Join television paranormal investigator Andy Matthews (Ghost Detectives and NI Greatest Haunts) and psychic artist and medium, Marion Goodfellow (Most Haunted Live, Scream Team and Ghost Detectives) for a Halloween to remember!
Once it was the most magnificent 16th century house in Sussex, Cowdray
was visited by Henry VIII (three times) and the boy King Edward VI came
here and complained that the food was too rich for him. Queen Elizabeth
I was entertained for a week with great ceremony, despite fears that
she might be assassinated.
The Curse
Through
the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Easebourne Priory was disbanded and
the Prioress and her nuns ordered to leave. At the time of eviction,
the Sub-Prioress pronounced “a curse of fire and water on the male
children and their heirs” of “he who takes these lands and it shall
come upon him and his name shall die out.” The Priory and its lands
were granted to Sir William FitzWilliam, Earl of Southampton, who was
at that time building Cowdray.
The house was a Catholic
stronghold when this was a forbidden form of religion. The 2nd Viscount
was heavily fined and imprisoned for his faith and for alleged
involvement with the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, Guy Fawkes having been
employed at Cowdray.
It was not until the succession of the 6th
Viscount in 1717 that Cowdray began to recover from the depredations of
the previous century. Internal changes were made in accordance with
Georgian tastes and the family held many a lavish party.
Tragedy
At
midnight on 24 September 1793 a spark from a coal basket left burning
by the decorators set fire to the woodshavings and paper rubbish in
their workroom. Fire buckets and the water tanks were in an outside
building, the keys to which could not be found and the door could not
be forced and the building smouldered for two days. Meanwhile in
Switzerland, unaware of the tragedy, the Viscount and his future
brother-in-law decided, against local advice, to take their boat down
the falls of the River Rhine at Laufenburg. Their craft over-turned and
both men were drowned. The next heir to the Montague title died four
years later, before he had fathered a child. The viscountancy died with
him and Cowdray was uninhabitable. The Curse has worked.
Ghosts
As
well as the curse still acting out its revenge there are allegedly many
other ghosts said to walk the ruins. The crypt is said to be haunted
by someone who lost their life in the great fire of the castle, in the
pitch-black people have felt their hair being touched and as if someone
has blown in their face. Inside the ruins there is the alleged ghost of
the White Lady who wanders the ruins looking for her lost love – is it
the 6th Viscount she longs to meet?
With many years of sightings and strange experiences – what will happen to you during your investigation?
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| Information |
| Places left: 0 |
| Date: 30th Oct 2009 |
| Cost: £39 per person |
| Begins: 7:00pm |
| Finishes: MIDNIGHT |
| Map: Click here |
| Station: Liphook - 6.5 Miles |
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Deposit option available. Pay the balance four weeks before event. Cheque and Card payments accepted |
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