The Alleged Haunting of B—— House: Including a Journal Kept During the Tenancy of Colonel Lemesurier Taylor

by John Patrick Crichton-Stuart (Editor)

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Genres: Horror

180 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1899

About the author

John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute, KT was a Scottish landed aristocrat, industrial magnate, antiquarian, scholar, philanthropist, and architectural patron.

When Bute succeeded to the marquisate at the age of just six months, his vast inheritance reportedly made him the richest man in the world. His conversion to Catholicism from the Church of Scotland at the age of 21 scandalised Victorian society and led Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli to use the Marquess as the basis for the eponymous hero of his novel Lothair, published in 1870. Marrying into one of Britain's most illustrious Catholic families, that of Duke of Norfolk, Bute became one of the leaders of the British Catholic community. His expenditure on building and restoration made him the foremost architectural patron of the 19th century.

Lord Bute died in 1900, at the age of 53; his heart was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. He was a Knight Grand Cross of the Holy Sepulchre, Knight of the Order of St. Gregory the Great and Hereditary Keeper of Rothesay Castle.

Reviews

[Eddie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thought I'd do some spooky reading!

Ballechin House was situated near Aberfeldy in Perthshire, Scotland. As a kid, my dad actually spent some time living on the grounds, sometime shortly before the main house was demolished. Growing up, he'd often tell us stories of living at haunted Ballechin House and seeing its ghosts (on later reflection, I think he took at least some of his stories from The Shining, but...). So when I saw they'd actually written a book about the place I figured it'd be interesting to check it out.

This book is comprised mainly of a journal kept by Ada Goodrich Freer, who was some kind of medium and who stayed in the house for a few months in the 1890s. There's also some correspondence written by others who'd been acquainted with the house and the family who had lived there. That was fairly interesting, but the book, despite not being particularly long, gets very repetitive. There's lots of descriptions of various bangings and clankings in the house. Lots of lists of who slept in what bedroom. There were a few ghostly apparitions, but mostly it was just random noises. And characters who sometimes say things like, 'I woke up and my bed was shaking, my covers were being ripped off, and a ghostly old woman who I'd never seen before was standing by my bed, but I wasn't scared.' How could you not be scared?! That sounds terrifying! This book would be fun if it were a bit more sensationalised. Also, almost all of the names are anonymised, so that gets confusing, although it doesn't really impede understanding.

Apparently Freer was denounced as a hack after this book was published. I can't speak to that, but I was kind of disappointed that she didn't have much in the way of commentary on the phenomena she'd supposedly witnessed. It really was mainly a long list of banging sounds various people claimed they heard as they rotated around the house. It's mildly interesting as an account of a Victorian-era haunted house, I guess, but not a super thrilling reading experience.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boring

Confused who was speaking. Bored. Victorian language a problem. Wondered if the ebook was properly done wonder if ebooks of old, public domain are being 'wokafied' by all the blue haired Karen's out there. Amazing that they didn't make one of the ghosts a member of their club. I am going back to real books and only read ebooks if it is something unimportant. Be wary of ebooks they can be altered at any time even after downloading and anyone can be a publisher and upload books as evidenced by this book.