Spooked - This Olde House

Episode Date: October 30, 2024

Rich is renovating an old house in the town of Wells, in Somerset, England. It has history dating back to the 15th century… and not all of it has stayed in the past. Thank you, Rich, for sharing your story with us!Produced by Zoë Ferrigno, original score by Yari Bundy, scouted by Sasha Wilson, artwork by Teo Ducot.Happy Halloween!!! Thank you for rocking this Spooky Season with us... you are the best Spooksters in the world! Watch and listen to Spooked... you can subscribe on YouTube for our scary stories. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

There was a village. In the village every year, on the day between midsummer and All Hallows Eve, the people would select a boy and lead him to the hill, overlooking the land. There they told the boy to watch, and if he saw the creature, he was to shout wolf, and they would run to the rescue. Even as they rushed to press the goats and the sheep in themselves behind the tall iron gate, they grinned at each other, refusing to look him in the eye.

The boy tasted their lie, the betrayal. Still he waited. That night he knew her. For he had run these glades, swam these rivers, given his own offering to this queen of the forest. She told him, in the non-vocal language they shared

that she was sorry she had to devour him, but that she was the wolf. and he the sacrifice, the boy told her that he would give her a far greater gift in trade. From his pocket he pulled a wooden box and he opened the box to show her a long piece of jagged metal. The wolf shook her enormous head. You are creatures of iron and fire.

But we have no need of such things. No, he said. This is not my gift. She followed him to the towering gate. He withdrew the piece of metal, reached as high as he could reach, and turned the key into the slot. Here he threw wide open the gate and led her, padding beside him. Inside, as the boy pointed in their direction, the town folk gate in horror. To then the boy whispered, the wolf, just a little while ago,

Walking down a park trail in the middle of the day, sun bright in the sky, I smell something. Something sinister, but it's not dark outside. There's no full moon. Still, I smell it. I feel it. Looking around frantic for the danger, and all I see is an attractive middle-aged woman. A track suit. Walking behind me.

Normal. Regular. getting her steps, putting her earbuds in. What is my problem? Where's the big threat? Then she's tapping her phone, makes a call to hi Susie, Shelly Sarah, something like that. She says, oh my goodness, it was so great to see you the other day. And Tommy's getting so big.

And now the scent is becoming overpowering. Goose bumps tear across my skin. What is going on? Yes, well, listen, you don't mean some of the girls. You don't let me do this very often, but this opportunity is so incredible. I just decided to vote for you personally. So I'm thrilled to let you know we'd like to extend an offer to you to join our product family. It's amazing.

You'll have a chance to achieve the lifestyle you've always dreamed of. Connect with incredible people. Run your own schedule and get first access to a world change. product line. Now I know what's going to tell. I know every word of the script. I know the dangling of the dream. I know the fangs hovering over the victim's skin. How do I know he's a vampire? Because I used to be a vampire too. Sam from the multi-level marketing pyramid scheme capital of the world, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Whatever product you just thought of when I said multi-level marketing probably started somewhere near Grand

rapids, vitamins, essential oils, fat burners, knives, energy drinks, scent packets, whatever. And I recall my own initiation. Fancy building guys with crisp white shirts, nice ties, being recruited with the, oh, I can tell you have something special. I can tell. Then the, we have an opportunity. We're offering to just a select group of candidates. And finally, I'm standing. in the living room with peppments on the table trying to sell a nice little old lady,

a $2,000 vacuum cleaner that she does not need. So maybe I can go back to college in the fall. I did that hot with shame thinking about it because I did that. Using exact same words, I hear Shelley using to leach the life blood. And I want to tell who's ever on the other end of this phone to run away, to save yourself, We are not to be trusted. We are not your friend. And thankfully it sounds like this Shelley hears me.

I remember she's just got something else she's got to do because the phone call ends and it's quiet on the trail. Except for the sound of footfalls. And the footfalls speed up and she's no longer behind me. She's next to me. She is truly. She flashes her gorgeous, just smile. She says, hey, hey, I see you out here all the time. Tell me about yourself.

