A Haunted House

Written by Ann James

I was born in 1956, in a terraced 4 bedroom house in Splott Cardiff. The name of this house was Abbey House. I was to discover why it was named this in later life. At first I shared a bedroom with my sister, until my brother enlisted in the Army and I moved into his bedroom. For many years throughout my life, I have been haunted by the memories of my childhood in that house and, even as an adult going back to visit my parents, I felt the ghosts still there hidden in every dark corner. During both my childhood and teenage years, I never felt safe or comfortable in the house. I had experienced many frightening happenings which I will try to explain.

I often felt a presence in the house and someone or something watching me. I frequently heard strange noises and saw movements out of the corner of my eyes. Things would go missing and appear in the strangest places. I heard creaking on the stairs when there was no one else in the house, and the dog growling at nothing. Many times I felt and heard someone come into my bedroom in the middle of the night, and had a strong feeling that I was not supposed to open my eyes. I often felt a freezing cold sensation rush through my body from my feet to my head. I heard someone calling my name; I felt sensations of someone touching my back or shoulder.

When I moved into my brother’s room adjacent to the first landing, I began waking at night not being able to breathe. I would try and call my dad but no sounds would escape from my mouth. I remember the tears rolling down my cheeks and having the terrifying feeling I was going to die because I was unable to breathe, until eventually I would catch a breath and have a bad coughing fit. Today this would probably be associated with childhood asthma however; it never happened to me before I moved into that back bedroom and has never happened since I moved out.

We had two flights of stairs in the house and the worst experience for me was on that first landing, where also my sister and brother felt the same fear. Anytime I went up the stairs, whether day or night, out of fear I would run up the stairs taking them two at a time to get past that first landing as quickly as possible. At the time I had no idea why this was, I only knew that there was something very frightening about being in that area. It’s strange because that house had many dark scary places that could have been far more frightening to a child. For instance, we had a huge cellar, a huge attic, and an unused middle room that was dark, cold and damp. None of these places particularly bothered me as much as that landing.

I left home at 16 and moved into a flat. It was quite a relief to leave the house in Splott for many reasons one of which was being frightened by the strange feelings of the house being haunted. I returned infrequently to visit my parents, but on those rare visits, even at the age of 16, should my mother ask me to go upstairs for any reason, I made as many excuses as possible to avoid that landing.

My mother eventually sold the house to my brother and moved into a bungalow. My brother rented the house to his friend and Polish wife. I was to visit them one day with my brother and as I walked through the front door, my eyes automatically went up the stairs towards the first landing. There had been a banner placed across the bedroom door on the first landing in Polish writing. I asked what this banner was for and the couple told me that they felt there was a presence in the house, particularly on the first landing. They had engaged a Polish priest to come and bless the house and this banner was a blessing to protect the family from evil.

This next part of the story you may well think as you read, "where is this going?" I felt I should include it because to me it was quite significant at that time.

Many years later, long after the Polish friends had moved out, I was to return to the house again under strange circumstances. It had been a Sunday and I was cooking a roast dinner. I now lived on the outer skirts of Cardiff in St Mellons. I realised that day, that I had run out of frozen peas and as my kids loved frozen peas, I went out to the shops to buy some. Unfortunately the shops had sold out and I decided to go a little further distance to the shops in Rumney. To my dismay, I could not find one bag of frozen peas and again decided to carry on in the car. My next stop was in Clifton Street, where again to my amazement I could not find one shop that had any frozen peas. I decided one last stop in Carlisle St in Splott . I eventually found a shop in Splott who actually had frozen peas. I sat in the car and realised that I had traveled about 5 miles in search of a bag of peas and sat there laughing to myself at how ridiculous this was.

As I sat in the car, for some reason I decided to go to my mother’s old house in Splott. I have absolutely no idea why I felt the need to do this, but drove to the house and parked across the road, sat there just staring at the house. I was probably there for about 15 minutes until I left and drove back home to St Mellons.

Later that day, I telephoned my sister for a chat and began telling her of my trip out that day for the peas and ended up in Splott but before I could continue my story of ending up being parked outside mams old house, She interrupted tell me she had been to Splott market that day and for some strange reason she had decided to visit my mother’s old house. Jane told me that she had sat outside in the car just staring at the house.. Jane also told me that it had been about 12 o’clock, which was exactly the time I had been there. We could not understand how this could be, as we would have seen each other. Jane also had no idea why she had been compelled to go there, as she felt the same about that house as I did.

