Good news! If you’re looking for real estate in England, you can now purchase a former medieval prison where witches were once jailed for, well, being witches. Or, “witches,” we should probably say.
The cottage, aka The Cage, is listed for £240,000, or $305,683, on rightmove.com, with key features such as “ARE YOU LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TRULY UNIQUE, SPINE CHILLING AND FULL OF CHARACTERS – then look no further” and “Most Haunted house in Essex and possibly England.” According to the website, the little building once housed 13 supposed witches. Eventually, at least two of them were hung – Ursula Kemp and Elizabeth Bennet in 1582, according to Singular Fortean Society. Kemp was a local healer and in 1921, the skeletal remains of two females were found in a St. Osyth garden. One of them is thought to be Kemp, who was accused of killing her neighbor’s baby via spells. Makes total sense.
According to Live Science, Essex was at the front lines of weeding out witches in the 16th and 17th centuries and subsequently killed many of them. Of the 112 people who were killed in England in the 1640s, 82 of them were executed in Essex. Of course, now we know that the reasons many of these men and women were accused were because of deeply embedded sexism, superstition, pure bad luck, and a whole bunch of bullshit.
Rightmove.com recommends that the next buyer rent this picture book cottage of the horror variety out to guests as the current owner, Vanessa Mitchell, is packing her bags because of the amount of paranormal activity that goes on. Evidently, it’s some pretty dark shit, too. Mitchell’s hair was allegedly pulled, she saw blood appear in the hallways, had visitors pushed down the stairs, and even saw a satanic goat at one point. Excuse us while we change our pants.
Amanda Push