And types of monsters carved from the shadow and different types of prey. And now we're going to cross the pond to a town called Wells and Somerset, England, which Symes has lived in Wells his entire life. He works as a contractor, renovating houses. When our story starts, Rich has got his work cut out for him with this one place. And I let Rich take it from here. Lovely, idyllic little spot, beautiful. It's a stone-built house. Two stories.

Just below the Torwoods in Wells. From the front of the house, you look straight across the cathedral. And to the left-hand side is the Bishop's Palace. The Bishop's Palace is where the main... Archbishop of Canterbury lives. It's basically a castle with a moat round. Behind the house there's a little brook and that brook runs under the road

and goes into the moat. Originally it was just a cider barn so full of apples and there was a press there and they would make cider. The oldest part of the house dated I think it was 14 something, 1480 I think it was.

So the house had a lot of history. So I got a couple of blocs in. Ted was one my workmates. He was a stone mason bricklayer, fantastic chap. We went up and we started pulling the house about and cutting it and all the rest of it. Upstairs, we took all the scenes down, stripped all the plaster off the walls and we shoveled it all out the window. And we were outside shoveling all that into the skip. And this old man walks down the hill, walking his dog. I would say we must have been in his early 80s. You had a cap on, brown, greeny tweed jacket. Said, all right, lads, there you going.

Everything's all right. I said, just gutting it out. I'm going to start putting it all back together soon. Oh, look forward to it, lad. Look forward to it. After he walked. It's nice in summertime when we were doing the renovation. So we sit out and now have our breakfast outside at 10 o'clock.

Salmage and a cup of tea and a cake or something. And this old chap every morning, he'd come along. He'd say, Right, I'd say you get on the day. Every morning he'd walk along. One day, we didn't see him. And I thought, oh, we had to an old chap the day. He said, no, he hadn't come along with the ever.

I said, no. That's a bit of funny. I said, well, I hope he's all right. And with that, Richard Carter turned up, which was the man who now owns the house. And we were just chatting away. Richard was asking how we're getting on and that. And I said, oh, that's a bad. I said, we haven't been able to give our update today to the old chat walking along his dog.

And he said, what do you mean, old chap? He said, well, the old chap would walk along his dog every day. We said, we had the last three weeks. He'd come in for an update and see how airmen's going on. He said, oh, what was he look like? And I said, well, I said he were a shortest chap, white hair and brown coat and a bit of a had a trobe hat on walking in a little Jack Russell dog. And he said, you sure?

And I said, yeah. Richard Carter looked at us a bit funny. And he went off, and we went back to work. about half an hour later Richard comes up the stairs with this picture it's a loose photograph it was of his chat

with his arm around his wife and the dog and the backdrop to the picture was the bishop's palace wall which is behind them and Richard says is this him and I said yeah

yeah that's he he said you sure you've been talking to him I said yes I've been talking to him every day for the last three weeks He said he died 10 years ago I was absolutely gobsmacked And so was Ted

He was somebody who lived down the road When Richard Carter grew up In that house Which was his dad's What we were renovating He obviously knew this old man For many years He knew his wife

He knew the dog And for the dog to be there with him That's the bit that I can't even get my head around Even now because the dog never died with him. It spooked Ted more than me because he was a bit of a...

Ted's a bit of a wimp. But it did spook me. And it was such a surreal feeling. But that's not all that happened in that house. Ted and I, we were working late because he wanted to move in before Christmas and we had a lot to do. So we were working till 10 o'clock at night,

some nights just to try and accelerate things on one night we were putting the batons down on the concrete floor in the living room it was dark because there was no power on in the house whatsoever

so we were working with battery lights battery halogens Ted was cutting the batons the length and I was scurred them down using a SDS hammer drill to drill down into the concrete so it's a very

noisy job I was on my hands and knees and I'm drilling away and I had this feeling someone was trying to push me down to the floor like someone was sitting on me back and I thought what's he doing the plonker?

