Speaker 1: Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClane Smith, where
Speaker 1: for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories
Speaker 1: and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make
Speaker 1: it into the previous show. In last week's episode, The
Speaker 1: Cold Black Cloud, we heard the chilling tale of the
Speaker 1: so called Runcorn Thing. We're back in nineteen fifty two,
Speaker 1: the Jones and Glynn family of number one Byron Street
Speaker 1: in Runcorn, in the northwest of England were apparently harassed
Speaker 1: by a terrifying poltergeist. For me writing these stories, peculiar
Speaker 1: events like this are about as good as it gets
Speaker 1: for Unexplained, With multiple participants and numerous locations all seemingly
Speaker 1: linked by this strange and unnerving event. The involvement of
Speaker 1: Richard Whittington Egan, who at the time was a well
Speaker 1: known chronicler of true crime and the history of the
Speaker 1: local area, was an added bonus, not least of all
Speaker 1: because he provides me with the useful, if somewhat stretched
Speaker 1: segue into this week's extra. In twenty sixteen, Whittington Egan
Speaker 1: published a biography of Eliot O'Donnell titled The Master ghost Hunter.
Speaker 1: As a writer of numerous works of fiction spanning a
Speaker 1: variety of genres. It was mostly for his work chronicling
Speaker 1: apparent real life ghost stories that O'Donnell became most renowned.
Speaker 1: Born in eighteen seventy two in Clifton in the southwest
Speaker 1: of England, by the nineteen tens, O'Donnell had established himself
Speaker 1: as a leading figure in what was becoming an increasingly
Speaker 1: popular genre. O'Donnell wrote widely about all manner of apparent
Speaker 1: hauntings in Britain and the United States, but there was
Speaker 1: one story, or rather location, for which he had a
Speaker 1: particular soft spot. The place, a mid terrorist George townhouse
Speaker 1: in London's Berkeley Square, is often referred to as quite
Speaker 1: simply the most haunted house in London. It was as
Speaker 1: a schoolboy that O'Donnell first apparently visited the property, making
Speaker 1: his way to it alone through the dark and grimy
Speaker 1: streets of Victorian London, feeling not so much that it
Speaker 1: was his choice, but more that the house was somehow
Speaker 1: summoning him to its door. On arrival, he was struck
Speaker 1: by its grim and tattered fasart that stuck out immediately
Speaker 1: amongst its more sophisticated neighbors, even then, Berkeley Square was
Speaker 1: one of the most exclusive locations in the capital. But
Speaker 1: something seemed to have infected this particular property of rot,
Speaker 1: that had seemingly seeped into the brick and would not
Speaker 1: let go. It was easy to see how it had
Speaker 1: garnered its unnerving reputation, and for the young schoolboy standing
Speaker 1: in its sadow and gazing up but its four stories
Speaker 1: of darkened, dusty windows, the sense of something heavy pulling
Speaker 1: at him from inside it. There was absolutely no doubt
Speaker 1: that the rumors about it were true. Having been completed
Speaker 1: in seventeen fifty fifty, Berkeley Square began life as the
Speaker 1: home of one General Frampton. However, it wasn't until the
Speaker 1: late nineteenth century that the properties apparently haunted reputation is
Speaker 1: thought to have been established. How and why this reputation
Speaker 1: took hold is not entirely clear. Writing in the Quarterly
Speaker 1: Journal Notes and Queries in November eighteen seventy two, Lord
Speaker 1: Lyttleton said, of the ominous abode, it is quite true
Speaker 1: there is a house in Berkeley Square said to be
Speaker 1: haunted and long unoccupied. On that account, there are strained
Speaker 1: stories about it into which this opponent cannot enter. Then,
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy nine, one journalist writing in Mayfair magazine
Speaker 1: made a startling revelation stating the house in Berkeley Square
Speaker 1: contains at least one room, of which the atmosphere is
Speaker 1: supernaturally fatal to body and mind alike. A girl saw, heard,
Speaker 1: and felt such horror in it that she went mad
Speaker 1: and never recovered sanity enough to tell how or why.
Speaker 1: A gentleman, a disbeliever in ghosts, dared to sleep in
Speaker 1: it and was found a corpse in the middle of
Speaker 1: the floor after frantically ringing for help in vain. Rumors
Speaker 1: suggest other cases of the same kind, all ending in death, madness,
Speaker 1: or both as the result of sleeping or trying to
Speaker 1: sleep in that room. The very party walls of the house,
Speaker 1: when touched, are found saturated with electric horror. The writer continued.
Speaker 1: It is uninhabited save by an elderly man and woman
Speaker 1: who act as care takers, but even they have no
Speaker 1: access to the room that is kept locked and the
Speaker 1: key kept in the hands of a mysterious and seemingly
Speaker 1: nameless person who comes to the house once every six months,
Speaker 1: locks up the elderly people in the basement, and occupies
Speaker 1: himself in it for hours, all of which writer Eliot
Speaker 1: O'Donnell would later lap up with great enthusiasm. As his
Speaker 1: fascination for the property and its haunted tales intensifight, he
Speaker 1: became an advocate for its haunted status, taking any opportunity
Speaker 1: he could to promote it. Many dismissed the stories, claiming
Speaker 1: that they were simply the invention of a disgruntled caretaker
Speaker 1: of the time who was keen to determine people from
Speaker 1: buying the property. Others believed they stemmed from stories relating
Speaker 1: to one specific owner, an apparently eccentric recluse who let
Speaker 1: the property fall into disrepair. The man, described as being
Speaker 1: tall with a haggard appearance, apparently only ever used one
Speaker 1: room of the house, but was said to sometimes be
Speaker 1: seen wandering the other rooms at night, taking with him
Speaker 1: a candle to light the way. If seen from the street,
Speaker 1: it is easy to see how this strange, unknown figure,
Speaker 1: glimpsed only as a silhouette through flickers of soft orange light,
Speaker 1: could have been mistaken for something more ominous. O'Donnell counted
Speaker 1: all this, however, with a number of stories he collated
Speaker 1: over the years, each of which gave a little more
Speaker 1: flesh to the bones of the rumors, and there was
Speaker 1: one story above all that seemed to lend them particular weight.
Speaker 1: It was on one late midwinter night sometime in the
Speaker 1: mid nineteenth century that two sailors recorded only as Mick
Speaker 1: and Bill found themselves aimlessly wandering the streets of London
Speaker 1: after a night of heavy drinking. With no money and
Speaker 1: only a half drunk bottle of rum left a share
Speaker 1: between them. As the air grew increasingly icy, the pair
Speaker 1: began to hunt around desperately for somewhere to shelter for
Speaker 1: the night. After plodding the streets for hours, they eventually
Speaker 1: ended up at Berkeley Square. When they spotted of the
Speaker 1: sale sign outside one particularly darkened townhouse on the square's
Speaker 1: western side. Bill suggested they try and find a way
Speaker 1: into it, having failed to open any of the ground
Speaker 1: floor windows, The men converged on the front doorstep and
Speaker 1: stared up at the large brass door knocker that glinted
Speaker 1: in the moonlight the number fifty painted in gold on
Speaker 1: the glass paneling above it. After giving each other a
Speaker 1: conspiratorial look, the pair quickly glanced about the square to
Speaker 1: make sure they were alone. Then at the count of
Speaker 1: three gave the door a hefty shove. With a muffled crack,
Speaker 1: The door inched open, and the men pushed through into
Speaker 1: the house, Relieved to be finally out of the wind.
Speaker 1: Mick quickly closed the door behind them and lit a match,
Speaker 1: revealing a grand stone hallway with a wide stairwell at
Speaker 1: the end of it. With the thick smell of damp
Speaker 1: in the air, the pair decided to find somewhere upstairs
Speaker 1: where they could light a fire for warmth. Having spied
Speaker 1: a dresser in one of the rooms, the men quickly
Speaker 1: dismantled it for firewood. Then, along with some ripped up
Speaker 1: skirting and strips of wallpaper, they carried it all to
Speaker 1: a small back room on the second floor. After bundling
Speaker 1: some of the wood into the rusty fire grate, the
Speaker 1: men was soon basking in the glow of a small fire,
Speaker 1: sat huddled together on the floor as they cheerily passed
Speaker 1: the bottle of rum between themselves. Having soon grown tired,
Speaker 1: the men eventually bed it down for the night. It
Speaker 1: was some time later when Bill woke with a start
Speaker 1: to find the fire had all but burned out. Bill
Speaker 1: tossed some more wood onto it as He shivered in
Speaker 1: the dark, his breath billowing out in clouds before him. Then,
Speaker 1: just as he was about to lie down again, he
Speaker 1: heard the faint sound of something banging from somewhere deep
Speaker 1: in the recesses of the house. As Bill listened carefully
Speaker 1: trying to establish where exactly the sound was coming from,
Speaker 1: Mick stirred beside him and then opened his eyes. What
Speaker 1: is it, he asked, Listen, said Bill, pointing to his ear.
Speaker 1: Then the sound came again, like something heavy being knocked
Speaker 1: against a wall. It's just the front door, suggested Mick. However,
Speaker 1: with both of them too tired and cold to move,
Speaker 1: neither were particularly keen on going down to fix it.
Speaker 1: But as they lay down once more to sleep, they
Speaker 1: soon became aware of a second sound, something softer like
Speaker 1: footsteps that seemed to be making their way up the stairs.
Speaker 1: Mick and Bill looked anxiously to each other. What if
Speaker 1: it was a police officer coming to inspect the property,
Speaker 1: they thought, But something in the footsteps seemed to suggest otherwise.
Speaker 1: It was hard to put their finger on it exactly.
Speaker 1: It was almost as if the steps didn't have any
Speaker 1: weight to them or the While the sound drew nearer,
Speaker 1: approaching up the stairs and on to the landing, before
Speaker 1: eventually stopping outside the door of their room. Who's there,
Speaker 1: they cried, but there was no reply. Then the rattling
Speaker 1: of the door handle was followed by the creak of
Speaker 1: the hinges as the door was slowly pushed open. When
Speaker 1: the police discovered Bill some hours later, he was found
Speaker 1: lying on the pavement outside the house, babbling incoherently. After
Speaker 1: finally coming round, he explained all to the officers about
Speaker 1: how he and Mick had broken into the property and
Speaker 1: about the hideous, unnameable thing that had attacked them in it.
Speaker 1: Bill had somehow managed to run past the thing and
Speaker 1: escape out the door as he heard Mix's screams coming
Speaker 1: down the hall behind him. He didn't know where Mick
Speaker 1: was and had been too scared to go back inside.
Speaker 1: Sometime later, Bill accompanied the police on a search of
Speaker 1: the property, where in the back yard they found Mick's
Speaker 1: dead body lying in a pool of blood, surrounded by
Speaker 1: shards of glass, his neck hideously broken from the fall,
Speaker 1: and above the huge splintered hole in the second floor
Speaker 1: window from where he had evidently jumped. Eliot O'Donnell recounted
Speaker 1: the story of Bill and Mick the Sailors in his
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty two book Ghosts of London, but as Yan Bondison,
Speaker 1: in an article in the Christmas twenty fifteen edition of
Speaker 1: The forteen Times magazine pointed out, he had also given
Speaker 1: the story in his nineteen twenty four book Ghosts Helpful
Speaker 1: and Harmful, and had in fact been telling the story
Speaker 1: since at least as far back as nineteen oh eight,
Speaker 1: the main problem with this being that it had changed
Speaker 1: significantly with each telling. The story began at first as
Speaker 1: a simple tale of two sailors being scared out at
Speaker 1: the property by some kind of phantom, before evolving to
Speaker 1: become a story about two sailors called Bert and Charlie, who, again,
Speaker 1: although being horrifically scarred by the incident, was still both
Speaker 1: fortunate to escape with their lives. By the nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: two retelling, however, Bert and Charlie had morphed again, this
Speaker 1: time to Bill and Mick, with the latter not being
Speaker 1: so fortunate. All of which suggests, of course, that O'Donnell
Speaker 1: made the whole thing up, or at least embellished an
Speaker 1: earlier tale which most likely had no substance to it today.
Speaker 1: Fifty Berkeley Square, which up until twenty fifteen was home
Speaker 1: to the antiquarian bookstore Mags Brothers, remains the subject of
Speaker 1: many ghost related stories. None, however, it seems, have been
Speaker 1: verified by anyone who's actually lived or worked at the property,
Speaker 1: all of whom claimed not to have seen or experienced
Speaker 1: anything untoward. In truth. As well suggested earlier, the stories
Speaker 1: seemed to stem from the impression taken of the house
Speaker 1: and the so called eccentric man who occupied it in
Speaker 1: the late nineteenth century, as opposed to any genuine recording
Speaker 1: of supernatural events. It is said that the man Thomas Myers,
Speaker 1: took ownership of the property sometime around eighteen sixty with
Speaker 1: the intention of making it a home for himself and
Speaker 1: his fiancee. Only days before the two were due to
Speaker 1: get married, however, Thomas's fiance broke up with him, leaving
Speaker 1: him to live in the house alone. Myers is said
Speaker 1: to have been so devastated as a result that he
Speaker 1: became a recluse, employing two house servants to look after
Speaker 1: him while he remained mostly cocooned within the walls of
Speaker 1: only one room, not even having the energy to unwrap
Speaker 1: the carpets and furniture he'd ordered for himself and his
Speaker 1: one time future wife. As a result, the house fell
Speaker 1: steadily into disrepair, leaving it with the gloomy, disheveled air
Speaker 1: that it was later to become known for, and which
Speaker 1: would prove such fertile ground for the belief that it
Speaker 1: was indeed haunted by ghoulish and malignant specters. Instead, like
Speaker 1: so many ghost stories, its walls were not haunted by
Speaker 1: something physical, but the abstract, yet very real pain of heartbreak.
Speaker 1: If you enjoy Unexplained and would like to help support us,
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Speaker 1: covered on the show, is now available to buy worldwide.
Speaker 1: You can purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones,
Speaker 1: among other bookstores. All elements of Unexplained, including the show's music,
Speaker 1: are produced by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and
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Speaker 1: free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas
Speaker 1: regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you
Speaker 1: have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.
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