and mysteries

By Amal HEWAVISSENTHI

Still an atmosphere of horror hovers over those mysterious mansions – more commonly sepulchral buildings redolent of a grandeur that once dominated them. Yet these buildings often reek of a horrible crime and torture presumed to have occurred prior to their gradual ruination. And spine-chilling tragedies associated with these buildings appear to be shrouded in time's culture of secrecy.

Voices and sounds made hundred years ago may reverberate among the walls of the buildings where nobody resides now. These reverberations have now generated a new concept of ghosts haunting the gloomy corners of the edifices.

The Rose Hill of Montego Bay in Jamaica witnessed the most brutal activities by Anne Palmer within its walls, Anne Palmer was the daughter of a Priestess famous for her practice of magic powers. Anne Palmer, a woman of intense malice continued to have Rose Hill as an ostensibly religious place that was chiefly reserved for magic operations and sacrifices.

Poisoned

Hundreds of people specially singled out by her, stayed in the mansion to serve her in everything - from cooking to sacrificial rites in the house. She married for the third time and in addition, she had chosen some from her slaves as lovers. She is said to have secretly murdered all of them either by poisoning or strangling while they were asleep.

Anne Palmer's premeditated malice in murdering slave maids and infants; her sacrificial victims, in rituals sent shock waves through Rose Hill. It is also said that she had ordered her slaves to drag the dead bodies along a tunnel – like passage under the house towards its outlet which opened to the sea. There, the bodies were buried on the beach. Her domestic tyranny accounted for large scale killings and ultimately she was discovered to have been murdered on her sacrificial altar.

Hotel of apparitions

Steven King who stayed in room No.217 of Hotel Stanley of Colorado – USA wrote a novel based on his experiences with strange sounds and ghosts in the hotel. Throughout the sleepless night King heard soft, mysterious music from rooms and saw the keys of the piano being pressed by invisible fingers. The horror film “shining” directed by Stanly Kubrik was based on Steven King's novel that dealt with the ghostly visions in Hotel Stanley in Colorado.

Steven King had seen children playing on the corridors of the hotel where nobody except King was staying that night. The hotel had earlier been a grand spot for formal functions and frolic. However, Stanely Kubrik's “Shining” is an interesting horror film with the ghosts of Hotel Stanley as the theme.

With the ever increasing reports of the presence of ghosts in the mansion of Woodchester in Gloucestershire – England, researchers of ghosts have found the building an important and interesting place of study. The workers who come for construction work of this mansion had been frightened to death by the strange presence and eery sounds in the building.

The completion of the building is becoming a remote possibility as workers have met with accidental death in the mansion while construction and renovation work were going on. Researchers conclude that certain form of murder or torture might have occurred within the mansion or its premises before the building was erected.

The Schirrid Inn of England is a traditional restaurant famous for crimes and torture that probably occurred in it. The Schirrid Mountain Inn is roughly calculated to be 900 years old and has been abandoned for hundreds of years. The second floor of the inn had been a tribunal hall in the past. Almost hundred and ninety persons have been hanged on a beam of this building and the beam with the marks of the tightened ropes is still to be seen. Later the whole building including the tribunal became Schirrid Mountain Inn.

The tower of death

The most famous story of terror associated with the celebrated Tower of London is the execution of countess Salisbury. During the fifteenth century, Countess Salisbury was brutally executed for conspiring against English throne.

According to English legends the countess was seriously convicted on false allegations of anti-government operations somewhere in 1541. It is said that she frantically ran from the executioner screeching in terror and letting out all claims of innocence against the false allegations.

However, legend has it that the executioner rounded her up and killed her in the most brutal manner imaginable. It happened near the Tower of London.

The next tragedy connected with the Tower of London is the execution of the Queen of Henry the VIII by decapitation. The queen was decapitated in 1536 at the Tower of London.

Poisoned by ghost?

Bell Farm is a grand house made of stone and planks. This particular abode was owned by John Bell and his family which drew to a tragic end owing to a force of unexplained mystery. According to legends of the village, John Bell and his family had long been seriously afflicted by a ghostly presence in the house. John Bell was said to have suffered from extreme anxiety to the point of neurosis and had been obsessed with a female ghost.

It was revealed that the pressure exerted by the belief of a ghostly presence around him, finally led to the sudden death of John Bell.

A phial of black liquid was found lying by his body and none had the least idea of what is contained because the liquid was not a form of poison.

Most events and people connected with these buildings and places are shrouded in mystery.

It is a well-known fact that screams and unusual sounds produced by horrible carnage that once took place in such places, continue to echo giving the impression that such places are haunted.