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Would you buy a haunted house in Kingsclere?

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We found a beautiful Victorian detached house in a secluded position just outside of Kingsclere. No work had been done on the place for 30 or 40 years, it was empty and the grounds were overgrown but the potential was great and we were looking for a project. All looking good so far, price agreed at £690,000 which was forty grand under our budget and our surveyor picked up a few niggles but reported that the place was generally a solid buy.

So we decided to stay a couple of nights in the area to check traffic, flight paths etc before we went ahead and do a little due diligence as you do.

Whatever you do, don't buy the old Lansdown's house

We were having our evening meal in The Star Inn one evening and mentioned to a couple of elderly local drinkers that we were looking to buy in the area. 'Whatever you do, don't buy the old Lansdown's house - the house we were looking at - there's goings on there that ain't right!' Then the barman joined the conversation and said there was talk of unexplained noises and movements in the house.

A ghostly room, would you buy a haunted house? This spooked my wife and she said she could never feel right about the house knowing at times she will be alone there. So we pulled out. The estate agent in Basingstoke is hopping mad with us and is doing everything to get us back on track, but it's not going to happen.

Are we right to pull out? What would you do?

By: Stressed Andrew


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Timelord

Timelord

There are no such things as ghosts or haunted houses, it's people attributing 'supernatural' reasons to normal events. An old will creak and make funny noises, it's not ghosts, it's an old house settling, moving and generally being old.
So called "mediums" are con artists. They have a meeting, an accomplice hangs about in the queue and picks up a few names of deceased relatives. Then, wonder of wonders, when the show starts the "medium" gets messages from these names. People will deny this, mostly because they don't like being taken for fools.
11/09/19 Timelord
2
resident ghost

resident ghost

where is Lansdown House in kingsclere?
01/03/16 resident ghost
-3
Kazzyhillier

Kazzyhillier

I would get a local mediums advice xx
01/03/16 Kazzyhillier
-2
Tom

Tom

My Nan's old house was haunted. I never believed until I stayed a night in that house, it was undeniable. I remember things used to go missing all the time and turn up in odd places and sometimes you would see people walking around the house, just shadows but if you chased them they would be gone. There were cold spots, a particular corridor that the dog HATED. He would lay in front of the door, leap up randomly and snarl at it and this was a whacking great Golden Retriever who would happily be pushed around with the hoover rather than get up. One memorable occasion I walked in to find my nan cooking and she was just ranting at the ceiling about how she was fed up and sick to death of this and there was a massive splash from behind us and I turned round and the tv remote was floating in the sink. She just picked it up, went Thank You! and stormed off.

But there was never really any danger, no one was ever hurt. The house did have a cellar that was only accessible from the outside and there were actually shackles on the wall down there but apparently in houses as old as it was this is common. It got a historical plaque down there.

And of course the corridor I would not have gone into alone at night personally but I know she did many a time and was always perfectly fine. Haunted doesn't always mean a bad buy. Old houses will always have some history you know.
18/11/15 Tom
2
Stalag14

Stalag14

"buttcrack" ?

Actually it's Charlotte, North Carolina.

As for "vibrant global city that is London"

London is the a***hole of England.
15/09/15 Stalag14
-1
Felicity T

Felicity T

The estate agent would be hopping mad, wouldn't he? He's just seen a nice fat commission of maybe 1.5% or ten grand start slipping away. A commission, might I add, that he has done bugger all for.

I suppose to buy or not depends on whether you are going to do it up and sell it on or live in it yourself. If you are going to live in it then your wife has got a point. I would never forgive him if my husband left me alone in a house where I was constantly on edge listening for the slightest noise. And if a ghost did appear I'd be out the door of the house and the marriage like a shot.

Also the house seller's solicitor is supposed to declare if there is anything known to be wrong with the house. Although how the solicitor can say with certainty if there is or is not ghosts in possession is beyond me.

Have you done any research to see if there is anything behind the rumours that it's haunted? When I was at school in Maldon we did a project on haunted houses and there was an old isolated place nearby called Stammers Farm which was known locally to be haunted. Faces at the windows when it was known to be empty, screams as you passed, that sort of thing. A bit of research in local newspaper archives and with locals showed there had been a suicide there in 1956 or thereabouts which no doubt gave rise to the rumours if nothing else.

Take no notice of Stalag 14. If you want to go live in Buttcrack, Tennessee or wherever he said and marry your cousin and have kids with webbed feet then take his advice. But I'm guessing by choosing Kingsclere you want to live within a reasonable commute of the vibrant global city that is London. Good luck whatever route you decide upon!
15/09/15 Felicity T
6
Stalag14

Stalag14

"Haunted"..... "Medium"....."Reading".....

Bloody hell I'm stuck in the 12th century.

Help me get back to rational thought and away from this nonsense.
15/09/15 Stalag14
0
stevebrt

stevebrt

Depends who is doing the haunting. Some are harmless others are not. I would get a medium in the house and do a reading
14/09/15 stevebrt
3
Stalag14

Stalag14

Hmmmm...£730.000 to spend on a house; get a life and emigrate to USA, or Australia, or New Zealand.

Friend of ours purchased a fabulous property, with several acres of land, in North Carolina, for $60,000, 2009 prices.

Overpriced krap in the UK, don't bother.

Better still: buy a large sea going barge and leave all the s**t behind, with that amount of money available you wouldn't see me for dust, I'd be gone.

As for being haunted; if you believe that nonsense you are beyond any help.
14/09/15 Stalag14
-1

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