The Curse of Heol Fanog

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Part 1.

Happenings.

Numerous high-profile cases of alleged hauntings have originated from the British Isles, from the poltergeist activity and demonic possession at Enfield to the unsettling apparitions witnessed at Borley Rectory.

But perhaps the most terrifying of these tales is also the least well-known: the story of a family terrorized by an evil presence whilst residing in a remote Welsh mountain farmhouse.

This week, we explore the curse of Hail Vanog.

Amidst the awe and beauty of the Welsh countryside, the Brecon beacons often elicit a seemingly magical effect upon those who venture there.

The stunning topography created by the mountain ranges which crisscross this particular region are the setting for many historical tales of enchantment and majesty.

It is a landscape that features numerous caves and valleys hidden well away from prying eyes, once believed to have been the home of fairies, giants and powerful witches.

It is a notion which seems to have motivated past invaders into establishing a substantial occupying presence.

The Romans in particular were deeply troubled by the Druids when they first settled the region.

and ensured that a sizable force was always ready to assert its authority.

And whilst as the centuries have passed, such stories of myth and magic have now faded, unsettling and haunting incidents continue to take place.

The area is often referred to as an aeroplane graveyard, due to the fact that over 40 aircraft have plummeted from the skies over the mountains.

The British Army has faced a concerning number of casualties amongst its servicemen, with fatalities occurring during local training exercises.

These stories are of course well known to those who reside in and around the beacons.

As a result, they treat their surroundings with a cautious respect.

But for the many tourists and holidaymakers who visit every year, this is a side to the region that exists in stark contrast to the beauty for which it is so famous.

This would certainly be the case for one young family who moved into an isolated farmhouse surrounded by the idyllic views of the beacons during the twilight years of the 1980s.

They couldn't have known that what they hoped and believed would be the home of their dreams would ultimately become the stuff of nightmares.

The car which came to a halt outside the remote farmhouse of Hale Vanog during the Easter of 1989 was occupied by an English family along with all their worldly possessions.

For Bill and Liz Rich,

this move represented the dawn of a new life together.

They had recently wed, and Liz was several months pregnant with their first child.

Also joining them was 14-year-old Lawrence, Bill's son from a previous marriage.

The stunning views that surrounded the farmhouse had been a key factor in the couple's decision to live there.

easily lending themselves to Bill's work as an artist and sculptor.

And in the first days and weeks of moving into their new home, it had seemed like nothing could have spoiled the newfound peace and solitude the family now enjoyed.

Bill soon threw himself into the existing artwork orders and commissions that he had brought along with him, whilst Liz set about baby-proofing the house in preparation for their new arrival.

However,

It was not long after their son Ben had been born in November of that year that the apparent serenity of their new home slowly began to unravel.

The first signs that something was amiss would be the family's interactions with Wynne Thomas, the owner of a neighbouring farm which bordered their property.

It was obvious that Thomas possessed an underlying resentment of his New English neighbours, one not fully uncommon amongst some members of the local community.

But alongside this, The farmer had delivered a series of cryptic and disturbing warnings relating to a derelict building which was situated in the grounds of Hale Vanog.

It was the remains of an old manor house which had once stood on the site, a stone skeleton of a building now fully flooded with a sucking bog of muddy swamp water.

Thomas insisted that even before its downfall, the manor house had been a place of misery, and that numerous animals had been found drowned in the mire since that time.

Initially, Bill had scoffed at the dramatic assertions of his new neighbour, believing the farmer was trying to intimidate him into moving away.

But several weeks later, a bizarre event took place which caused Bill to reassess the warnings the Welshman had given him.

In the early hours of one winter morning, he had awoken and then crept along the landing towards the bathroom.

taking care not to wake his sleeping wife and baby as he did so.

But just as he lifted the seat on the toilet, Bill heard a sudden commotion coming from the other side of the bathroom door, as if someone was running along the upstairs hallway.

Stepping back out onto the landing, as the sound of heavy footfalls descended the adjacent staircase, he flipped the light switch so he could identify who was causing the ruckus.

