A Phantom Mansion

Place: Bradfield St. George, Suffolk
Time: October 1926
Observers: Miss Ruth Wynne and Miss Allington

The Wynne family moved into a house at Rougham, about four miles (six km) from Bury St. Edmunds, in 1926, Ruth Wynne was tutoring a 14-year-old girl, A Miss Allington, and during the afternoons they frequently explored the district on foot. One afternoon in October, they set out to visit the church in the neighbouring village of Bradfield St. George. After crossing the fields, they walked through a farmyard, and came out on a road near the church.

‘We had never previously taken this particular walk, nor did we know anything about the topography of the hamlet of Bradfield St. George. Exactly opposite us on the further side of the road and flanking it, we saw a high wall of greenish-yellow bricks. The road ran past us for a few yards then curved away from us to the left. We walked along the road, following the brick wall round the bend, where we came upon tall, wrought-iron gates set in the wall…

‘Behind the wall and towering above it was a cluster of tall trees. From the gates, a drive led away among these trees to what was evidently a large house. We could just see a corner of the roof above a stucco front in which I remember noticing some windows of Georgian design. The rest of the house was hidden by the branches of the trees.’

The two young women stood by the gates, wondering why they had not previously heard of such a large house so close to their own, and who could be the owners: ‘it seemed odd that the occupants had not called.’ However, they then turned off the road along a footpath leading to the church; and, when they later left the church, they took a route out through the churchyard, without returning to the road or the farmyard. Back home, they briefly discussed the house and its presumed occupants with Miss Wynne’s parents, and then thought no more of it.

They did not take the same walk until the following spring. They passed through the farmyard and out on to the road - ‘where, suddenly we both stopped dead of one accord and gasped. "Where’s the wall?" we queried simultaneously.’

‘The road was flanked by nothing but a ditch, and beyond the ditch lay a wilderness of tumbled earth, weeds, mounds, all overgrown with the trees which we had seen on our first visit. We followed the road on round the bend, but there were no fates, no drive, no corner of a house to be seen. At first we thought that our house and wall had been pulled down since our last visit. But closer inspection showed a pond and other small pools amongst the mounds where the house had been visible. It was obvious that they had been there a long time.’

Subsequently Miss Wynne made some tentative enquiries of a number of villagers in Bradfield St. George, but even among the oldest inhabitants there was nobody who would admit to knowing anything of such a house. She concluded:

‘I have not yet succeeded in finding an 18^th-century map of that district, but I am convinced still that the house either once stood there, or else that I shall meet it again somewhere else.’