WEBVTT - Season 6 Episode 7 Extra: Square Root 0:00:10.320 --> 0:00:14.640 Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClane Smith, where 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:16.960 for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:19.560 and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:23.360 it into the previous show. In last week's episode, The 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:26.599 Cold Black Cloud, we heard the chilling tale of the 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:30.440 so called Runcorn Thing. We're back in nineteen fifty two, 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:34.000 the Jones and Glynn family of number one Byron Street 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:37.920 in Runcorn, in the northwest of England were apparently harassed 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:43.160 by a terrifying poltergeist. For me writing these stories, peculiar 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:45.640 events like this are about as good as it gets 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:51.320 for Unexplained, With multiple participants and numerous locations all seemingly 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:55.440 linked by this strange and unnerving event. The involvement of 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:58.600 Richard Whittington Egan, who at the time was a well 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:01.320 known chronicler of true crime and the history of the 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:04.800 local area, was an added bonus, not least of all 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:08.319 because he provides me with the useful, if somewhat stretched 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:13.559 segue into this week's extra. In twenty sixteen, Whittington Egan 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:18.920 published a biography of Eliot O'Donnell titled The Master ghost Hunter. 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:23.040 As a writer of numerous works of fiction spanning a 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:26.959 variety of genres. It was mostly for his work chronicling 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:31.280 apparent real life ghost stories that O'Donnell became most renowned. 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:35.720 Born in eighteen seventy two in Clifton in the southwest 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:40.080 of England, by the nineteen tens, O'Donnell had established himself 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:43.199 as a leading figure in what was becoming an increasingly 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:47.960 popular genre. O'Donnell wrote widely about all manner of apparent 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:51.720 hauntings in Britain and the United States, but there was 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:55.480 one story, or rather location, for which he had a 0:01:55.480 --> 0:02:00.880 particular soft spot. The place, a mid terrorist George townhouse 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:04.800 in London's Berkeley Square, is often referred to as quite 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:09.280 simply the most haunted house in London. It was as 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:14.200 a schoolboy that O'Donnell first apparently visited the property, making 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:17.120 his way to it alone through the dark and grimy 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:20.800 streets of Victorian London, feeling not so much that it 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:24.320 was his choice, but more that the house was somehow 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:29.079 summoning him to its door. On arrival, he was struck 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:33.000 by its grim and tattered fasart that stuck out immediately 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:38.360 amongst its more sophisticated neighbors, even then, Berkeley Square was 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:42.160 one of the most exclusive locations in the capital. But 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:47.079 something seemed to have infected this particular property of rot, 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:50.720 that had seemingly seeped into the brick and would not 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:54.639 let go. It was easy to see how it had 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:59.520 garnered its unnerving reputation, and for the young schoolboy standing 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:03.000 in its sadow and gazing up but its four stories 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:07.440 of darkened, dusty windows, the sense of something heavy pulling 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:10.880 at him from inside it. There was absolutely no doubt 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:22.160 that the rumors about it were true. Having been completed 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:26.320 in seventeen fifty fifty, Berkeley Square began life as the 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:30.160 home of one General Frampton. However, it wasn't until the 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:34.880 late nineteenth century that the properties apparently haunted reputation is 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:38.720 thought to have been established. How and why this reputation 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:42.920 took hold is not entirely clear. Writing in the Quarterly 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:47.360 Journal Notes and Queries in November eighteen seventy two, Lord 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:51.240 Lyttleton said, of the ominous abode, it is quite true 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:53.880 there is a house in Berkeley Square said to be 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:59.040 haunted and long unoccupied. On that account, there are strained 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:04.640 stories about it into which this opponent cannot enter. Then, 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:09.240 in eighteen seventy nine, one journalist writing in Mayfair magazine 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:15.200 made a startling revelation stating the house in Berkeley Square 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:19.360 contains at least one room, of which the atmosphere is 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:25.640 supernaturally fatal to body and mind alike. A girl saw, heard, 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:29.080 and felt such horror in it that she went mad 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:33.200 and never recovered sanity enough to tell how or why. 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:38.560 A gentleman, a disbeliever in ghosts, dared to sleep in 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:41.080 it and was found a corpse in the middle of 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:46.239 the floor after frantically ringing for help in vain. Rumors 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:51.120 suggest other cases of the same kind, all ending in death, madness, 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:54.640 or both as the result of sleeping or trying to 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:58.960 sleep in that room. The very party walls of the house, 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:05.400 when touched, are found saturated with electric horror. The writer continued. 