But to his amazement, there was nobody there.

A quick inspection of the house confirmed that all windows and doors were fully secured.

Settling back into bed, Bill asked his wife if she had heard the footsteps, only to be told that she had been fast asleep.

Assuming it must have been Lawrence, the only other able-bodied person inside the address, he had settled back to sleep.

resolving to raise the issue with his oldest son over breakfast.

Little did he realise that this incident would set in motion a chain of events which would go on to endanger the lives of every person living within the remote farmhouse.

The following morning, the conversation with Lawrence did not go as well as Bill had either hoped or expected.

His son vigorously denied having been the cause of the previous evening's disturbance.

saying that like his stepmother, he had not heard the footsteps either.

Liz managed to calm their bickering before they were interrupted by the arrival of the postman.

However, tensions soon flared again when the budding artist opened and inspected the electricity bill that had just arrived.

At most, he had expected the cost to be somewhere in the region of £100,

only to find a demand for £750.

Reasoning that the energy supplier had made a mistake, Bill picked up the telephone.

This resulting inquiry quickly turned into another argument, as the operator on the other end of the call insisted that the figures were correct and that no error had been made.

With Bill's tone growing increasingly agitated, Liz decided to make her way upstairs and put Ben down for a mid-morning nap.

But as she settled into the old armchair by the baby's cot and began to sing a soothing lullaby to her son, the sound of the door crashing open suddenly echoed around the room.

Taking hold of her crying infant and turning to scold whichever of the two men had entered the room in such a disruptive way, Liz was horrified to see the door still firmly closed from when she had entered.

Soon after,

The family began to experience an ever-increasing series of disturbing events.

Both Bill and Liz would regularly be disturbed from what they were doing by the sounds of heavy footsteps making their way through the house, only for them to find that there was nobody there.

With Lawrence at school and Ben fast asleep in his cot upstairs, this was an entirely unsettling experience which neither of them could explain.

Alongside this, Mysterious activity began to take place around the property's electricity meter, which was also located in the hall near to where the footsteps had been heard.

Sometimes it would produce a heavy whirring sound that gradually increased in volume until it seemed to be saturating every room in the house, before abruptly ceasing.

This would sometimes be accompanied by an overpowering smell of sulphur, which forced the couple to open all the windows to get rid of the sickening stench.

Despite several visits from electricians and engineers, the meter was always found to be in perfect working order.

Successive electricity bills only seemed to increase in cost, almost as if Bill and Liz were operating every device inside their property at the same time, day after day.

As these unsettling phenomena continued to escalate, an increasingly frustrated Bill finally heeded the warnings of Wynne Thomas and asked him for more information.

Although initially reluctant to engage with his neighbour, it soon became clear to Thomas that Bill was struggling to cope with whatever was taking place.

After a time, his attitude towards the Englishman softened and prompted him to open up regarding the history of the property.

He eventually explained that the farmhouse had been built by the original owners using rubble and stones from the ruins of the old manor house.

This discarded masonry had included broken and smashed gravestones from family members who had long been buried in the surrounding grounds.

The locals believed that similar issues reported by previous occupants of Hail Vanog were due to the wrath of the spirits who had been disturbed by the desecration of their resting place.

Over time, the bizarre activity only seemed to escalate further for the rich family.

In addition to the heavy footfalls which would make their way down the stairs before terminating in the hall, a second set of footsteps now began to manifest.

This new disturbance was more of a soft, shuffling gait, as if someone wearing slippers or socks was progressing slowly across the carpets of the upstairs rooms.

At the same time, a new smell also began to occur alongside the other sulfury stench, which elicited a sharp and metallic taste of burning incense.

Various rooms in the house would also experience sudden localized changes in temperature, becoming either unbearably hot or freezing cold, but only for a few minutes each time.

Liz confided to Bill that when he was away from the property, she would catch movements out the corner of her eye in certain rooms, only to then turn and find nobody there.

