A woman who says she endured supernatural events for seven years after moving into a Welsh farmhouse dubbed 'Britain's most exorcised home' revealed that she was left fearing for her life after an encounter with a hooded figure.
Liz Rich moved into Heol Fanog near the Brecon Beacons in 1989, along with her husband Bill and their young children. The family, however, soon encountered a number of sinister experiences at the house including power surges, dead farm animals, and even claiming to see two spirits.
One ghostly figure was described in reporting by the Daily Star as an old woman who would watch the children play, as well as a hooded figure with no face. The house, nicknamed Hellfire Farm, was exorcised "hundreds of times", Liz said - and even claims to have been possessed in the property's kitchen.
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Speaking to the Daily Star about her experiences, the 63-year-old said: "If you've never experienced anything like this, it must sound like we're making it up - but none of it was made up, none of it." One early sign that things were not quite right at the home was an expensive electricity bill that arrived, amounting to far more than the family could have used. Experts could not pinpoint a reason for this, despite multiple visits to the house.
With the house isolated in the Brecon Beacons, Liz said that living there was like "being in a bubble" and that the family gradually adapted to an "insidious" feeling while living there. "You could sense something before the real horrors came. Sometimes the house would level out but then something would happen and it would become more claustrophobic and more oppressive like an energy building up," she said.
"We were living in an unreality. When you came home, you didn't know what was going to happen." Among the strange phenomena that the family experience were footsteps that were heard on the stairs and farm animals dying with no explanation.
"I would always try to look for answers. But the problem is when something happens that you can't find a logical explanation for. How can you be standing looking at a door with your eyes and it closes and makes a slamming noise? How can an oil radiator heat itself up when there's no oil in the tank? That's when I thought there was a serious problem," Liz said.
The couple's children Ben and Becca also reported seeing an old woman who they said would sit in the corner of their nursery and watch them play. Liz also says she saw the woman through a window in the house, as well as a seven-foot figure with no face.
"It was menacing, strong and sure of itself," Liz said of encountering the figure in a passageway in the house. "It didn't have a face but it was in the form of a kind of human. I don't think it was a ghost but it was something evil, something that had been around for a long, long time."
Bill, an artist, cut himself off and would spend hours in the studio, with Liz saying that her husband was so obsessed that "it got to his brain". She added: "The house ate away at his soul, it took away his self-respect. He was drinking more, he was grumpy and he became someone who was rotten from the inside out. It eventually destroyed him."
The couple separated and Bill sadly died before the release of the new BBC podcast, The Witch Farm, which discusses the family's experiences. A book by Mark Chadbourn, titled Testimony, also covers the family's experiences. The couple approached Baptist minister David Holmwood for help, with a series of exorcisms taking place in an attempt to solve the problem.
Liz believes that she was possessed in the property, telling The Witch Farm host Danny Robins: "I felt violated, the thought of something, some energy, having the audacity to take your body even for a short period of time." While the family eventually left Heol Fanog, moving to Cowbridge, the property is still occupied.
"I know people will just think we're weird people and we're making it up all but you'd have to have one hell of an imagination to make all this up. It felt dangerous in that house. The kids always slept with me, I wouldn't let them sleep on their own. I definitely felt very threatened there," Liz said. "When you've met evil, you know it. Ghosts don't scare me now because I've come up against such evil in my life. That's the truth."
Creator of The Witch Farm podcast, Danny Robins, added: "I think ghost stories are detective stories and they're equally satisfying whether you're a believer or a sceptic. If you're a sceptic, it's a how-done-it and if you're a believer, it's a who-done-it. Human beings love mysteries and ghost stories are the ones that keep on giving.
"With Bill and Liz's story, it's about the realness. I get scared by things that feel real. Bill and Liz are this ordinary couple that move somewhere more remote and then mad stuff happens to them. You think 'if it can happen to them, it can happen to me'."
The Witch Farm is available to listen to on BBC Sounds. New episodes are released on Mondays and are broadcast on Radio 4 at 11pm
Mark Chadbourn's book about Heol Fanog, Testimony, is available to buy. For more information, visit his website here.
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