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Lady Fane, who lived in the splendid Basildon Grotto in the 1740s, was found drowned in a well within the house and her unquiet spirit is alleged to haunt the building. It used to appear before the fireplace in a certain room in the 1890s. More recent sightings have been of a silvery form moving up the staircase and brushing past observers at about four in the afternoon; or drifting across the lawn towards the river. The original story behind the haunting appears to have been lost. It has erroneously been said that Lady Fane was both the infamous ‘mistletoe-bow bride,’ suffocated on her wedding day, and that she was murdered by her husband. A member of the Women’s Land Army, stationed in the house in 1943, is recorded to have seen a ghost in the house, though she is thought to be a past serving girl rather than Lady Fane herself. A young woman with long copper-coloured hair, wearing a long pale green filmy ragged dress manifested herself at least twice and glided along a corridor towards the ‘blue bathroom’. Others have also seen her. The ghost always appears between October and January between nine and eleven in the evening. |
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