I thought Ted was messing about and I said to tell us come on, don't we don't mess about I'm trying to get this done, it's getting late now he said I'm not doing anything and I looked up and he was nowhere near me you know, there's no way he could reach me from where he was stood to, not like he's easy inspector gadget.

My mind's playing tricks from me, huh? Carried on, screwing down, and then it started happening again. I was being pushed down to the floor. Well, this is weird. I didn't know who it was, what it was, but I knew we weren't alone. And I turned around and said, excuse my language, bugger off, leave me alone. I'm trying to get this done. I want to go home.

Whatever you are, leave me alone. And with that, I could see. smell the most beautiful rose-scented smell I've ever smelled in my life. It was absolutely divine. I said to Ted, can you smell that? He said, yeah. And he said, you sure that ain't Mrs. Carter come to have a look? I said, no one can come in, Ted. I locked the door. It was bolted from the inside. And that really put the spooks up, Ted. His colour started draining. He said, are you like this? He said, Dickie, he said, I can't stay here, not the night.

He said, we got to go. I said, well, let's get these last two batons down, and then we'll call it a night. I carried on, screwing the last two down, and that was it. We just packed up and left. A couple days passed. We had a toilet coming, and we needed to get the on-sweet bathroom plasterboarded

upstairs in the main master bedroom. So Ted, we're going to have to work late in the night because we need to get this done. About half-past eight at night, it was pitch black outside, and not many cars about. No electric in the house still. So we were on torch lights again.

Ted and I were working away. He was shaking the measurements out, and I was cutting the board, and he was screwing it up. I was cutting this bit of plasterboard, and he called out some measurements. And I looked up. The bedroom door,

look straight onto the landing right on the top of the stairs. And I seen a man stood there. But in a black cape, a black pointed hat. I can make out the creases like a folds in the cloak. And I can see his feet.

Boots, black boots. But I can't see a face. The face is dark. I was gobsbuck to see anybody stood there. I said, oh, hello, can I help you? There's no answer. So I looked down to get the halogen up, to turn it around to the doorway, so I could see who it was.

And as I looked back up with the halogen, there was nobody there. I caught a glimpse of his hat going down the stairs. I ran out of Ted, somebody's in the house. So Ted come running out. And I said, you locked that front door, he said, yeah. I said, how the hell do they get in? I said, quick, come on, let's go and see who it is. So we ran down the stairs with his halogen light.

He looked round and looked round the house, and there's nobody there. And Ted, by that point, well, I mean, Ted was absolutely bricking it. He was, like, shaking. He was shaken. He says, F this dick, I'm going. I said, you ain't leaving, without me. I said, I can tell you that now, so we're staying here and getting this done.

So we worked 100 mile an hour, and we went out faster than it ever did in his life. When we left, I locked the front door, and Tim was right behind me. Firstly touching me, normally he ran out to his van pretty quick, you know, and it left me to it. But he didn't that night. He stuck close to me. And I was quite glad of that, if I got to be honest. I was quite glad the fact that Tim was so close. We walked out the gate

and we were looking behind us the whole time looking at every window as we walked along I was feeling very uneasy thinking what's in there does it mean it's any harm probably about three weeks later

we were all sat in the kitchen it was November time so we had these halogen heaters right in front of us I was eating me kick-cats and we were chatting all of a sudden we could feel this cold. It sent shivers down my spine, I thought, well, how can I have shivers down my spine?

I'm sat right in front of a blamming heater. So I put my hand out in front of me, and it felt freezing. Like absolutely stone, ice cold, right in front of the heater. That's a blumen odd. I said, here, Ted, come over here and feel this. I said, put your hell there.

I said, it's warm there, right? He said, yeah. I said, put it down there. He said, oh, my God, what is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? I said, I don't know.

