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CHILLING EXPERIENCES
Brunswick Square: A brief history
Situated in Hove between Adelaide Crescent and Regency Square, the Square
along with Brunswick Terrace was named after Caroline of Brunswick, George
the Fourth's unfortunate wife.
Both Square and Terrace have had notable inhabitants.
Among them are Prince Metternich, an exile from Austria took up residence
in the Terrace in 1848. Madame Basevi, wife of George Basevi, whose sister
Maria married Issac Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield's father. Lord Beaconsfield
himself in later years stayed in Brighton. Admiral Westphal lived for many
years at No.2.
One of the regular browsers of this website is David. He has for some
time now had strange and sometimes, unpleasant experiences with what most
of us would call the 'Supernatural', the 'Unknown', or just plain 'Spooky'.
I have read many books, around 150, on subjects as diverse as the supernatural,
superstitions, witchcraft, sorcery, UFO's, possessions, folklore, etc, and
of all these facts, stories, experiences, sightings and other reportings,
I feel that most are explainable and can be attributed to natural phenomena
or indeed tricks of the mind.
This does however leave a percentage that takes more explanation than
we have knowledge of. I myself have experienced two such unexplained happenings,
that was also experienced by others at the same time, and not just myself.
Perhaps I shall get around to including those experiences on this site in
future years.
David falls into this small percentage category of unexplainable events,
the first of which follows;
David as already mentioned, has experienced many events of a strange nature
and although these are included in the Sussex Pages, it may be more to do
with David than Sussex!
This experience began when David went to visit some friends who had moved
into Brunswick Square some years ago. The residence was a basement flat
on the square itself, similar to many others of the Regency period in this
area. Having had a disagreement with his friends some time earlier, David
was hesitant about visiting them at this address. He also had an uneasy
feeling about the place itself.
Being persuaded to enter the property, he set about inspecting the rooms
as one does, giving the usual grunts of appreciation to the hosts. Each
floor of these Regency houses have many rooms to cater for both family and
servants. The basement areas would have been for the servants to carry out
their duties, cook for the family and have storerooms, etc. On entering
the basement area, a hallway runs the entire length of the building with
rooms leading off this to the right.
At the very end of the hallway was a large doorway that had been sealed
up to deny access to this part of the property (reason unknown?). To the
right of this sealed doorway was a back room, completely empty, with a large
window that looked out into a yard. Looking through this window one could
see the part of the building that had been sealed off from use although
nothing of the interior could be seen.
The only thing in this room was a built-in cupboard that had refused attempts
to be opened and remained firmly closed. Trying to be helpful, David tinkered
with the cupboard doors and eventually managed to free them and opened the
cupboard. Unfortunately for David, what came out of the cupboard was a thick
stench of what can only be described as rotting flesh. Gagging on the smell,
David opened the window and leaned out to breath in the fresh air and clear
his head.
On looking back into the room he saw the others standing at the far side
of the room bemused by his behaviour when he felt overcome by a feeling
of dread. All at once he felt sick, the hairs on his body seemed to stand
on end and he broke out in goose bumps.
This was succeeded by a ghostly hand being dragged all down his back although
he knew there was no one behind him as he could see the others clearly.
Again the feeling of dread took over and he began to shake uncontrollably
and there was a permeable evil in the air which galvanised him into leaving
the building at once - he has not returned to this place since.
The residents of the flat had bad feelings about the place after his visit
and strange things occured over a period of time. Windows would open mysteriously
or even slam shut for no reason, things moved about the flat without explanation
and a morbid feeling shrouded the place which ended up with the residents
falling out with each other and eventually moved out.
There the story ends........................ or do you know different?
