The Ghostly Coven Of Branden Farm

Ian Davison was a successful librettist, actor, and playwright on the London stage during the 1920s.  However, Davison grew tired of the big city theatrical life, and decided to retire to the countryside.  His choice of rural retreat was Branden Farm, just outside Sissinghurst, in Kent.

At first glance, Branden seemed an odd pick for someone seeking a pastoral idyll.  The farm was over 400 years old, and looked it.  The place had been abandoned for many years, and boasted rotting wood, overgrown weeds, and rats.  But Davison saw great potential for the house, and relished taking on the project of making it habitable.

Within several years, Branden was completely transformed.  It became a perfectly charming residence, surrounded by flower gardens and orchards full of fruit and nut trees.  It was a genuine farm, with cattle, chickens and pigs.  Davison moved into Branden in April 1932, little guessing that he would have roommates: a pack of ghosts who were very annoyed at having their territory invaded.

The apparitions wasted no time in making their presence known.  On Davison’s very first night in Branden, he heard a tapping at his bedroom window.  When he looked outside, nothing was there.  Nothing visible, at any rate.  Soon afterwards, he heard footsteps outside, followed by the noise of two people running.  Then there was a loud crash at the north end of the house, but when Davison went to inspect the area, he found no damage, or any sign of who or what had been running around.  He began hearing other unsettling sounds--agonized wails, more crashes, heavy footsteps through the house.  He and visitors to Branden always sensed that they were being watched by some invisible presence.  Many of Davison’s guests felt oddly exhausted while staying at Branden, and some had terrible dreams where they felt that someone was strangling them.  In one downstairs room, the atmosphere would go from unaccountably cold to inexplicably blazing hot.  The room made people feel dizzy, or even faint.  In another downstairs room, the imprint of a clawed hand mysteriously appeared on a table.

One night, a couple who was sleeping in an attic bedroom saw the figure of a sad-faced woman walk through the room.  The husband threw a slipper at her, after which the figure disappeared through a wall.  A few weeks later, Davison saw the same unhappy woman appear in his bedroom.  She was bent over and seemed to be looking for something on the ground.  Other shadowy figures began appearing throughout the house, including a ghostly cat.

Davison was obviously a phlegmatic sort--or perhaps his theatrical career gave him the mindset of a Man Who Had Seen It All--because he was largely unfazed by the supernatural goings-on.  He did not become genuinely alarmed until one night, when he heard a guest’s dog scratching at his bedroom door.  He let the animal in to join Davison’s own dog, Peter.  Both the dogs were clearly upset about something.  Davison realized that his bedroom had become so hot, he feared the house must be on fire.  Then the door suddenly seemed to disappear, revealing the presence of what Davison later described as “the foulest looking man I have ever set eyes on.”

The man was wearing an odd outfit in bright green, brown, and red.  He was extremely tall, and his revoltingly ugly face glared menacingly at Davison.  The librettist shouted, “Who are you--a fiend of hell?”  The figure laughed mockingly and vanished.  

One of Davison’s friends was a psychic investigator named Ronald Kaulbeck.  When he heard of the uncanny events at Branden, he volunteered to visit the farm to see if he could determine what was going on.  He later said that during his stay there, he experienced the worst fear of his life.  One evening, he suddenly began struggling for breath and clawing at his neck.  Others in the room saw a shadow appear around Kaulbeck’s neck that was clearly trying to choke him to death.  It took all their efforts to free him from the ghostly would-be strangler.

Kaulbeck was able to identify three distinct ghosts at Branden: the woman who was endlessly searching for something, a short, thick-set man who also had an air of unhappiness, and the tall, malevolent man who was clearly the source of all the evil at the farm.

Davison, determined to find out how his new home came to be a gathering-place for unpleasant spirits, brought in other mediums and spiritualists.  One told him that many years back, Branden Farm had been a meeting-place for practitioners of black magic.  Many terrible things, including animal and human sacrifices, had taken place on the site.  The medium sensed that the ghosts of these long-ago sorcerers wanted to force him out of the house, so they could again have it all to themselves.  She believed that the tall, sinister spirit was a George Tarver, who had occupied Branden in the 16th century.  He was the Grand Master of the satanic coven which met there.  The ghostly woman had been Tarver’s mistress, who went insane after her newborn baby was used as a human sacrifice.  The short, stocky ghost had been a coven member named Hunter.  After Hunter turned against the coven, Tarver strangled him and secretly buried him in the grounds.  Eventually, Tarver became too dangerous and frightening even for his fellow devil-worshippers.  The remaining members of the coven hanged him from a beam in one of the downstairs rooms.

This medium warned Davison that if he allowed the spirits to scare him away, Branden would never be habitable for any living human.  However, if he could just brave it out for five months--fighting off whatever evil might be thrown at him--the ghosts would give up and leave.

Davison decided that he had not put all that money and effort into renovating Branden just to be forced out by a pack of satanic ghosts.  He resolved to stick it out.

His life among the apparitions went on as usual until one day, when he encountered Tarver’s ghost in a hallway.  The spirit sneered at him.  The force of the ghost’s wicked, hateful presence left Davison, for the first time, thoroughly frightened.  Fighting off his instinct to run away, Davison shouted, “You must get out of my way!  This house is mine!  My will is stronger than yours!  It does not matter what holds you here!  You must leave!  Go!”

To Davison’s surprise and unimaginable relief, Tarver reacted by fading into a wall, never to be seen again.  Three days later, the female ghost appeared before Davison.  For the first time, she smiled at him, after which she too vanished for good.

Hunter was the last of the ghosts.  One night, he appeared by Davison’s bed, staring at him with such sadness that Davison, who had always pitied this spirit, asked if there was any way to help him.  The apparition silently disappeared.

For a short time afterwards, odd shadowy figures continued to be seen, but their appearances gradually became rarer and rarer, until they ceased to be seen at all.  The unholy forces that had occupied Branden Farm for so very many years had finally been evicted.