I said, but whatever it is, it's blub and freezing. I started getting really cold, and I'm what I'd do was warm up. I just said, just bugger off. He was alone. I'd try and eat me Kit Kat. Go away. And with that,

it stopped. And the cold went, that was it. Ted said, What's that word, Dickie? I said, I don't know. I don't know what it were, Ted. I said, but we're definitely there,

he said, yeah, I could feel it. So anyway, we laughed about it and just carried on. I said, oh, well, is what it is, Ted, and that. He said, yeah, yeah, be all right, we're right. We're stuck together, young, then he said, I said, we're all right, we're stood together. And Ted didn't need my side that much that day. And then about lunchtime, Mrs. Carter turns up.

She called in, she said, Rich, Rich, can you come and do me a favor a minute? I said, well, I said, can you come and hold the dog for me? He won't go in the house. She was dog sitting for a friend. Golden Labrador dog, beautiful dog. I said, what do you mean he won't go in the house? He won't go in, I can't pull in any. He keeps pulling back.

He won't go in the house. I said, I wonder why. She said to me, what do you think of that house? I said, lovely, isn't it? Beautiful house. That's not what I mean, she said. I said, what do you mean? She said, what do you think of the house?

I said, it's lovely. I said, well, be when it's done. She said, no. What do you think in the house? And she was looking at me in a real stern face. She said, the dog won't go in the house. Why? Well, I said, there have been a few things that we've happened.

She said, don't tell me. And that was it. She got the dog and she walked off. I thought, oh dear, I've upset the apple cart now. She comes back about an hour later. She said, right, I've got a lady from Glastonbury who's a spiritualist. She's coming on Wednesday. I want you gone at 3 o'clock.

I'll pay you to 5. I said, okay. She's going to come in and see exactly what's in this house. And I said, are you sure you want to do this? She said, I've heard stories what Harold used to say, which was Richard's dad. I want to know what's going on. I said, all right, three o'clock Wednesday, she'd come around. Come on, lad, I want you out.

This lady's coming. So we went on. At the time, I fell, oh, yeah, right, right now. You know, I mean, it was a lady from Glastonbury. I mean, Glastonbury is full of hippies, but I do know what, we experienced in that house. So I was interested to see what this lady turned up. Thursday morning, Richard Carter was there early. He said, I won't tell you anything. I'll let my wife tell you. I said, okay, it was about 11 o'clock. She turned up. Mrs. Carter told me,

Lady come from Gassonbury. She went in and she put these stones around and incense sticks around and all these things. They were in there for about. an hour and the lady said that there was three spirits in the eyes that she could actually talk to and contact and resonate with. So the lady explained that there was a Victorian lady in the living room. The medium lady said that the Victorian lady said he was making a noise and I didn't like it and I was telling him to stop. I was pushing him down to the ground and he would not stop and then Mrs Carter told me this Victorian lady heard me say what's that smell Ted? Her perfume was the smell. She had

rose perfume on. I was absolutely gobsmacked when she was telling me. I get goosebumps on my back of my neck the hairs go up. Because I never told Mrs. Carter nothing. And I looked at her and I

said, oh my God. She said well that was the first instance, she said and there was more people in the house. She said, when you were upstairs you see the man, didn't you? And I said, How the hell do you know that? She said, the lady told me.

And do you know who that man was? I said, I ain't got a blumen clue. I said, because it put the wind up her somewhat chronic. And she said, that man asked the medium lady, why was that man standing in my mum's bed? Story is, he was a man that looked after all the valuables in the cathedral. because the soldiers used to rob and pillage all the gold and all the valuables out of the churches.

I'm talking civil war time, six, seven, eight hundred years prior. And he used to come back from the cathedral to check on his mum because she was poorly in bed. And that's what he was doing that night. And where I was stood to was her bed. And the reason he had been faced, because he was defaced, apparently. That was his punishment for hiding the gold.

The soldiers, when they caught him, they cut his face up. I was blown away then, and I couldn't believe it, nor could Ted. But we were stood there with our mouths open in sheer amazement. This lady, she must have some merit, because to come up with these stories, nobody else knew what we'd seen. Then she said, right, you were in the kitchen And you were eating chocolate one morning I thought, right, well, you know me too well

You know, I thought, right, okay, yeah, fair enough Yeah, I was eating chocolate And she said And something was cold next to you And you told her to bug her off, didn't you? And Ted looked at me and his face And I looked at Ted She said, the little boy told the lady

He said He made me upset Because he swore at me I wanted some of his chocolate And he wouldn't let me have any And I said Little boy How old?