Two days later, I rang my cousin, who proceeded to tell me that on Sunday she had decided to go out for a drive in her car and ended up outside my mother’s old house. She didn’t know why she had gone there and only stayed for ten minutes or so then left. I asked her what time this was and she told me it was 12 o’clock. I have since tried hard to think why the three of us should be drawn to that house on the same day at the same time and yet we did not see each other. I cannot find any connection with either the date or the time.

After this incident, I felt compelled to try and find out more about the residential history of the house. I made an appointment with the Cardiff records department and spent a long time researching. I managed to find the full residential history of the house. Evidence I found was that when the house was first built it was owned by the church and was occupied by nuns. I realised then the significance of the house being called Abbey House.

Now I do not remember how I learned this next piece of information, whether it has been handed down in the residential history, whether I researched it in the records department or, whether it is Chinese whispers, I cant be certain how or where I got this information from, I can only be certain that the information seems to be true. It appears that whilst the nuns were residing in the house, they employed a resident cook. The cook had a son named Marriot, who was employed as a handy man for the nuns. It seems that when the cook died the son was so distraught that he hung himself over the first landing in the house. When I first found this information out, I shuddered and realised that maybe my fear of passing that landing was in some way connected to Marriot hanging himself there. I also wonder whether there was any connection between the choking feelings I had in the back bedroom, which led off the first landing.

For a long time after I had discovered this new information, I felt I needed to explore more into this and it would be another year or so when I found an interest in Astral Travel. I had found an online chat group where I had set up a room called Ghosts and Mists. It was quite a popular room and indeed the people in there shared many experiences of their own. Although I did not discuss my experiences of the Splott house with anyone, I wanted to learn of other people’s story’s that might have enlightened me and help me to understand my own experiences. It was in this room I met and became good friends with Tala an American Indian from Atlanta USA.

During a private conversation with Tala, I told him a little about my time in the Splott house and the strange experiences I’d had as both a child and an Adult. Tala offered to Astral Travel to the house and try to help solve the mysteries. At first I declined because although I found him an interesting person to listen to and fascinated by his many stories of Astral Traveling, I was still skeptical and not sure what percentage of his stories were true or “Mills & Boon”. Also, I was not sure if I really wanted to delve into the unknown.

During the next six months, my confidence grew with Tala and looked forward to our conversations immensely. One day, I made a spur of the moment decision and asked Tala to Astral Travel to the house and he agreed to do this. I did not expect his findings to have such a profound effect.

Now I ask the reader to remember just a few points before reading on. Tala did not live in this country and he had never been in this country. I had never actually discussed with Tala where the house was, nor had I ever told him in what city the house was. I had never discussed with him any sort of description of the inside of the house.

It was arranged that on a certain night, Tala would attempt to Astral Travel to the house. We would open a private room and we would have voice contact by way of headphones. You must decide for yourself whether what happened next has any truth or significance to it.

Tala told me he was standing in the porch of a house. He described the tiles on the walls of the porch. He told me the number on the house door. So far all true. Remember I had not given him this information so at this stage was still skeptical because how would he know where to go? He told me he had gone through the door into a hall, he mentioned that the hall was a sort of double hall and there was a cuckoo clock on the wall that was chiming. All true. He told me he could see a staircase but he continued down the hall through another door. He told me he descended 4 steps into what appeared to be a kitchen. All true. He told me at the bottom of the steps, on the left there was another door. Again all true.

Tala told me he opened the door and went into a cellar. He then seemed to become very agitated and upset and told me he could see a little boy crying and this little boy was sat in a hole in the cellar wall. At this point, I became upset and frightened and asked Tala to end the Astral Travel. Strangely, we didn’t even get as far as the landing, which had been the whole reason for this Astral Travel.

Later when discussing the events of the travel with Tala, his opinion was that he had probably seen Marriot as a child. He felt that Marriot had an unstable mind and was reliant on his mother in many ways not only as a child but into adulthood too. When his mother died, he felt insecure and became depressed. Who knows why he would have been in the hole in the wall down the cellar. Maybe he was made to go there as a punishment, maybe he was hiding from something that frightened him. He was certainly upset. It is at this point I need to tell you that infact, there was really a hole in the wall in our cellar, that we called the cubby hole. I have no idea what the signifigance of it was, I just know it was big enough to use as a storage area.

It was following this event, that I felt in some way I began to heal and no longer felt the past was haunting me. It was almost like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I have given some thought to this and have wondered if for some reason I was meant to delve into the history of the house in Splott. I now feel that I have lay the ghosts to rest.

Update October 2014. I have today found the residential history which makes a very slight change to my story. Marriott is the surname and the records show. Johanna Marriott (mother) James Marriott (son). No mention of a father and I can only presume this is why they were working for the nuns in the house.