She had developed an overwhelming feeling that someone or something was residing at the address with them, suspecting that it was silently watching their every move and choosing to reveal itself on occasion, as if to gauge the reactions to its presence.

One evening, a pig that the family had purchased some months before and which stayed outside in the barn suddenly began to shriek and squeal in the middle of the night.

It became aggressive, attacking Bill when he tried to calm or feed it.

eventually biting him and having to be put down by the local vet.

This madness seemed to pass from animal to animal, as a series of family pets and livestock each erupted into violent acts against their masters.

Then suddenly, whatever had affected the animals seemed to turn its attention to Lawrence, who became increasingly withdrawn and resentful of his father.

The teenager would spend all his time in his room or away from the house, and reacted with an almost supernatural rage whenever he was confronted about his actions.

He would violently lash out and spit at Bill and other family members when they attempted to calm him.

The tone of his voice would deepen to the point that it no longer sounded like his own, more as if someone or something was speaking through him.

Over time, Bill's mood also began to sour, with it becoming increasingly difficult for him to produce the work for his clients.

And as the electricity bills continued to rise, with little money available to pay for them, he turned to alcohol as a means of coping with their situation.

One afternoon, amidst all this chaos, Liz was returning home from a walk with Ben when she got an overpowering sensation that she was being watched.

As her gaze had lifted to the window of Ben's nursery, she saw the figure of an old lady standing there staring back at her.

Her face was completely blank with no features.

Hurrying in through the kitchen, Liz ran straight upstairs and pushed her way into the nursery only to find it empty.

The only thing she discovered was a choking smell of burning incense, which began to fade away the second she opened the door.

Unable to rely on Bill, Liz began to reach out to people in the nearby town in search of any clue as to what might be causing this upheaval.

Through inquiries with a local historian, Bethan Morgan, she was able to find pictures in old newspapers of the people who had lived at Ailvanog before them, positively identifying the old lady she had seen standing in the nursery as Marion Holborn.

She was a previous owner of the address who had died of cancer over a decade before.

Liz went on to unearth more stories associated with with the property, which she had not been aware of at the point she and her husband had signed the lease.

A local vet named Liz Jones confided to her that she too had heard strange and sinister footsteps in the house when she had treated animals there in the past.

A plumber who had attended the property to repair their toilet also related a strange story from when Marion Holborn had still been alive and had asked him to fix radiators to the walls.

Upon completing the job he had gone home, only to get a call that evening from Mrs.

Holborn telling him that all of the radiators had fallen off the walls and onto the floor.

Returning to Hail Vanog, the bewildered tradesman found that they had indeed all been torn from their fittings.

He subsequently reattached them with stronger brackets, only to receive a further call from Mrs.

Holborn the next day telling him that the radiators had once again been detached from the walls.

This left him wondering if the old woman was playing some sort of prank on him or if someone was perhaps playing a prank on her.

During the summer of 1990, the long-suffering couple were surprised by an unexpected knock on their front door.

They opened it to find a well-dressed man in his 50s smiling back at them, with two other figures standing a short distance away.

The man would go on to introduce himself to the rich family as Larry Harry, a renowned psychic, and the first of several unannounced visitors to Hail Vanog, all of whom would attempt to shine a light on what was taking place there.

And in doing so,

they would end up only casting the family deeper into the darkness they faced.

Part 2 The Entities

Bill and Liz nervously exchanged glances as the neatly dressed visitor in his mid-50s introduced himself.

He said his name was Larry Harry and went on to explain how he was a spiritualist medium based in Cardiff.

With him were two other men, also mediums from the Netherlands.

Harry related how he had learned of the couple's plight through a friend in nearby Brecon and was certain that he and his associates could alleviate their suffering.

Although initially sceptical, Bill eventually agreed to the intervention.

and then watched as their visitors got to work, conducting a thorough walkthrough of the premises.

Harry and his associates would go on to relate how they'd identified four distinct energies residing in the farmhouse, completely unseen by the rich family.

These included the spirits of an old woman and of two younger men who seemed to be locked in a permanent state of conflict with one another.