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:09.400 It is uninhabited save by an elderly man and woman 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.039 who act as care takers, but even they have no 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:17.320 access to the room that is kept locked and the 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:21.000 key kept in the hands of a mysterious and seemingly 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:25.920 nameless person who comes to the house once every six months, 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.720 locks up the elderly people in the basement, and occupies 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:35.000 himself in it for hours, all of which writer Eliot 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:39.640 O'Donnell would later lap up with great enthusiasm. As his 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:44.160 fascination for the property and its haunted tales intensifight, he 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:48.520 became an advocate for its haunted status, taking any opportunity 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:54.279 he could to promote it. Many dismissed the stories, claiming 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.760 that they were simply the invention of a disgruntled caretaker 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:00.640 of the time who was keen to determine people from 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:05.480 buying the property. Others believed they stemmed from stories relating 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:10.120 to one specific owner, an apparently eccentric recluse who let 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:15.120 the property fall into disrepair. The man, described as being 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:19.440 tall with a haggard appearance, apparently only ever used one 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:22.320 room of the house, but was said to sometimes be 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:26.240 seen wandering the other rooms at night, taking with him 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:30.080 a candle to light the way. If seen from the street, 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:33.880 it is easy to see how this strange, unknown figure, 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:38.320 glimpsed only as a silhouette through flickers of soft orange light, 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:44.080 could have been mistaken for something more ominous. O'Donnell counted 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:47.360 all this, however, with a number of stories he collated 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:50.800 over the years, each of which gave a little more 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:54.320 flesh to the bones of the rumors, and there was 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:58.520 one story above all that seemed to lend them particular weight. 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:09.480 It was on one late midwinter night sometime in the 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:14.160 mid nineteenth century that two sailors recorded only as Mick 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:18.400 and Bill found themselves aimlessly wandering the streets of London 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:22.720 after a night of heavy drinking. With no money and 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:25.679 only a half drunk bottle of rum left a share 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:30.040 between them. As the air grew increasingly icy, the pair 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:33.400 began to hunt around desperately for somewhere to shelter for 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:38.040 the night. After plodding the streets for hours, they eventually 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:41.840 ended up at Berkeley Square. When they spotted of the 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:46.960 sale sign outside one particularly darkened townhouse on the square's 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:50.720 western side. Bill suggested they try and find a way 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:54.880 into it, having failed to open any of the ground 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:58.880 floor windows, The men converged on the front doorstep and 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:02.680 stared up at the large brass door knocker that glinted 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:07.000 in the moonlight the number fifty painted in gold on 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:11.160 the glass paneling above it. After giving each other a 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:15.680 conspiratorial look, the pair quickly glanced about the square to 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:19.040 make sure they were alone. Then at the count of 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:24.040 three gave the door a hefty shove. With a muffled crack, 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:28.760 The door inched open, and the men pushed through into 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:32.120 the house, Relieved to be finally out of the wind. 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:36.160 Mick quickly closed the door behind them and lit a match, 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:40.400 revealing a grand stone hallway with a wide stairwell at 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:44.000 the end of it. With the thick smell of damp 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:47.680 in the air, the pair decided to find somewhere upstairs 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:51.760 where they could light a fire for warmth. Having spied 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:55.120 a dresser in one of the rooms, the men quickly 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:59.080 dismantled it for firewood. Then, along with some ripped up 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:03.000 skirting and strips of wallpaper, they carried it all to 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:08.040 a small back room on the second floor. After bundling 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:11.120 some of the wood into the rusty fire grate, the 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:14.160 men was soon basking in the glow of a small fire, 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:18.280 sat huddled together on the floor as they cheerily passed 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:23.320 the bottle of rum between themselves. Having soon grown tired, 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:28.440 the men eventually bed it down for the night. It 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:31.319 was some time later when Bill woke with a start 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:35.840 to find the fire had all but burned out. Bill 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:38.720 tossed some more wood onto it as He shivered in 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:44.280 the dark, his breath billowing out in clouds before him. Then, 0:09:44.880 --> 0:09:47.480 just as he was about to lie down again, he 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:51.360 heard the faint sound of something banging from somewhere deep 0:09:51.440 --> 0:10:01.600 in the recesses of the house. As Bill listened carefully 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:05.640 trying to establish where exactly the sound was coming from, 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:10.560 Mick stirred beside him and then opened his eyes. What 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:16.360 is it, he asked, Listen, said Bill, pointing to his ear. 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:22.160 Then the sound came again, like something heavy being knocked 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:28.439 against a wall. It's just the front door, suggested Mick. However, 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:32.040 with both of them too tired and cold to move, 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:36.880 neither were particularly keen on going down to fix it. 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:40.439 But as they lay down once more to sleep, they 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:45.560 soon became aware of a second sound, something softer like 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:49.600 footsteps that seemed to be making their way up the stairs. 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:55.199 Mick and Bill looked anxiously to each other. What if 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:58.160 it was a police officer coming to inspect the property, 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:03.760 they thought, But something in the footsteps seemed to suggest otherwise. 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:07.000 It was hard to put their finger on it exactly. 