And she said to me Six, seven And I said Well What are the little boy doing in there? And she said He died He drowned in the brook behind

I felt so bad I felt so emotional I felt so guilty and I said I'm so sorry she's not here now she's gone

I said what do you mean he's gone she said the lady asked them all to leave she said there's time people would go now they all live there

at different times and she said you don't need to be here no more you can go on to your resting place and you can rest in peace so we carried on

working in the house and from that day onwards the house felt different it felt light it felt fresh so I went to Shepton Mullet one night to Ted to take some money up to him because he wasn't with me on the Friday

when we got paid so I took his money up to him on the Friday night come back down over past the house and it was black pitch black because it was quite late at night and there was a light on in the landing Top of the stairs there's a window, landing window. The light was shining in that window.

I thought, oh, we left the halogen on. So anyway, I went on in the house. No light. That's weird, or perhaps the battery ran out. Went out, locked the house, went back, got in the van, drove back up the hill, turned around the lay by, come back down, light was on. But how the hell could this light be on in there?

I've just checked. There's nothing on. there's nothing in there. So I stopped and I went in again. No light. I was absolutely scared witless. I felt sheer panic inside me. I felt the hairs go up on back of my neck

and my heart's beginning to race thinking I got to get out of here. I cannot be in this house of my own. So I went down the stairs. I locked the front door behind me. I got in my van. I looked at that house. I knew that there's something still there.

We carried on, got the house finished. Mrs Carter and Richard moved into it. I thought, oh, it was good. Within two months, the house was on the market. She wouldn't live there. She didn't like it there. She wouldn't live there. And that's the last idea about that house.

They sold it, and the people living in their life They've always wanted to stop and ask, do they get any feelings? But I don't want to put the wind up and I don't want to frighten people. But I do wonder, I drove past that house and I look at it with caution, even though. And I look at it thinking, I wonder if it's still there. If you do decide to someday stop to get out to knock on that door, please, please, please, please, let us know what you fine on the other side. Until then, big love from Spooked.

That story was scouted by Sasha Wilson. The original score composed by Yari Bundy. It was produced by Zoe Frigno. You imagine that because you've made it through the season of the wolf that congratulations are in order?

Do you suppose that Spook will not return to the shadow land each and every week? Huh? Do you think the monsters are afraid? They are not. Spook continues to walk down the dark path each and every week. Tell someone you care about.

Because that's the only way they'll know. And listen, listen to me, if you have a secret spook story that you've always been afraid to tell, tell me. Spook at snapjudgment.org because there is nothing better than a spook story from a spoof listener. Spoof is brought to you by the team that never picks up random phone calls from numbers they do not recognize, except for Mark Ristich. No matter who it is, no matter what time of night, Mark always picks up on the very first

ring. Running besides the wolf, team Spook, Davy Kim, Zoe Frigno, Eric Yanyes, Tailed Decott, Marissa Dodge, Miles last, Doug Stewart, Elliot Lightfoot, Paulina Creekie, Juan, Diego Beltran, Sasha Wilson, Daniel Sinsky, the spook theme song is by Pat McCready Miller. My name is from Washington. It's become popular to say that there are two states of being, two types of people, the hunter and the prey. And like everything else that is overly simplistic, this is both incorrect.

incorrect at the same time. For during the season of the wolf, the weak, they find their teeth grow sharp in the shadow. The prey is suddenly hungry for the hunt, while the hunter discovers that they are now the prey, and you must listen closely because more often than not, beast you're running from, where's your own face? We are everything all at once at the same time. and if you need a reminder, a beacon, a guide to tether you between the here and the there,

the only thing I know that sometimes works. To never, ever, never, never, never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever.