The Haunted Realm: Echoes from Beyond the Tomb

by Simon Marsden

"The Haunted Realm" is a collection of startlingly atmospheric photographs of eerie sites throughout England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Houses and mansions, castles and internationally acclaimed photographer Simon Marsden has left no stone unturned in his quest to capture the ghostly nature of these strange places. Accompanying the photos is his fascinating commentary on the apparitions and spirit manifestations that have been reported at each particular site - as well as the strange, often macabre real-life events said to be the cause of the hauntings. Black-and-white photographs throughout.

Genres: Photography, Nonfiction, Art

128 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

Reviews

[Loren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intrigued by “the magic of time and light and the enigma of ‘reality,’” photographer Simon Marsden roamed Britain and Ireland, seeking to document the “truly eerie atmosphere” of famous and unfamiliar haunted ruins, castles, graveyards, and wilderness trails. He didn’t set out to prove or disprove the existence of ghosts, but on his travels, many people spontaneously offered tales of the supernatural. In several instances, the atmosphere itself was too much for Marsden and he fled. In Oxfordshire, he was even attacked and thrown backward while photographing a Bronze Age earthwork where, it’s said, the Devil had been summoned. Unfortunately, that photo isn’t included in this book.

Marsden employs a variety of techniques, including infrared exterior shots and garden views, close cropping on statuary or objects like the mummified head of the Earl of Bothwell, and the occasional interior like Bulwer-Lytton’s study. Some of the images, like the garden and Jacobean façade of Arley Hall, are merely exquisite photographs. Others, like the foreshortened perspective of Guy’s Cliffe -- “The Mansion That Died” -- seen through bare branches and mounds of silver bushes, its empty windows bright with the clouds behind them, are truly spooky. Some photographs might even provide evidence of the paranormal. A “strange mist” clings to the top of Creech Hill, rather than lying in the valley like a proper fog. An unexplainable black object, like a scarf surrounding a face, floats over the churchyard near the ruins of Borley Rectory, once the most haunted house in England.

You might buy the book for the photographs, as I did, but the essays that accompany each site are well worth reading for their creep factor. Marsden relates tales of nuns walled up and left to die, Lord de Soulis sacrificing children to summon his vampire familiar named Red Robin, ghostly chanting in London’s Brompton Cemetery, children locked into closets by their mothers and forgotten, Sir James Lowther’s necrophilia, and the Way that leads to the end of the world. I’m ready to plan my trip to England now.

This edition updates the 1986 version, adding 31 photographs and 17 new locations. Beware, though. If you buy this book, you might be inclined to track down Marsden’s others: Visions of Poe, Phantoms of the Isles, Journal of a Ghosthunter, and In Ruins. I will be.

This review originally appeared in Morbid Curiosity #8.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprisingly really good! Moody, evocative, large-scale photography paired with well-written ghost tales and local lore, along with the author's own experiences at the sites — all of this combines to make this groovy old book better than most collections of hauntings.

[Krista the Krazy Kataloguer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great photography! Makes me want to go to those places...with a friend!

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful black & white infra-red photography accompanies the tales of haunted places and ghostly apparitions.

Pity so many of the tales were from so long ago and somtimes sparse on the details.

[Kimberly Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

The b&w photography is beautifully presented. Lyrically haunting as befits the short summaries of the possible haunting(s) of the homes accompanying the photos.