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:10.800 It was almost as if the steps didn't have any 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:15.080 weight to them or the While the sound drew nearer, 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:19.520 approaching up the stairs and on to the landing, before 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:25.360 eventually stopping outside the door of their room. Who's there, 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:30.600 they cried, but there was no reply. Then the rattling 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:33.840 of the door handle was followed by the creak of 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:40.600 the hinges as the door was slowly pushed open. When 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:44.600 the police discovered Bill some hours later, he was found 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:49.920 lying on the pavement outside the house, babbling incoherently. After 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:54.199 finally coming round, he explained all to the officers about 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:57.240 how he and Mick had broken into the property and 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:01.720 about the hideous, unnameable thing that had attacked them in it. 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:06.400 Bill had somehow managed to run past the thing and 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:10.360 escape out the door as he heard Mix's screams coming 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:14.360 down the hall behind him. He didn't know where Mick 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:17.839 was and had been too scared to go back inside. 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:23.200 Sometime later, Bill accompanied the police on a search of 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:26.959 the property, where in the back yard they found Mick's 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:31.000 dead body lying in a pool of blood, surrounded by 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:35.680 shards of glass, his neck hideously broken from the fall, 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:40.800 and above the huge splintered hole in the second floor 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:53.199 window from where he had evidently jumped. Eliot O'Donnell recounted 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:55.800 the story of Bill and Mick the Sailors in his 0:12:55.960 --> 0:13:00.600 nineteen thirty two book Ghosts of London, but as Yan Bondison, 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:03.800 in an article in the Christmas twenty fifteen edition of 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:07.640 The forteen Times magazine pointed out, he had also given 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:11.280 the story in his nineteen twenty four book Ghosts Helpful 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:14.120 and Harmful, and had in fact been telling the story 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:16.800 since at least as far back as nineteen oh eight, 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:20.360 the main problem with this being that it had changed 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:24.920 significantly with each telling. The story began at first as 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:28.360 a simple tale of two sailors being scared out at 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:32.160 the property by some kind of phantom, before evolving to 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:36.600 become a story about two sailors called Bert and Charlie, who, again, 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:40.880 although being horrifically scarred by the incident, was still both 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:45.120 fortunate to escape with their lives. By the nineteen thirty 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:49.800 two retelling, however, Bert and Charlie had morphed again, this 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:53.120 time to Bill and Mick, with the latter not being 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:57.840 so fortunate. All of which suggests, of course, that O'Donnell 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.120 made the whole thing up, or at least embellished an 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:06.319 earlier tale which most likely had no substance to it today. 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:11.319 Fifty Berkeley Square, which up until twenty fifteen was home 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:15.760 to the antiquarian bookstore Mags Brothers, remains the subject of 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:21.120 many ghost related stories. None, however, it seems, have been 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:24.840 verified by anyone who's actually lived or worked at the property, 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:28.840 all of whom claimed not to have seen or experienced 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:35.640 anything untoward. In truth. As well suggested earlier, the stories 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:38.640 seemed to stem from the impression taken of the house 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:42.240 and the so called eccentric man who occupied it in 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:46.320 the late nineteenth century, as opposed to any genuine recording 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:51.200 of supernatural events. It is said that the man Thomas Myers, 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:55.400 took ownership of the property sometime around eighteen sixty with 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:58.040 the intention of making it a home for himself and 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:01.800 his fiancee. Only days before the two were due to 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:06.160 get married, however, Thomas's fiance broke up with him, leaving 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:10.000 him to live in the house alone. Myers is said 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:12.720 to have been so devastated as a result that he 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:16.520 became a recluse, employing two house servants to look after 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:20.160 him while he remained mostly cocooned within the walls of 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:23.760 only one room, not even having the energy to unwrap 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:27.160 the carpets and furniture he'd ordered for himself and his 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:31.480 one time future wife. As a result, the house fell 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:35.440 steadily into disrepair, leaving it with the gloomy, disheveled air 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:38.240 that it was later to become known for, and which 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:41.240 would prove such fertile ground for the belief that it 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:46.600 was indeed haunted by ghoulish and malignant specters. Instead, like 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:50.160 so many ghost stories, its walls were not haunted by 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:55.840 something physical, but the abstract, yet very real pain of heartbreak. 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:04.600 If you enjoy Unexplained and would like to help support us, 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:08.120 you can now do so via Patreon. To receive access 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:11.360 to add free episodes. Just go to patron dot com 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:15.320 forward slash Unexplained pod to sign up. Unexplained, the book 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:18.840 and audiobook, featuring ten stories that have never before been 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:22.320 covered on the show, is now available to buy worldwide. 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:26.040 You can purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones, 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:31.160 among other bookstores. All elements of Unexplained, including the show's music, 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:34.800 are produced by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:37.760 rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:40.200 free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:43.200 regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:45.360 have an explanation of your own you'd like to share. 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:49.280 You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com, 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:54.280 or Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com, 0:16:54.600 --> 0:17:02.200 Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast, Tho