![]() Director Robert Wise used Ettington Park Hall in Warwickshire in the United Kingdom for the unnerving exteriors. Jackson’s novel was filmed in 1963, to great effect, as The Haunting. ( Ghost stories scare up new life at these historic hotels.) The book of the investigation, given aristocratic endorsement by the Marquis of Bute, caused all sorts of ructions in the Letters pages of the London Times, with many condemning the naivety of the investigators. The Society (which still exists) formed a Haunted House Committee and sent the dubious “psychic sensitive” Ada Goodrich-Freer to investigate claims of haunting at Ballechin House in Scotland. In the preface to her bestseller, Jackson confessed the idea for her ghost story had been taken from a bizarre true-life inquiry by the London-based Society for Psychical Research in 1897. ![]() Here’s how Jackson’s book continues to inspire haunted house tourism, and where you can visit other evocative Bad Places. The famous opening paragraph tells us that the house “stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within.” In the novel a group of paranormal investigators stay in the house, which they only belatedly realize is feeding off disturbed psychic powers that are conjuring murderous, long buried resentments.Įver since the book’s success-and thanks to Stephen King novels, “true” paranormal TV shows, and found-footage films such as Paranormal Activity-we’ve become attuned to the idea of the Bad Place, the house where past traumas or atrocities have leaked into the atmosphere and then gotten stuck on repeat. The mansion was one of the inspirations for Shirley Jackson’s classic 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House-a key gothic novel that portrays a house as a reserve of malignant energy. You can take the “ Walk with Spirits” tour, attend a séance, or-new this fall-immerse yourself in creepy “ Unhinged Housewarming” evenings. It has just celebrated its centenary and is still a popular attraction in the San Francisco Bay Area. The answer was no to most of these questions, but once the famous magician Harry Houdini visited and told the owners to market it as the “Winchester Mystery House,” its commercial career was secure. ![]() Was her fortune cursed? Did Winchester build a labyrinth to confound vengeful spirits? Were there séances held in the mansion every night? She constructed elaborate extra rooms (more than a hundred), stairs that led nowhere, and empty corridors that turned the house into a bewildering maze. Winchester was the heir to the gun manufacturer’s fortune, and rumors swirled around her constant home building and renovation. Soon after the death of Sarah Winchester in San Jose, California, in 1922, the new owners opened her mansion as an attraction for tourists drawn to tales of the bizarre.
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