But whilst these three spirits could be reasoned with, it was the fourth entity they had encountered that was of far greater concern.

Harry explained that this spirit was far older and darker than the others, one which they had struggled to even communicate with.

When feeling its presence, Harry sensed that its focus was solely on possessing Lawrence, Bill's eldest son.

Consequently, he had implored Bill to send Lawrence away from the farmhouse in the hope of denying it any further access to the boy.

Reluctantly, Bill arranged for his son to move into a flat in Brecon, sparking a heated argument that would severely strain their relationship.

By this time, Liz had given birth to their second child, a daughter called Becca, and Lawrence accused his father of not loving him and of pushing him away to prioritise his new family.

This turmoil caused Bill more pain than any of the incidents which had come before it.

making him question his sanity and the possibility of ever returning to normality.

Unable to come to terms with having estranged his own son, Bill further slumped into a depression, drinking heavily despite his wife's attempts to intervene.

But gradually, as each day passed, it soon appeared that sending Lawrence away had been the right thing to do.

The instances of loud whirring created by the electricity meter began to decrease, along with the nauseating foul odours which had surged through the premises.

A surprise visit from their neighbour, Wynne Thomas, was also taken as a sign of better fortune.

The farmer's animosity had softened somewhat as he empathised with the suffering they had faced.

In an effort to make amends for his previous attitude, Thomas asked if he might commission Bill to produce a painting of his horse, Echo.

Naturally, Bill was only too happy to oblige and threw himself into this new project.

For a time, it seemed to Liz that her husband was back to his old self again, but as the weeks rolled by, his mental health began to deteriorate once more.

Frustration over minor mistakes in the painting led to fits of rage.

causing him to cut and slash canvases that could have easily been corrected.

Recreating the horse's right hind leg proved to be an ongoing challenge for Bill, which he would inexplicably and unintentionally distort whenever he reached that stage of the painting.

It would take months of failed attempts before Bill finally got it right.

With the rest of the project proceeding smoothly, he soon handed the finished article over to Wynne Thomas, who was ecstatic with the result.

However,

this would soon change.

One evening, Bill received a phone call from his neighbour who proceeded to rant and rave at him.

Almost spitting his words down the phone line, Thomas explained that he had found Echo at the exact spot in the field which Bill had recreated in the painting.

He had somehow broken his right hind leg.

and was in such agony that he had to be euthanised.

Bill had previously explained to his neighbour the reason for the delay in finishing the painting, and because of this, Thomas concluded the call by declaring that he wanted nothing more to do with him and saying that Bill's family must have been cursed by the devil.

Even in her worst nightmares, Liz could never have imagined the consequences of this exchange.

Her husband became a ghost of his former self, spending days on end drinking in his studio, whilst whilst producing nothing in the process.

When he did emerge to interact with her and the children, she noticed what presented as horrific injuries to his hands.

His skin there was swollen to the point where it would split into wide open welts, as if he had gashed himself with a razor.

After visiting a doctor in Brecon, The various medications which had been prescribed seemed to control the swelling, but did nothing to help his irrational mood swings.

On one of the rare occasions when she had convinced Bill to leave the house on an errand, Liz decided to take Ben and Becker out for a walk in the surrounding fields.

She had returned to the house in high spirits, with the children having apparently enjoyed being out in the sunshine and away from the premises.

But as she had re-entered the residence from the barn, she was gripped by an overwhelming feeling of foreboding, as if she could sense the presence of another person in the house with them.

Standing by the stairs with the children behind her, Liz looked into the hallway, listening for any movement.

Suddenly, a dark hulking entity, around seven or eight feet tall, materialised from the wall directly opposite.

It was a roughly humanoid form, but with the shape of a bird's head, and it seemed to walk up the the hallway before disappearing through the thick stone wall near the meter.

The deathly silence that followed was then shattered by the sound of the whirring meter and the panicked screams of her children.

The incident involving the shadowy trespasser was so deeply traumatic that Liz insisted Bill take the family directly to her grandmother's house in Cowbridge.

