A "HOODOO" HOUSE

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 116, 19 May 1933, Page 5

A "HOODOO" HOUSE

COWLED FIGURE. AMBASSADOR'S DAUGHTER. DRIVEN TO POVERTY. A . famous British ambassador's daughter who is fighting against poverty in London with her out-of-work husband and three-year-old sen, blames the "hoodoo" of a haunted country house for her misfortunes. She is Miss Meriel Buchanan, the author, of Marloes Road, W. Her father was the late Sir George Buchanan, who was British Ambassador to Russia during the war. She told her extraordinary story to a "Daily Express" representative. Paid £3000 For It. "My husband is out of work, the rent of our flat is long overdue, our credit with tradesmen is at an end, and to be frank, we do not know where tomorrow's dinner is coming from," Miss Buchanan said. "Nothing has gone well with us since we had the misfortune to buy a haunted house. "The house itself seemed a delightful old place. We paid £3000 for it. A few months later we were glad to sell it at a heavy loss. "I am sure that evil lurks in it. The first day that we lived there a terrible depression crept over me. "Visitors confessed to feelings of terror and refused to stay more than one night under our roof. My servants gave notice. "Then we saw the ghost in broad daynight. I was mixing cocktails for a house party one September afternoon, when I saw a black figure slink down the corridor which led from the drawing room. Blue Lights,. "It was the figure of a cowled monk. "Sometimes a triangle of blue light would appear over the medieval fireplace of the drawing room after dark. We often heard tappings on the stairs,

and in the walls. Often we heard a baby crying, although there were no children in the house. Cats and dogs ran out of rooms with hair bristling with teiror. "Then we heard the legend which is attached to the house. "Four hundred years ago a footpad is said to have murdered a monk and assumed his habit. The false monk arrived at the house which we were to buy four centuries later. He seduced and later murdered the owner's daughter and her baby. That its the terrible story."