During their time at this larger residence, the couple argued over how to resolve their situation, with Liz wanting to move and Bill wanting to stay put.

Nevertheless, they had invested in a set of baby monitors, and it was through these devices that it soon became apparent that whatever was afflicting the family was far from tethered to the old farmhouse.

One night whilst watching television, Liz heard the faint whispering of voices coming from a nearby monitor.

Sending Bill to check on the children, she listened in, hearing the distinct sounds of her husband opening the door and entering the room.

There followed a few moments of silence before Bill closed the door and left.

But just as he arrived back in the living room, saying that the children were fast asleep, The whispering voices returned.

Bill went to check again, only for the voices to cease as he opened the door.

This occurred several times, the voices seeming to whisper to one another in a sinister and haunting manner, moving closer and then further away from the monitor, as if walking back and forth across the room.

Concerned for the safety of her children, Liz decided to have them sleep with her and Bill.

for the remainder of their stay.

With Bill increasingly incapacitated by his alcoholism and Liz pushed to her very limits, she turned to the church for help.

She was directed to Reverend David Holmwood, who was known in the Baptist community as an expert in exorcism.

The Reverend attentively listened to what the couple had experienced in their home.

and expressed a willingness to help rid them of whatever was causing the phenomena.

After several months of preparation, Holmwood installed himself at Hail Vanog, aided by an American assistant who he claimed to have freed from possession in a previous incident.

Almost immediately, their presence provoked a strong and at times violent reaction, with the foul odours returning along with the aggressive whirring of the electricity meter and a series of paralyzing temperature drops.

Seeing the torment inflicted upon the rich family, Holmwood formed the opinion that whatever dark force was responsible had a particular fixation on Bill, apparently taking hold of and possessing the artist and forcing him to paint increasingly horrifying and traumatic visions.

These depictions showed dark figures with red eyes, staring back at Bill from the canvas, sometimes missing limbs or other body parts that appeared to be severed.

Holmwood instructed Bill to instead paint religious imagery in his studio and conducted multiple aggressive exorcisms in the presence of the artist during this process.

But the force Holmwood was battling would only intensify its resistance, further ensnaring Bill and pushing him towards the edge of his sanity.

His behaviour became erratic around Liz and the children, hastily retreating to another room and locking himself inside whenever he saw them.

He also avoided the kitchen altogether, taking his meals alone, until one day Liz found him curled up in a ball on the kitchen floor, weeping uncontrollably.

Through his tears, Bill explained that he had been compelled against his will to go to the knife drawer, experiencing a relentless urge to harm himself.

He related how at one time he had taken out a large blade and had just been on the point of stabbing himself in the chest when he managed to regain control.

Throwing the knife back in the drawer, he walked out of the kitchen to be sick in the toilet.

But on his return, he found the same knife now lying back on the kitchen table, its handle angled directly towards the door, as if inviting him to take it up once again.

Liz realised that Holmwood's actions had been not only ineffective, but detrimental, as Bill's condition had worsened.

Requesting that the Reverend cease his efforts and leave, she instead began to seek aid from other local residents and historians.

Each successive inquiry she made painted a horrifying picture of the farmhouse and the properties which immediately surrounded it.

There was a seemingly endless history of brutal murders and tragic suicides.

all of which seemed to be focused entirely within the vicinity of Hale Vanog.

And it was around this time, at her lowest ebb, that another enigmatic figure entered the family's lives.

This time, one who offered them no promise of success, but would go on to achieve far more than any of those who had preceded him.

In February of 1993,

An unassuming ghost hunter named Eddie Burks garnered national attention for his involvement in an infamous haunting.

He had been contacted directly by the owners of Cootes Bank in London, whose staff had been plagued by poltergeist activity.

After he visited the building, the disturbance ceased altogether, prompting the national tabloids to somewhat laud him as the genuine article.

As a result, he became emboldened by his abilities and actively sought out other alleged hauntings where he believed he could offer relief to those affected.

In March of 1995, this search brought him to the doorstep of Hale Vanog, where he met Liz, who was desperate for any assistance he could provide.

Walking patiently through the farmhouse, Burks confirmed that two souls still resided there, people who Liz had already encountered during her research.

These were Thomas Edwards, a farm worker who had been beaten to death with an an axe on a neighbouring property in 1848, and that of his killer, James Griffiths.

Burks explained that neither of these spirits had been able to move on, as they had not been able to process the trauma of their deaths.

For Edwards, The realization that he'd been killed by the man whom he believed to be his best friend had proven far too much for him to accept.

But the far more haunting story was the motive behind his murder.

Burke stated that there had been a long history of satanic worship in the region, concealed by a select few who practiced it.

The previous owners of the Hail Vanog estate had been senior members of this cult-like organization, conducting numerous dark rituals upon their property.

One evening, Thomas Edwards had stumbled across one of their meetings and hurriedly fled the scene, but not before being recognised by several of their number.

The landowners had then abducted and threatened his best friend, James Griffiths, coercing him into killing Edwards and threatening violence against his family if he did not.

Griffiths had no choice but to agree to the demands of his wealthy and powerful satanic captors, and killed Edwards shortly afterwards.

But the promise they had made in preventing him from being sentenced for the murder never came to pass.

He was subsequently hanged, taking the motive behind the killing of his best friend to the grave with him, and leaving his soul to forever wander the scene of his unforgivable crime.

Birks went on to explain to the family that he had persuaded the two spirits to open an astral doorway and move into the afterlife.

But whilst his actions would ultimately end the disturbances at Ail Vanog, they were not without consequence.

In the weeks immediately following his visit, there was one final surge of activity at the farmhouse, with the electricity meter suddenly spiking to operate at its highest level ever.

The couple was also plagued by visions of several horrifying entities, including a man with half his face having been pulverized.

Burks later explained that the temporary doorway he had opened for Edwards and Griffiths may have acted as a beacon for other similar spirits from the surrounding area, desperate to pass on before it closed forever.

With the torment finally ended, life returned to what it always should have been for the family, but the damage was already done, leaving too many tainted memories in what had at one time been their dream home.

They would eventually leave the property, with their marriage ending in divorce, and Bill passing away as a result of his alcoholism in later years, making him perhaps the last soul to be claimed by the haunted farmhouse and the evils that had dwelt there for hundreds of years.

During the rich family's seven years at Hail Vanog, conflicting theories have emerged.

Many observers dismiss any intent to deceive.

believing the family sincerely recounted their experiences, citing numerous independent witnesses.

The location of the farmhouse on top of converging ley lines is also suggested as a cause, with these mystical fault lines being linked to paranormal events in the Brecon Beacons since medieval times.

Others attribute the horrors to Bill's deteriorating mental health, a consequence of alcohol abuse and toxic substances he may have used in his day-to-day activities as an artist.

The sinister voices and heavy footsteps he experienced may have been hallucinations, whilst Liz, grappling with isolation and young motherhood, may have become susceptible to her husband's traumatised visions due to sleep deprivation.

The involvement of Reverend Holmwood and other mediums may have reinforced the family's supernatural beliefs, leading to poor decisions such as sending Lawrence away, which only exacerbated the situation.

However, a distinctive aspect of the Hail Vanog story is the role of the electricity meter, showing spikes which coincided with key events.

Were the spirits drawing power from the meter to manifest themselves to the family?

Or was it the actions of Bill and Liz affecting the use of power at the farmhouse as they tried to combat increasingly wild figments of their own imaginations?

Some reports of hauntings associate power usage with paranormal activity, and paranormal investigators often note inexplicable power loss in their equipment during investigations.

This would seem to suggest an intriguing relationship between the electricity used in our daily lives and unseen forces that may simultaneously exist alongside us.

Whether the happenings at Hail Vanog were real or imagined, the fear that they instilled amongst not only the rich family, but others who visited the property, certainly was.

Until next time.

Bedtimes, Glorious.