Ep241 - The Devil Came To Loftus Hall - Creep Street Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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(00:24):
is a dating service that connects you only with people
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Speaker 2 (00:35):
You know, I used only Ken because I just couldn't
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had a slightly distant cousin who was a perfect match
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same people, and now we have seven lovely anemic sons.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
You know, I was about ready to give up on guys.
I thought my prince Charming would never come. But then
I found only Kin, and it hooked me up with
a man that I knew I could trust my heart
and my fortune too. And he also just happens to
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Speaker 4 (01:14):
You know, I was looking for a mate that had wisdom,
and I just couldn't find it anywhere I looked. But
when I found only Ken, I found my perfect match,
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Speaker 1 (01:32):
Warning, only Ken is only operational in Europe. In the
Southern United States, usage of only Ken can lead to
birth defects and even the Habsburg job only Ken because
if they're not related, he shouldn't date it. Citizens of

(02:18):
the melky Way, my name is Dylan Hackworth and I
Gage Hurley, and you have arrived in the Devil's din.
That's right, folks, you have arrived at the Creep Street Podcast,
where you can get all your devilish desires fulfilled. Now
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(02:41):
Of course, we also have a Facebook group called Citizens
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We are currently accepting listener stories. We want to do

(03:04):
one here pretty soon. So we actually have some left over,
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Do a listener stories episode. It's been a while since
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(03:27):
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that fun stuff. So go check that out now, folks,
it's time we dive in. Just think about it. I

(03:50):
want you to imagine it's a rainy night. Maybe you're alone,
maybe you're with family. You're playing a little game, maybe
playing a little yachtzi. All of a sudden, there come
a knock at the door. You open it to find
a beautiful stranger. And no I'm not talking about me, Engage,
I'm talking about someone else. Well, folks, tonight's episode is

(04:15):
the Devil came to Loftus Hall. And once again my
source for this one is from that series of books
we used for Screaming Skulls. Best of British ghost Stories
a collection of True Haunting's Volume seven by Sophie Jackson.

(04:37):
Now I want to give a little heads up before
we start this. This one. It's one of those where
there's a lot of people with the same name, and
every now and then they'll be there's constant rug pulls
in both directions where you'll get a fact and be like, oh, well,
maybe it didn't happen then, but then they'll another fact

(04:59):
will get dug up and it's like, wait, it did happen,
and it's gonna bounce back and forth like that like
a game of ping pong, and so heads up. I
was even having trouble following while writing my notes, but
I think I got it down and we're gonna find
out how it ties freakishly ties into a past episode

(05:21):
of the Creep Street podcast. So let's just dive right
into this. Let's dive right in. Imagine you're on the
misty coasts of Ireland. Mmm, well, you got your big
fisherman's sweater on smoking on a pipe, you got a
newsy hat on I don't know.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
And whatever they call those, you know the one.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
Yeah, you got a pint of ail in your hand. Oh,
just imagine it. Imagine that setting, because that's where we're going.
There's a stretch of wild Irish coast where the winds
howl and the cliffs themselves seem to almost close in
around you, not necessarily in a for boat way, almost
like in a snug kind of way. Like ah, they're

(06:05):
perched on the Hook Peninsula in County Wexford, there sits
a hulking, time worn monolith known as Loftus Hall. Well.
Today it's a brooding gray skeleton of a house, its
windows loom like unblinking eyes staring out to the sea.

(06:25):
But long before it earned its chilling reputation, long before
the devil himself walked its halls, Loftis Hall was something
else entirely now. The first known structure on this spot
was built all the way back in eleven seventy ooh gosh,

(06:46):
I mean we are talking almost nine hundred years ago,
built by none other than Raymond Legrosse, a Norman knight
who knew a thing or two about conquest. That first
fortress eventually gave way to a new castle around thirteen
fifty known as Redmond Hall, named after the powerful Redmond

(07:06):
family who called it home for generations. They were a
family of wealth, status, and supposedly many secrets, because some
say there was something off about this area of land
from the very beginning, that it carried the weight of
something old, something that seemed to be watching and waiting

(07:27):
as the winds came screaming in off the sea. Power,
as we know, is never permanent. It's always changing hands,
and so is peace. By the time the Irish Confederate
Wars rolled through in sixteen forty two, Redmond Hall had
become more than just a family home. It was now
a target. At the time, the hall was under the

(07:50):
stewardship of Alexander Redmon, a man of sixty eight years
but with enough grit to trounce men half his age.
He was a grizzled old badass. Alexander was said to
be sympathetic to the Irish rebels, a dangerous position, mind you.
When the English forces came knocking, and a knocking they

(08:11):
did come, and they knocked hard. A small English troop
led by Captain Aston, rolled up on Redmond Hall, expecting
an easy victory. But what Aston couldn't have counted on
was finding a lion like man behind those doors. Considering
Alexander's age, he was too old to flee, but also

(08:35):
too proud to kneel, and as enemy forces closed in,
he barricaded the hall. At his side were his sons
Robert and Michael, a few of their tenants, two hired
men at arms, and even one itinerant tailor who by
all accounts, was only there. They had just hired him
to him a pair of breeches, only to find himself

(08:57):
in a full blown siege. They might have come there
to him breeches, but by this point he was probably
shutting his breeches. That made ten total defenders within Redman Hall,
armed with nothing more than just a few fouling guns. Weapons, literally,
as they sound, intended for hunting birds and not the

(09:20):
thick of battle. If you look them up, those early rifles,
they're like half a mile long and like so you've
probably seen like old pictures of them. Not exactly practical
for warfare even at that time, But even while under armed,
they held their ground well. Frustrated and enraged Captain Aston,

(09:41):
he kept up the assault, determined to break through the
hall's heavy oak doors. Cannons he brought along were more
bark than bite, and no match for the thick, centuries
old stone and iron braced wood of Redmon Hall. They
fired shot after shot, and still the door held firm,

(10:02):
and that's when things fell apart. About half of Aston's men,
either bored, hungry, or just too yellow belly to keep fighting,
they abandoned the siege entirely and scattered into the countryside
like rats from a sinking ship. Now many of these
scoundrels took to pillaging the surrounding lands instead, like a

(10:23):
group of dickheads. They looted farms, stole from villagers, and
being generally unruly bastards. What was meant to be a
swift act of dominance for Aston had turned into an
embarrassing fumble. And inside those walls Alexander Redman and his
tiny band of defenders stood tall muskets firmly in hand

(10:45):
as the would be conquerors tucked tail and ran. And then,
as if summoned by some sort of Lovecraftian god, the
sea Mist came rolling in, thick and heavy, most unnatural.
It rolled in off the coast like a living thing,

(11:05):
swallowing the landscape in a cold, wet shroud. The air
grew still, even the birds went quiet. As the legend goes,
it was under this cloak of creeping fog that the
tide finally turned from the murk. The Irish confederates emerged,
silent and swift, like ghosts with blades. They descended upon

(11:29):
the now weakened English force, and what followed was nothing
short of a slaughter. Caught off guard, scattered and leaderless,
only about thirty English soldiers managed to escape the carnage.
The rest were cut down in the fog, their cries
muffled by the coursing sea. Now imagine that, you gotta think,

(11:51):
I mean ten guys, only thirty survived, So that means
there was more than thirty of these aggressors trying to
down this little fortress. So you got to think it's
almost like, I mean, yes, of course, the I'm sure
it was well built and everything, but after a point
you got to think that's a miracle, right, You got
to think eventually someone's gonna get in, Like so the

(12:15):
fact that they held that long is just really it's
almost miraculous.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
It is reminds me of the three hundred Spartans vastly outnumbered.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
Yes, or I think it was at the Maccabee's where
the story of Honika comes from. They had the oil
that lasted for eight days, and they held off those
forces when the odds were heavily against them. You know,
if every now and then this happens in history, in
battle where for some reason a smaller force is able,
just whether by luck, miracles, or just like good strategy,

(12:48):
are able to overcome a much larger force. Well, Captain
Aston was not among the survivors. He met his end
far from home in the mud and the mist. His
blood soaking into the earth around the hall that he
had failed to conquer, reminds me of the myth of Sisyphus,

(13:09):
you know, the I think that was Greek, right, the
guy who forever is rolling a boulder uphill, but he
can never quite get it to the top. And it's
but he always keeps trying. It's almost like that, It's
like he just keeps trying. He keeps it's because it's
like everything's wrapped up in it. It's his pride, it's everything,
and he's just pushing and pushing. But he can never

(13:29):
quite get there, and it led to his demise. He
died trying to do it. Literally. As far as those
English who were captured, well, they were hanged the very
next day. Redmond Hall had stood tall. Uh, it's another
great album named Redmond Hall stands Tall. But the land,

(13:50):
drunk deep of the carnage, and the stones itself would
seem to remember the bloody siege for centuries to come.
According to Redmond family lore, the sixteen forty two siege
wasn't the last time Cromwell's forces came a Knocket. Again
and again they returned, armed with steel, cannon fire and

(14:11):
furious aggression, and each time the hall refused to tumble.
But alas stone can only do so much time, as always,
is the true conqueror, no matter what side you're on.
Alexander Redman died within the hall, either in sixteen fifty
or fifty one, depending on which source you believe, And

(14:34):
when he passed, so too did the era of Redmond Defiance.
With Alexander gone, his family was evicted, stripped of the
land they had bled for, and in their place came
a new family, the Loftis family, and just like that,
the Redmond Hall. Era of Loftis Hall was over. The

(14:56):
bones of the old house still beneath it, but its
face changed forever. So think about that that wasn't even
the only siege they kept sending people like. It's kind
of amazing. And then kind of the biggest slap in
the face of all is their main enemy. When he
did die, it was probably of natural causes or just whatever.

(15:17):
You know, he would have probably been in his seventies
by the time he died, and he died with you know,
by nature, not by anyone else's hand. And it's also
kind of sad that after all that they just get evicted.
Yeah landlords, am I right? Jesus christ Man? But consider
this the prequel, because now we're diving in to the

(15:38):
real thing. With the Loftist family. Came new wealth, new titles,
new power, but of course something old yet remain, something
that had watched all of the sieges, had heard the
screams of dying men in the fog, and something that
knew the house had changed hands, while never forgetting who remained.

(16:02):
The man who made it manifest was gone, And it
almost makes you wonder. It's like was Alexander Emnon like
blessed in a way. How this older man, with only
a few handfuls of support was able to keep holding
off these intrusions. I mean, it almost makes you wonder.
It's like, man, it almost seems like the divine was

(16:23):
on his side at least for a while. But then,
of course, as the title of this episode will suggest,
that's going to change here pretty soon. Enter one man
named Nicholas Loftus, a man of status and favor. Nicholas
Loftus had received extensive lands from Oliver Cromwell himself, carved

(16:46):
up and handed out like spoils from a broken kingdom,
and among them was Redmond Hall, which he acquired from
the hands of quote adventures and soldiers, a polite phrase
for opportunists and mercenaries, men who reaped what they hadn't
sown and sold what they helped destroy. So think about that, like,

(17:06):
it's interesting that as the Redmans held it, the place
almost seemed blessed, and then as Cromwell was able to
install his own people there, all of a sudden it
changes to something infernal. It's like literally like I didn't
even realize that as I was doing my research. It's like, wow,
that sudden click of just like flip of a switch. Absolutely,

(17:31):
it was Nicholas's son, Henry Loftus, who would be the
first of the family to actually take up residence in
the old hall. But it wasn't the proud, fortified a
state that it had once been. No, the war had
left it riddled with damage, gutted walls, scorch timbers, and
seemingly ghosts lurking in every corner. As Henry set about

(17:54):
making extensive repairs, patching what could be patched and replacing
what he could. But you can't mortar over memory, and
you can't scrub blood out of wood. While the house
had a new name and a new owner, and a
fresh paint job and a good spit shy, the land
itself seemed to know that this change of hands had

(18:17):
been made. And the story of Loftis Hall obviously does
not end with Henry Loftis and the bloodstained legacy he inherited.
It was merely reshaped because by the late nineteenth century
the family wanted more than just stone and ghost stories.
They wanted grandeur. Between eighteen seventy two and eighteen eighty four,

(18:39):
Loftis Hall was completely rebuilt, transformed into a modern marvel
of Victorian architecture and design. No expense was spared, was spared?

Speaker 2 (18:49):
No expense?

Speaker 1 (18:50):
Yeah, yeah, spared no expense. I always loved it when
he said in Dregspark when he goes, when he slams
his cane down, he just goes, damn. When he's like
and he just says done, Oh mommy, can't you see
the fleas? The house was outfitted with the latest technology
of that time, flushing toilets, blown air heating, imported materials,

(19:14):
carved wood, decadent tapestries. The Loftest family wanted it to
shine like a jewel on the Irish coast.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
I didn't even know they had those things at that time.

Speaker 1 (19:24):
Wow. Yeah, And I even put that in my notes,
especially blown air heating, and it worked not too unlike
how it does today. There's like a central furnace and
vents that just go to different parts of the house
and the heat comes from one source and out into
the other rooms through those vents. I mean it's literally
pretty much the same model, just been upgraded, but it's

(19:45):
essentially the same framework, right, very clever, yes, absolutely, and
and so I mean we know, so this obviously paints
a picture these are some rich folk we got too,
because you gotta imagine it was probably not many people
who could have afford those sorts of things. They wanted,
essentially to create the jewel of the Irish coast, but

(20:06):
what they really inherited was a burden unlike anything they
could have imagined. These renovations became a monstrous financial drain,
as you would imagine, I mean, heating, for God's sake, God,
what are you, Jeff Bezos?

Speaker 2 (20:21):
How kind of build does that brack up every month?

Speaker 1 (20:24):
Yeah? Oh, richie, rich over here, jeez. And all of
this bled their coffers dry. Eventually, the price proved too high,
and when the last Loftist died, the estate passed not
to a child, not even to legacy, but to a
distant cousin. Someone had little love for the house, so

(20:47):
he did the only sensible thing. He sold it, And
just like that, the last thread tying the loftiest name
to the hall was cut clean. But the house, oh baby,
the house remained bigger and grander, and now more hollow
than ever. The recent history of Loftus Hall reads like
the house itself, beautiful yet creepy, and perhaps maybe even

(21:11):
a little bit curse.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
Sounds a little like Bill Skarsgard beautiful, Yeah, creepy.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
Yeah, you know what. Yes, someone the other day was
saying that, like, how can a man be so spooky
yet good looking at the same time. Yeah, it is interesting.
In nineteen seventeen, the house was purchased by the Sisters
of Providence, who converted the estate into a convent and
a girls' school, a holy sanctuary built atop the very

(21:39):
spot where, according to legend which we will soon get into,
where the devil himself once danced in the drawing room.
Think of the irony nuns patrolling the same halls where
cloven hoofs had clicked and quacked down the tiles centuries before.
And just so people know, I didn't know this because
you know, I'm not Catholic, but Sisters of Providence it's

(22:01):
a thing. It still exists today. It's like a Catholic
women's group that basically they like help the you know,
whether it's food or clothing or you know, they just
kind of do charitable work and stuff like that. And
so that's what Sisters of Providence is. Fast forward now
to nineteen eighty three, and the hall has changed hands
again and again, and this time to a Michael Devereaux,

(22:24):
who tried to breathe new life into the manner by
transforming it into a hotel, But Loftus Hall refused to
be relegated to check in times or rooms service. The
hotel fizzled by the late nineties, leaving the house once
again silent and waiting. Customers weren't exactly laying siege to

(22:45):
Loftus Hall as Cromwell's men were. The Devereaux family held
on to it for a few more years, but in
two thousand and eight the keys passed once more, this
time to the Quigley family, who saw Loftus Hall for
what it truly was a legend. They opened the house
to the public, not as a hotel or a school,

(23:05):
but as a portal into Ireland's darkest folklore. Today, Loftus
Hall welcomes guests not for rest, but for ghost hunts
and paranormal investigations and late night tours where brave souls
walk the same halls that were said to echo with
the hoof beats of the devil, the sounds of weeping
in the faint smell of brimstone. Now that's not a

(23:28):
scented candle that's hell fire.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
Oh is that what that is?

Speaker 1 (23:31):
Oh? Yes, ooh, you know it smell's kind of good.

Speaker 2 (23:34):
It's like a bonfire, oohm.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
Because you can rename a house, that's for sure, and
you can paint it, repair it and sell it a
hundred times over. But when the devil sat at your table, baby,
that's a stank that just doesn't come out. And if
you think loftus Hall has grown quiet and it's old age,
we'll think again, suckus. The Quigley family don't shy away
from the house's reputation. They embrace it. They promoted, they

(24:01):
promoted as a place for the public to have, you know,
possibly paranormal experiences, and according to them, the spirits are
very active, as if centuries of tragedy, betrayal, and intrusion
have left the house crackling with leftover rage. One of
the most chilling encounters in recent years didn't come from
thrill seekers or ghost hunters. It came from ancestors, a

(24:24):
group of descendants of Alexander Redmond, That Alexander who held
off Cromwell's forces until the day he died. They traveled
from Dublin to visit the hall, hoping perhaps to, you know,
reconnect with some of their ancestral past. Oh, and the
house was waiting for them. As they approached the property,
they were confronted by the spirits of their Redmond ancestors.

(24:49):
It said, an ethereal council of long dead standing watch
over the bones of what was once theirs. And what
did they tell these ancestors? They were told, with cold,
clear certainty, to never return, not until they had hosted

(25:09):
a feast in honor of their lost family name. Until then,
the dead would not rest and the living would not
be welcome. So that's a little speed run of Loftus Hall,
of the land of the structure, going back to literally
medieval times, where I heard you can get a good

(25:30):
leg of lamb and watch a good show. Well, let's
get to the meat. Let's get to the main course.
We've had our appetizer, we've had our salad. Let's get
that steak. Baby. But for all all its history of
blood and battle, Raftus Hall is remembered most not for
a siege or a skirmish, but for a single visitor,

(25:52):
a stranger that would leave an indelible scar on the
legacy of the place. The most infamous legend tied to
the Hall takes root in the eighteenth century, when the
estate was under the care of Charles Tottenham and his
wife Anne Loftus and their daughter from a previous marriage,
also named Anne. In a move that was as political

(26:15):
as it was personal, Charles had taken the Loftist's surname
upon marrying Anne. What a cock.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
Yeah, you don't hear about that even much these days,
let alone back then.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
Yeah, and I'm just teasing, of course that's justified. But yeah,
especially back then, he must have, like I wonder if
he had like a family gripe or something. The source
dosn't really get into it, but it says for political reasons,
or maybe he needed because the Loftus has once held
the place. Maybe it's like he needed to change his
name in order to be like maybe maybe it was

(26:51):
more like a male needed to inherit it or whatever,
so he therefore had to change his name. Maybe that's
what it was. Who knows.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
I've always said that I feel like when two people
get married, maybe the best thing to do is to
create a new last name. I think that would be
the most fair.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
Hey, there's a reason Branjelina stuck or benefit you know,
there's a reason those names stuck, and why those marriages lasted,
why those marriages were so happy and long.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
Because I mean, you can't hyphenate forever. Yeah, names, we'll
just get longer and longer and longer each generation. But yeah, absolutely, yeah,
combine those Tom Smith.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
Yeah. And isn't it funny, like literally the last name Smith.
How many last names surnames came out of literally your
tucking job? Yeah, like a blacksmith, like Christopher Plumber. I
wonder where that one came from.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Please meet you on Dirk ditch Digger.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
Hey, they call me Sam Sewage.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
Nice to meet you, Sam waste disposal.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
Sam Waste's disposal. Oh man. And so when he did
this by changing his name, he secured himself not just
a wife, but land title and status. So yeah, it
was probably a to inherit it. They probably as things
worked back then, you know, you needed, you know, most
of the times you needed like a mail or something
to inherit some So maybe he did change his name

(28:12):
for that purpose. So he was caught by choice, Yeah,
at least by choice. Well. The year was seventeen seventy five.
The family was at home, tucked away from the world
as a vicious storm was rolling over the Hook Peninsula.
By the way, this all takes place in southeast Ireland,

(28:32):
So the Hook Peninsula, it's literally what it sounds like.
It's like a land kind of that hooks out into
the sea and you know the home's built out there
on the cliffs overlooking the sea. It's I mean, it
literally sounds like a dream. It like, you know, as
spooky as the place is, it sounds like a Hallmark
movie waiting to happen.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
It's there Florida.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
Absolutely, it's their Florida, exactly, that little panhandle that's right
right there where haul Wexford County, Southeast Darling lashed out
against the walls. Like I said, this was a rager
of a storm. Wind and rain was whipping the sides
of Loftus Hall, and it made the stately manor creak
and groan, and out at sea a ship was fighting

(29:16):
for its very life to stay afloat. Its sails were
torn and its hull was cracking under the weight of
the gale. Against all odds, the ship made it to shore,
and from it a handful of passengers disembarked, trudging through
the mud and wind toward the only light in sight.

(29:38):
Well among these sailors. Among this group of people who
were on the ship, was a young man who happened
to be traveling alone. By all accounts, he was very
well dressed, striking in appearance, probably like a Bill Scarsgar
with eyes they described that hardly blinked, and a smile
that maybe see him just it's a little too practiced already.

(30:03):
This is giving me the impression of something trying to
appear normal, sort of like we talk about with black
eyed kids, something that is putting on a costume in
a way. The uncanniness exactly, almost as if this person
might even be trying to appear human and his fate
would have it. He knocked on the door of Loftis

(30:25):
Hall and was cordially welcomed in because unlike black eyed kids,
this person did a much better job of playing that role.
Right away, the family at Loftis Hall was charmed by
this mysterious fellow. He was elegant, well spoken, well groomed,

(30:45):
and was friendly and personable. He was a man of means,
or at least so it seemed by his appearance, and
you know how he talked, though when asked about his
origins or even his destination. His answers were always vague,
but the Loftist family still welcomed him in all the same,

(31:07):
offering him temporary lodging while he waited for better weather. However,
that nasty weather would never seem to blow over. Literally,
it went on for days, and then days turned into weeks.
It's as if a storm stopped right over this little

(31:27):
section of Ireland, and as the rain fell outside, something
else was blooming within the hall, a growing affection between
the mystery man and the young and Tottingham and the daughter.
Of course, not the wife, let's hope not. I know, right,
damn what a Milf and Totty talk about Milf Manner,

(31:51):
Oh my god, loftus hall Whoo. Milf Manner taught he
was a bit of a taut. She was a bit
of a taut in herd me and touting him well.
These two were often seen, you know, speaking quietly in corners,
walking the halls together, exchanging glances that seemed to hint
at a budding romance, and the rest of the household

(32:13):
watched with mild amusement. I'm sure the probably the parents
were thinking, they don't really say what age we're talking
about here, but like you know, back then, who knows,
they might have been the same age. Who knows if
the guy was older. But you know, I'm sure the
family's looking at him, and he seems like a you know,
a smart guy, good looking. He seems to be probably
have some kind of money and well spoken. I'm sure that.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yeah, it seems like bay material.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
Absolutely absolutely come here. Boom. And then came the solitary
night that made Loftus Hall infamous to this very day.
The family had gathered in the drawing room. The fire
was a crackling. The wind outside, as it had been
since the night the mystery man arrived, was still howling

(33:01):
against the window. So the family was playing cards by
candle light, a simple game. Each player dealt three cards.
The young man, he dealt with a practiced ease. You see,
he must have been there, He must have been nigh,
you know. He played some cards and shot some dice
in his day. His face was smooth as ivory, it said.

(33:23):
But when it came to Anne, she only got two cards.
The butler, who was standing off to the side with
a tray in hand, noticed what happened, but just as
he opened his mouth to speak, and bent forward. The
third card had fallen to the floor. Let's say that happens, right,
especially if you ever been dealing cards a little sometimes

(33:44):
a little wind or a little something, you know, blo.
That's natural. Especially you know, if the winds are howling outside,
it's probably drafty in there. So Anne bend's over picked
that third card off the floor. She reaches down, and
that is when she saw it, not a shoe, not

(34:04):
a stalking but a foot, dark and cracked, ending in
a cloven hoof. An didn't scream, not yet, at least
for a moment. The air went utterly still, and it
said that the candles sputtered, and the fire gave a

(34:28):
low hiss. I think everyone sitting at the table noticed
a shift in and you know, everyone's probably laughing, having
a good time, and then all of a sudden, when
one person just clams up and goes pale, everyone kind
of it goes quiet. That is when Anne let out
a cry so sharp it literally startled the hell out

(34:53):
of everyone. Ann scream rang through the hall like a
bell tolling for the dead. Everyone turned. Her face was pale,
her eyes wide, not even exactly with fear, but with shock,
the kind of soul shaking recognition that hit somewhere beneath
the ribs. With trembling hands, she pointed under the table.

(35:19):
She whispered two words his foot. The room fell silent.
The stranger was still smiling, though now something tight had
crept into that smile. Slowly he rose to his feet.
Anne's voice cracked as she shouted, what are you? And

(35:44):
that's when it happened. Without a word, the man, this
thing shot straight up into the air, through the ceiling,
through the rafters, and into the night sky above, literally
like a rocket taking off, leaving behind a jagged, smoking
hole in the ceiling. Of course, the room falls to pieces,

(36:10):
panics screaming, and collapses trembling. She's like, I mean, you
can't blame her. I mean, she's I can't imagine anyone
still standing at this point. The butler dropped his tray,
which is a lot for a butler.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
He's got one job.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
He's got one job, Jesus butler. The fire hissed low
in the grate, and silence finally returned. Only one conclusion
could be drawn, one that passed in a whisper from
mouth to mouth around the table, but never never quite
set out loud. The man that they had welcomed into

(36:46):
their home in the storm was the devil himself. Loftiest
Hall had willingly let him in. What followed was not
just fear but ruin An Tottingham was never the same.
It said that the light in her eyes, which she
had always had, seemed dim. Her laughter, once soft and sweet,

(37:12):
turned into mumbled whispers, low, as if she was talking
to herself. She was often heard crying, whimpering behind locked doors.
Whatever she had seen beneath that table, whatever truth had
stared back at her, it hadn't just frightened her, It
had literally broken her. In fact, the hole in the

(37:35):
ceiling seemed to refuse to be properly repaired. No matter
how many carpenters or masons were brought in. The ceiling
always sagged or cracked. Just like the house itself had
been branded by what had passed through. A scar had
been left that could not be hidden or raised. Obviously,

(37:56):
as we know in seventeen seventy five, mental health. Obviously,
as we all, though not understood or respected as it
is today her family. This is the most tragic part
of it all. Her family almost grew ashamed of their daughter, unsure,
and more concerned with appearances than their daughter's well being,

(38:16):
so they quietly just kind of locked her away in
her favorite room, which was the tapestry Room, a room
that was once filled with color and warmth now was
almost like a gilded prison. They told themselves that she'd
be safe there, that she might even be happy, But
she wasn't, and refused food, refused water. It said, she

(38:40):
would often just sit huddled in a chair and knees
drawn up to her chin, her eyes fixed endlessly on
the gray horizon of the sea beyond the window, as
if watching and waiting. Perhaps she was waiting for the
man that she had initially fallen for, or maybe she
was standing watch in case the devil may return. But

(39:03):
the mysterious stranger never did return to Loftus Hall. Rather,
it seemed to have taken something with it, the joy
and perhaps even the sanity of the young, and tauten him.
And then one day and died. But even in death,
the horror lingered. When her body was discovered, those who

(39:26):
tried to properly lay her body flat, lay it down,
found that they couldn't. Her limbs would not bend. She
had seized up, locked in the same twisted position she
had kept in life, her knees drawn up, arms tied
around her legs, eyes open and fixed out the window

(39:47):
onto the sea, and as the story goes, the distraught
family had no choice but to bury her sitting up straight,
and some believe she never truly let that room at all,
which to me, I think almost if that's true, that
almost implies neglect, because that means she was probably she

(40:08):
had probably died, and then they just did not check
on her. They were probably like, oh, at least she's quiet, now.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
You're right. I mean, that sounds like she her body
was probably left after she passed for a long time.

Speaker 1 (40:22):
Right, It's called what are they called riga mortis? Is
that what they call it? Where your body almost, Yeah,
it seizes and it That's what it sounds like to me.
I mean, yeah, maybe it was something supernatural, but I
mean it sounds like how they treated her after this event.
It seems like she was probably neglected and probably left
dead for a while.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
Yeah, which is it's really messed up too. I mean,
there were other people who witnessed this whole thing. It's
not like they don't know or don't believe her, right,
I mean, they were there, they saw the same thing.
She was clearly just very traumatized by it.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
And that's that's another good gage, is like you motherfuckers
saw it too. Like, it's not like she came home
with this story. You guys got a front row seat
and saw what happened.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
So how can you blame her?

Speaker 1 (41:12):
Yeah, I know, it's like, yeah, I don't know. Maybe
you know, maybe at the time, maybe they were afraid
that if somehow their name and their home was associated
with the devil, that something would be fought, maybe they'd
get you know, who knows, a mob would come, and
who knows what I think, But it's like, yeah, it's like,
you bastards saw it too. It's not like God, that's

(41:34):
you're right. It's like Jesus, you bastards saw it too. Like,
in my opinion's just the most tragic part of all
this is how this sweet young woman was treated after
this happened. It's just so sad. As we already know,
the hole through the ceiling left by the stranger's violent
exit through the roof could never be truly repaired, no

(41:55):
matter how many times they patched it, plastered it or
smoothed it over. It always act peeled or sagged like
the house was remembering what had happened. Even today, they
say there's a section of ceiling where the plaster just
doesn't look quite right. Even with modern building materials, it's
never quite the same shade or texture. And today many

(42:18):
visitors who pass beneath it. Some pass by underneath it
every day and never noticing anything, but others, even without
knowing the legend, they'll stop look up with the sensation
that there's something above them looking down at them, without
even knowing that part of the story. Like maybe they're, oh,
it's a hot you know, but there's something about that.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
Spot that's a really weird. Part two is the whole
not being like easily repaired. I mean, what in the
world would cause that exactly?

Speaker 1 (42:50):
And it's also interesting to know we think of I
think just I don't know, out of common you know,
we associate the devil with below. It's interesting that he's
shot into the sky, which you know, obviously, if you
go by the Abrahammick idea of the devil or Lucifer,
he was an angel at one point and fell from grace.

(43:10):
So maybe there's that's part of it. But yeah, interesting
that he went up and his exit. It's not even
like he just burst into flame and vanished. He like
literally took off like a fucking rocket like that. That's
so interesting.

Speaker 2 (43:25):
I bet he was reincarnated as Dennis Rodman with those hotsu.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
Yes, he got that rebound baby, but alas Anne did
not get her rebound. Death, though, would not be the
end of Anne's story, it only opened the next terrifying
chapter because after her burial, seated and frozen as she

(43:49):
was in that final twisted posture, the house did not
fall quiet. In fact, it grew unruly. Doors slammed on
their own, candles blew out with no wind, Furniture moved,
objects vanished, Phantom voices echoed through empty rooms, and at

(44:13):
night there was the sound of hoof beats thundering across
the floorboards. With no writer in sight, the locals began
to murmur rumors that the stranger might have returned, perhaps
not in a bodily form, but the locals grew to
fear that the devil or whatever he truly was, had

(44:34):
come back to torment the family, to claim what had
not been given freely, and why the Loftist family. We
don't know what sin could they have possibly committed that
invited this curse upon them. No one could say, But
if the devil had marked this house once, he now
seemed determined to make it his own. Protestant priests were

(44:58):
brought in in from nearby towns to cleanse the hall,
to banish the force that was tormenting it. They performed blessings, prayers,
even full on exorcisms, but nothing they tried seemed to
lift the gloom that hung over Loftiss Hall. The strange
happenings continued, growing bolder and more dangerous. The house itself

(45:22):
felt possessed, like it was alive. Every creek in the
floorboards carried a threat of untold horrors. Every gust of
winds sounded like a malevolent voice. And keep in mind
the fact that even the surrounding towns were scared of
this place. Even living within a few miles of this
palatial estate was too much for a lot of people

(45:43):
to even deal with. They didn't even want to be
within like a few miles of it. So this is
probably what the family was afraid of, why they kept
their poor daughter locked away. It was, like we said,
it was probably appearances. Well, the family was desperate, and
they turned to someone much closer to home, a Catholic

(46:04):
priest named Father Thomas Broder, a man of the cloth, yes,
but also a tenant of the estate, a figure who
knew the land, who knew the people, and perhaps a
way to lift the darkness that had befallen the house.
And unlike the others who came and tried, Father Brothers
was said to succeed. What he did exactly is lost

(46:26):
to history, whether it was prayer, ritual or something else,
but according to the legend, he ended the reign of
the poltergeist that had been left in the wake of
the stranger's visit, and finally the house fell quiet once more.
But while Father Brothers was able to quiet the terrifying
paranormal phenomenon that had been running rampant in Loftus Hall,

(46:50):
no one ever believed that the evil was truly gone. Rather,
it was just sleeping, because whoever or whatever that pollgeist was,
it didn't haunt the house alone. And I want to
stop there there's something to it. This is part of
what I love about these stories. As you get so

(47:11):
much history is go back to Alexander Redman, who was
sympathetic to the Catholics. Irish Catholics held the place and
all the English Protestant forces couldn't bring the place down.
And then the second Protestant family gets in there, things
go to hell. They bring in Protestant priests to try

(47:31):
to cleanse the place. Nothing works a Catholic. Now, this
might be a cause and effect of you know, if
a place is primarily like say, Catholic, maybe through the
years you're inclined to add that flavor to be like ah,
but the Catholics, you know, like I can remember, you know,
Gage and I grew up Protestant, and you know, people

(47:53):
would always talk about tell stories about how, oh, the
Catholic priests couldn't do it. But then someone came in
and laid their hands out and they were you know,
and I'm not saying that what happened wasn't real, but
it's kind of interesting. It's an interesting picture to paint that,
at least in this area, it took Catholicism to at
least dampen the paranormal activity. The Protestants just couldn't do

(48:16):
it and couldn't even bring the place down in battle,
which was interesting, even though the Catholics that were held
up in that fortress were, you know, vastly outnumbered. In
recent years, visitors to Loftus Hall have reported encounters not
just with things that go bump in the night, but
with the ghost of a young woman, pale, hollowed eyes

(48:38):
drifting through the corridors as if lost. Some say she's
often seen peering out of the tapestry room in the window,
her face pressed against the glass. Others say they felt
her presence at the top of the stairs, where the
lights always seems to shine just a little bit dimmer
than anywhere else. For no reason. There's nothing blocked at her,

(49:01):
but for whatever reason, light just seems to shine a
little dimmer at the top of those stairs. Well, of course,
most believe it to be Anne Tottingham herself, still searching
for the stranger who broke her heart and shattered her sanity,
or perhaps she's fleeing from him. As we said before,
it was always unclear if the silent and traumatized Anne

(49:24):
stood watch hoping that the man she loved was going
to return, or in fear that the devil might return.
Most likely it was a little bit of both, but
Of all the spirits that may linger in that house,
the one that captures imaginations and terrifies visitors the most is,

(49:46):
of course, the question of the devil. Did he really
come on that stormy night in seventeen seventy five, Did
he sit at that table and play that game of
cards and reveal himself with a cloven foot and a
grin that split the soul? Or was it all just
a story, maybe a tale, maybe even made up by
the family to explain their daughter's ailing state. Maybe they preferred,

(50:12):
maybe that was the Maybe it was the opposite. Maybe
they preferred, Oh, the devil just ruined our daughter's mind.
To just know our daughters struggling with mental health, you
know that too. It might maybe it was literally they
would prefer. They literally would prefer because as we know,
eventually the towns, the towns all around it all knew

(50:32):
about it. So that means like people were talking. So yeah,
maybe that was it. Maybe they preferred that story over
the truth.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
Yeah, And like you said, mental illness back then was
not looked at the way it is today, and so
that's the kind of thing. Yeah, you could totally understand
that those people at that time would be worried about
that kind of a reputation, like, let's just tell them
that the devil came to our house instead.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
Right, exactly. Well. Some even say that the tail may
have been crafted by the family to keep curious beggars
and wayward travelers away or from trying to stay overnight,
or even just if they're visiting overstay their welcome, which
you know, another I'm sure was practiced at you know, Oh,
the place is haunted. You don't want to you don't

(51:20):
want to go, you know, see you later.

Speaker 2 (51:22):
I don't think you should stay for dessert.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
Right, It's like, you know, and you say, sorry, I
don't have any cash man, you know, that sort of thing.
It's you know, only just on a more grander scale.
But we do know this. The hole in the ceiling
is still there, and the tapestry room still runs very cold,
and when the winds howl just right across the Hook peninsula,

(51:45):
it literally sounds like someone laughing. You also have to
wonder why the devil took so long to reveal himself
he was there. It's according to the legend, for weeks.
You would think the cloven hoofs would have been noticed
rather quickly at some point, right, you'd think for weeks
someone living with you, even with shoes on, it's not

(52:08):
you know, click class. I mean, it's gonna be hard
to wear normal shoes.

Speaker 2 (52:12):
Plus they say he's a handsome guy. You think nobody
snuck a peak while he was in the shower.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
Absolutely, that's right, you know. And so maybe here's another thought.
Maybe this was just something I thought, and I'm sure
other people have said this, but maybe there was an
amiable young man that had arrived that stormy night and
had stayed with them. Perhaps something spirited him away only

(52:37):
to take his appearance that night and scared. So maybe
there wasn't a boy that she fell in love with
and the devil whatever or something and it took his
place for the day. And then like cause it says
when she saw it, it gives you such a cinematic
spooky when she said, he stands there with a smile

(52:59):
because he and it's like and then he just slowly
stands up. I mean, it cinematically is terrifying. So clearly
it seems like he chose that moment. So yeah, it
makes you wonder maybe he either just played the long
game to kind of really dig in a sense of
betrayal almost you know, get someone to fall in love

(53:19):
with you, only then to pull the rug out. Or
maybe there was a good, honest young man there that
was taken or just some spirited away somehow, and that
night the devil took his place.

Speaker 2 (53:30):
Right, I mean, assuming that, let's just say it was
the devil in disguise, That is a pretty cruel way
to go about it. Have somebody almost basically falling in
love with you, only to turn around and not just
like end things, but to reveal yourself as what she
thinks as the devil himself. The probably that could be
the most traumatizing thing he could come up with.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
Right, you know, and would obviously scarf for a lot.
She'd probably be hesitant to ever fall in love again,
because you're like, well, what if this is another what
if this is the devil again pretending to be you
know what I mean? So it kind of ruined like
her outlook on love and all that stuff. And then
you add in her parents treatment of her post event,

(54:13):
She's probably like, love is not fucking real at this point,
Like she might just be literally like, you know, it's
such a sad, lonely state. It sounds like, well, just
when you think you've got the story straight, that the
devil's hoof prints of dried and Anne's ghost has taken
her seat in the tapestry room, history begins to unravel

(54:34):
the threads of this infamous tale. Now this is where
we got to put on our detective caps, folks, because
this is where there's like constant rug poles here. According
to some historical sources, and Tottingham, the daughter of Charles
Tottingham who married the honorable Ann Loftis. Remember there was
two ANNs Ann Loftus. The mother was the daughter of

(54:55):
the first Viscount Loftus. But this marriage, according to actual
historical records, happened sometime in the mid sixteen hundreds, and
together Charles and Anne had six children, including Anne and
a sister named Elizabeth. After the death of his wife,

(55:18):
Charles remarried a woman, Jane Cliff, who also happened to
be his cousin. Oh boy, which you know at the time,
especially in aristocracy and especially in royalty. Early on I
think episode twelve, we literally did a whole episode on
royal inbreeding. Isn't it ironic that like today it's seen
as like well, one it's just you know, illegal and gross.

(55:39):
But we see it as like that's something that like
Hicks in the backwoods would do. When it went back then,
it was like, no, that's only something the royalty. Dude, yeah,
married someone I'm not related to. How dare you so?
Ess so happened to be his cousin, and thus he
continued to live out his days at the Hall, which,

(56:00):
of course, at the time was a perfectly ordinary aristocratic life.
Even the marrying your cousin part probably even made it
more so. But here's where the math starts to get fuzzy.
If the version of the legend that gives Anne's death
occurring in seventeen seventy five while she was born in
the mid sixteen hundreds, as these records suggest, that would

(56:22):
have put Anne somewhere in the ballpark of one hundred
years old when she died, not the young damsel that
the story described. So what does this mean? Was the
tail stretched and reshaped over time, picking up pieces and
dropping some along the way. Perhaps the story really did happen,
only far earlier than seventeen seventy five, or was the

(56:45):
Anne of the story another Anne entirely mistakenly attributed to
Anne Tottingham from the prior century. Was there even a
stranger at all? And that is precisely the limbo where
the legend lived. Now, just when you think you sorted
out all the players in this twisted tail, plot's gonna plot,

(57:06):
and plot's gonna thicken, because Darlin, the honorable Ann loftis
she was very real. An Tottingham's mother was very very real.
We know this for a fact. She was the daughter
of Nicholas Loftus, as we know, the first Viscount Loftus,
of Ellie e l Y it's Eli or Ellie who knows,

(57:27):
and the granddaughter of Henry Loftus, the same Henry Loftus
who first made Loftus Hall the family's principal residence, back
in sixteen sixty six. So far, so good. Let's remember too,
there are two ants, like we said, and the mother
An Loftus and An Tottingham. The daughter Anne had a

(57:48):
sister named Elizabeth, which may help explain the confusion that
bubbles up in the legend, where some versions speak of
two daughters Anne and Elizabeth, sometimes interchangeable, sometimes distinct on
the source. The Ann that we do know exists wasn't
an only child. She also had two brothers, and it
was they, not her, who would inherit the hall. Given

(58:11):
you know how things worked back then, you know, it
always went to a male. Her eldest brother, Nicholas, lived
at Loftus Hall until his death in seventeen sixty six.
After that the property passed to their younger brother, Henry Loftus,
who took on the title but had no children of
his own. When Henry died in seventeen eighty three, the

(58:33):
title when extinct, and the bloodline, at least as far
as succession went, came to an abrupt halt. And yet
the legend says Ann died in seventeen seventy five. So
maybe the confirmed Anne that we do know existed was
not the Ann of the legend, or maybe the legend
took root with a different an one that might have

(58:56):
been lost to the archives, especially if people were ashamed
of her mental health, maybe they once she died, kept
her off records, almost like a blemish. That's very possible too,
that she was purposely kind of like uh you know,
sort of like erased from the lineage in a way,
which is even more sad if that's the truth. It's

(59:18):
like God. So Charles Toddingham and Anne loftis they did
indeed marry sometime before seventeen forty three, as the other
version of this tale goes that some sources hold together,
they had three sons, Charles born seventeen forty three, Nicholas
born seventeen forty five, and Ponsabi born in seventeen forty six.

(59:40):
Someone bring that name back. I've never heard of the
po n son b y Well. These three boys are documented,
but no record of a daughter, So no Anne the younger,
and unless some parish record was lost to time, there's
no reliable evidence that charl Arles did marry again to

(01:00:01):
Jane Cliff after Anne's death. He lived a long life,
dying in seventeen ninety five, quietly without scandal. See there's
all these different historical records. As I was compiling this,
I think this is one of those things because of
how scattered and how all kart the history sources are

(01:00:22):
where you'll never get to the real to the crops
of it, because it always leaves the window open for
almost anything.

Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
So it's just fun to wonder it is. It is
a fun interesting mystery and an interesting story, and yeah,
but there's just there's just all kinds of possible explanations.
I mean, just the writing out of Anne seems very
probable if they were that ashamed of her.

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
Right right. And here's the thing, this is where it
almost gets poetic. In certain sources where Charles Tottenham did
have daughters, he reportedly died on the anniversary of Anne's death,
the same day, just a different year. Just would be
a pretty wild coincidence. Because even if there was no daughter,

(01:01:12):
even if the names don't line up, the birth dates
don't match, and the records say no, the story still persists.
And so the legend of the girl who played cards
with the Devil lives on, without a clean name and
without a proper date. Now, just when we think we
finally laid the story to rests we've crossed our tees

(01:01:34):
and dotted our eyes and put this thing to bed,
and put the Tottingham girl to rest in the record books,
the branches twisted web of conspiracy twists again. Because if
Charles Tottingham and Ann Loftus are dead ends in this
devilish little legend, if their bloodline or their ancestral line

(01:01:55):
stop there, what if we've simply been looking at the
wrong pair of Tottingham's. Let's look at another limb of
the family tree. Anne Loftus, the one we know existed,
the daughter of Nicholas Loftus, of the Viscount of Eli
or Ellie. She did have a sister named Elizabeth, and

(01:02:17):
in seventeen thirty six Elizabeth married get this, Sir John Tottingham,
who just so happened to be the brother of Charles.
That's right, the sister married the brother. I think that's
how the math works out, or at least step brother.
I have no idea. It starts to get so wacky

(01:02:39):
the two branches twist together. John and Elizabeth had at
least four children that we know of, and you know what,
one of them was a little girl named Anne.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
You know, they were very creative with their names, were they?

Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
I mean, good God Almighty, I mean I literally, As
I'm doing this research, I'm like, am I even making
sense with this? But I think it will all come
full circle because history, ever, the trickster, has pulled the
rug out from under us once again. This Anne, the
daughter of Elizabeth and Sir John. She married a Joseph

(01:03:14):
Rogers in seventeen fifty six. Another elegant dead end. So
she was literally that would imply that she's the child vincest.
I guess their daughter eleanor she married a reverend John,
or Mary married a man named Richard Annsley. And this
is all proper documented and accounted for. So let's go

(01:03:38):
back to Henry Loftus where the attachment of the Loftist
family to this house begins. Henry Loftus, as we know,
he was the very first of the family to make
Loftis Hall his principal home in sixteen sixty six. The
timing is right, the atmosphere is right, and yes, he
also had daughters too. In fact, so it's like, how

(01:03:59):
many ann There's so many Ann's. What's interesting is that
the tale of the Devil Visitor actually surfaced in the
late Victorian era, nearly a century after it supposedly took place.
A girl named Anne Tottingham born according to some tellings,
in seventeen forty four, which would make her line up

(01:04:20):
with the original story to you know, have had her
encounter in seventeen seventy five. That would place her exactly
between the births of Charles and Nicholas Tottingham, And of
course there's no reliable record of her, no baptism, no marriage,
no obituary, no paper trail at all. Maybe that version

(01:04:42):
of an Tottingham never lived. Or maybe she lived and
like we said, maybe was erased from the records. As
the tale goes, her family was ashamed of their daughter's
declining mental state, and maybe they wanted her erased from
the records. Well, there's one last wrinkle in this story,
one last name in the margins that refuses to fade.

(01:05:05):
In eighteen eighty two, a Reverend George Reid published one
of the earliest written accounts of the tale, the version
that would help cement Anne's place in folklore. But this
wasn't just a fireside ghost story. No. Reed's telling was
deeply personal. You see, Reverend Reid had ties to the
Loftist family. He had been appointed to a living by

(01:05:29):
Lord Robert Tottenham, and both he and his father had
spent time at Loftus Hall, walked the long halls, listened
to the wind batter the stone bones of the place,
and apparently felt a little something there. Something was off.
They experienced what he would call later quote odd things

(01:05:50):
phenomenon that linked back to the tale of Ann, though
he never claimed to had seen her, but he didn't
need to. The ghostly presence was enough, and it's through
read that the legend began to solidify. No longer just
folklore of the Hook Peninsula, but a story that would
now spread far and wide. But Reed's account didn't even

(01:06:11):
speak of the devil crashing through the ceiling or Anne's
screaming at a cloven foot. He gave us something far
more grounded and far more tragic. According to Reverend Reed,
the story unfolded sometime in the seventeen seventies. On a
stormy night. A young gentleman was lost and weary. He

(01:06:33):
arrived at Loftys Hall seeking shelter. The family took him in,
and over the course of his stay, a connection bloomed
between him and the young and Tottingham. It was a
real affection between two living mortals. But Anne's father, Charles
Tatten Him, did not approve. One day, the man was

(01:06:55):
simply gone. Anne was told he had left no MEAs message,
no goodbye, just vanished. But she never believed that she
knew the man she had fallen in love with wouldn't
just leave without telling her. Even if he was being
forced to leave, he would still tell her, Hey, I'm
getting forced to leave. And from that moment on Anne

(01:07:19):
fell apart. She withdrew to her favorite space in the house,
the tapestry room, and never came back out. It said,
according to Reed, that she sat for days, weeks, even years,
staring out at the sea, waiting. Her health in declined,
her mind unraveling until she was finally gone. But that's

(01:07:39):
not where the story ends. Many years later, man that
we just keep getting dealt joker cards here. Many years later,
during renovation work on the house, rumors began to circulate.
Workmen claimed they had found something sealed behind the wall
in the tapestry room, a skeleton. Some believe that was

(01:08:00):
the remains of Anne's lost lover that Charles taught in him.
Desperate to keep the pair apart, murdered the young man
and hid the body behind the stone. Talk about a
protective father, and you know, you can also imagine. There's
probably some variations where they say Charles even made a
pact with the devil to keep them apart. But another

(01:08:23):
version takes an even darker turn. Some say the skeleton
wasn't a man's. But in infants a new theory rose
that Anne had not died of grief at all, but
rather in childbirth, hidden away by a family ashamed and
afraid of scandal. The child died too, and the truth,

(01:08:44):
the body, and the heartbreak and the secret was entombed
in plaster and forgotten until the walls gave it back
to us. Either way, the house never forgot. So whether
it was the devil, a murdered suitor, or a mother
and ChIL buried in secrecy, Loftus Hall still has good
reason to be haunted by something. But here comes even

(01:09:08):
more strange facts that muddy the waters. Though Reverend George
Reid's version of the tale was a somber tragedy of
a young woman broken by forbidden love and not the devil,
well that horn bastard still found his way into the tail,
And wouldn't you know it, it started with Reverend Reed's

(01:09:29):
own family. Reverend Reed's father once stayed at Loftus Hall himself,
long before the legend was ever made folklore. It was
seventeen ninety and the house was still wearing the grief
of its former occupants. Like the funeral veil, and that
night Read's father was given a room to sleep in

(01:09:49):
the tapestry room, and according to Reed, in the middle
of the night, something heavy leaped upon his father's bed,
landing with a thud that rattled the floorboard wards, and
whatever it was growled almost like a dog, low and guttural,
the way like a dog when it's angry or it
can sense something. The sound was something beastly, and then

(01:10:13):
the bed curtains were yanked back, torn open with force,
the bedclothes ripped away, flung into the air, as though
by invisible hands. But no one was there, just the
terrified mister Reed in his bed. So maybe Reverend Reed
tried to give the story a gentler face. Maybe he

(01:10:35):
preferred to believe in heartbreak instead of hell fire. According
to George Reed's account, when his father was shaken from
his sleep by that midnight assault, the growl and the
rip of the curtains and the weight on his chest,
he didn't think it was a ghost. He thought it
was a prank. He was convinced that someone, maybe one

(01:10:59):
of the servants or a chievous youth, was behind the
spooky event. And just as any man of reason would
do in the eighteenth century. He shouted into the room,
pistol in hand, warning whoever it was to back the
hell off, and then, with a thundercrack of righteous frustration,
he fired the pistol up the chimney, assuming the intruder

(01:11:21):
had hidden there. But it was only after the echo
died and the smoke had cleared that he realized the
door was locked from the inside. No one had entered,
no one had left. The room was sealed. Whatever had
pulled the curtains back, whatever had growled in the dark,

(01:11:42):
whatever had stripped the bedclothes from him, had done so
without ever opening the door. Now some believe this points
not to a ghost, but to a different kind of entity,
a more mischievous one, a poultergeist. And as we know today,
poultergeist activity is actually rarely tied to the dead. Instead,

(01:12:03):
it tends to cling to the living, especially the young,
the emotionally charged, those caught in transition or trauma. So
maybe that thing in the tapestry room was not the devil,
but maybe it was the soul of poor Anne, or
maybe it was the house itself. Whether it was a ghost,
a poltergeist, or just echoes of too much grief sealed

(01:12:27):
in the Homes Foundation. Something moved through Loftus Hall that night,
and it left a man of reason holding a smoking
pistol and more questions than bullets. You gotta think he
must have thought that it was something so because if
you think it's like one of the kids, why the
hell would you shoot?

Speaker 2 (01:12:45):
Right? He must have been convinced there was an intruder.

Speaker 1 (01:12:49):
Right, He must have been convinced it was either like
a bandit or something or something supernatural, because if you
thought it was a prank or like a why the
something must have spooked him to a degree that he
thought he needed to actually fire the gun.

Speaker 2 (01:13:02):
I mean, it doesn't sound like it sounds like it's weird.
You know, it growled at him, But he's talking like
it was a person, talking like he was convinced it
was a person. Especially he thought it went up the chimney,
so he fired up the chimney. I mean, I guess
an animal could do that too, But the way he spoke.

Speaker 1 (01:13:19):
Right, and it makes you wonder maybe if he maybe,
being a quote man of reason, he refused to let
himself believe that it might be something supernatural, and it
was sort of like him fighting a way that I
can't know. It's not possible, you know what I mean.
It's something like that. He's it has to be someone
of flesh and blood, to the point where he's got

(01:13:40):
to almost kill someone to believe it. He's got to
like draw blood just to know that it wasn't something supernatural.
By seventeen ninety, Loftus Hall was once again changing hands,
at least legally. The man now occupying it was Charles
Tauting him the son of John Tottingham and Elizabeth Loftis.

(01:14:03):
So it's another Charles, sister to the much discussed ant.
So this would have been the ann of the legend.
Would have been this Charles's aunt, not the father Charles.
That was so like that. Yeah, once again, who keep
it up with these names? So this was a different Charles.
This was a gesture both political and symbolic, a new name,

(01:14:26):
a new era. Charles lived there until eighteen oh six,
when the hall passed to his son, John Loftus, and
under John's watch, the house stirred once more one night
of valet and John's service was given the Tapestry Room
as his sleeping quarters, a decision that would prove unfortunate.
In the dead of night, the hall was ripped from

(01:14:48):
its slumber by the man's screaming. It was said to
be loud and maniacal. The servants rushed to his door,
expecting to find thieves or you know, a fire fire
or something. What they found was a man, shaking with fear,
barely able to speak. He claimed that as he laid
in bed, the curtains had been violently torn aside, and

(01:15:12):
standing there looming over him was a tall woman, her
face pale, her features unreadable. He had fled the room barefoot,
still in his night shirt, refusing to ever step foot
in there again. Now some say it was Anne herself,
still pacing in the tapestry room, in the gown she

(01:15:32):
wore the night her heart was broken. Others say it
was something older, something the family tried to confine, which
slipped through anyway, just enough to remind them that the
house was never truly theirs. And then, years after his
father's ghostly encounter, Reverend George Reid, who said that Anne

(01:15:54):
died of heartbreak rather than the supernatural. He stayed at
Loftus Hall at the time he did. He knew nothing
yet of his father's midnight ordeal, so he didn't know
yet about his dad's experience. There no tales of growling
or no bed sheets ripped away, no pistols fired in
the dead of night, and so, not knowing any better,

(01:16:16):
he chose the tapestry room as his quarters during the visit. Well,
it was a quiet night, the fire was low, and
Reid was sitting up late reading an article in some magazine.
And then the door opened without warning and without sound,
and into the room walked a tall lady, her figure

(01:16:39):
silhouetted by the flicker of the hearth. She made no sound,
no gesture. She simply walked slowly across the room, every
step deliberate. She crossed to the closet, opened it, and vanished.
Reid simply sat there, calm and still, as if the

(01:17:02):
ghostly presence was so gentle that it didn't even freak
him out. In fact, he later wrote that he never
even considered she was a ghost, at least not in
the moment. He said he simply set his magazine aside
and decided it was time to go to sleep. It's
only in hindsight, with the benefit of time and the

(01:17:24):
ancestral testimony, that he understood what he really witnessed, which
is kind of interesting to think about. It's almost like
the sound everything just went quiet, and this woman just
gently she walked into the closet. Maybe by then it
had been there had been some remodeling, as we know
they say so, especially if this is a residual haunting,

(01:17:44):
like a just energy that's repeating. She might be walking
the floor of what used to be the layout there.
But note that it was so calm. Just as some
people think these specters can elicit fear in you, almost
to snack off of it, to feed on off of it.
Maybe a benevolent a good spirit is almost like it

(01:18:04):
can present itself and make sure that you're just like, huh, okay,
you just stay calm because it's not there to scare you.

Speaker 2 (01:18:12):
Wells you into a sense of security.

Speaker 1 (01:18:14):
Almost absolutely, absolutely, But the tapestry room wasn't finished yet
with Reverend George Reid. The next night, as the fire
burned low and the wind whipped across the Hook Peninsula,
the door opened again, and just like before, a lady
in a stiff brocade stepped soundlessly into the room. She

(01:18:36):
glided across the floor with that same eerie grace.

Speaker 2 (01:18:41):
She could have been a model so graceful.

Speaker 1 (01:18:43):
I know she was walking the runway. Man, she was
not going to sachet away. Rue Paul would have been
very proud of her. She again headed straight for the closet,
but this time George didn't just sit and watch. Whereas
the previous night he had almost fallen into a strange
sense of calm during the experience, this time was different.

(01:19:07):
He leaped from his bed, heart pounding, and rushed after
her with the righteous fire of a man of God.
And he cried out as he whipped open the closet,
I have you now, throwing his arms around her, and
that's when his arms passed straight through her. Instead of
wrapping his arms around a ghost, he met the unforgiving

(01:19:30):
embrace of the bedpost, which he struck hard enough to
knock himself silly. The next morning, Reid told his father
about the incident, Still unaware of the family's spectral history.
His father, stoic and silent, said nothing. Didn't reveal a
word about his own experience in that very same room

(01:19:51):
decades earlier, talk about like it must be almost like
a I can't admit that I saw this, especially if
they're from a line of reverends and stuff. Depending on
the religion, they might have a certain It is kind
of funny how a lot of religions believe in a god,
a you know, angels, demons, but ghosts no, like there's

(01:20:11):
you know what I mean, Oh sir, you right? And
who knows? Like maybe every ghost is either an angel
or a demon in disguise. Maybe who knows. But it
is kind of you know, when you think about it,
it's like, well, how come that's cool? But this isn't.
But the spirit didn't return. Night after night, Reid would
sleep in the tapestry room waiting for her to appear,

(01:20:33):
and she didn't. It wasn't until some time later that
the pieces finally clicked. Read over her. John Loftist's valet,
the same one who had once run screaming out of
the room. He heard him grumbling about never wanting to
sleep in that cursed room again. Well. George, being curious,

(01:20:54):
asked the valet why, and the valet stared at him
for a moment and then said, because of her, the
woman in the brocade, Anne, And that's when it hit him.
The ghost he had seen, the figure he'd tried to grab,
was Anne. Tottingham. Even into the nineteenth century, Loftus Hall

(01:21:17):
continued to punish anyone bold enough to sleep too close
to the heart, its metaphorical heart of this house, which
was essentially the tapestry room, it seemed. In eighteen fifty seven,
the estate passed to the fourth Marquess of Eli or Ellie.
Once again, an eight year old boy who suddenly found

(01:21:37):
himself heir to this home soaked in centuries of legend.
Talk about a birthday gift. God damn eight years old
and get a house. I'll take that. The following year,
in eighteen fifty eight, he traveled to the hall with
his mother and his tutor in tow The halls by
then were quiet, the candles well kept, the stone was polished,

(01:22:01):
and the legends politely buried beneath the layers of inherited wealth.
You gotta think what a power dynamic that your eight
year old child is actually the owner of the place. Yeah,
and you know what I mean, Like, and could I
guess legit tell you to leave if you wanted to, Like,
that's that's kind of awkward.

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):
Okay, with the butler and everything, and he's like, well,
chocolate milkto.

Speaker 1 (01:22:23):
Yeah, exactly like you know, because that I just find
that's so funny. I'm sure maybe there were rules in
place that until you're a certain age there you have
like a proxy that essentially handles you know, like because
how's an eight year old going to handle like, you know,
taxes and shit like that. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:22:40):
Right right, you're spending all the money on toys.

Speaker 1 (01:22:42):
But you spending all the money on chocolate, milk and toys, well,
wouldn't you know it? The tutor that accompanied the family
was assigned to sleep in the tapestry room, and that
night the house stayed quiet, no screams or crashes or gunshots.
But the next morning the tutor came down to breakfast

(01:23:04):
in a terrible state. He was pale, sweating, shaken. Something
had happened in the night, and yet nothing, no comfort,
not curiosity, not command, could persuade him to say what
had happened. He never spoke of it, not once, not ever,

(01:23:25):
which once again, may show you paint a picture of
like it's almost seeing the devil is almost not as
bad as like admitting you saw the devil or just
seeing a ghost is actually preferable to people knowing you
saw a ghost and who knows what their state of
mind is, But it seems like that's almost like a

(01:23:46):
theme we've seen throughout is this almost shame, not even
the devil of just seeing like the ghost of a woman,
Like there's almost a shame to not even mention it.

Speaker 2 (01:23:56):
Yeah, and it's also possible that a lot of these
people were so s aumatized they didn't ever want to
confront it. They didn't want to address it. They wanted
to just move on right.

Speaker 1 (01:24:06):
You know a lot of people, like say veterans, like
war veterans, you know, they often you know, they just
never would talk about it. They would never talk about
that was very calm, especially for like my grandpa's generation
and stuff like that, you know, who was in creat
Like that was just kind of a common thing. Like
you know, they might tell, oh, well we did this,
you know, we visited here stuff, but like they would
never share like the awfulness and the horrors that obviously

(01:24:30):
they they encountered. Well. Reverend George Reid paid his final
visit to Loftus Hall in eighteen sixty eight, and by
then the house had changed names once again, shifted, the rooms, repurposed,
even the tapestry room had been converted into a proper
Victorian billiard room. The candles had been replaced by gas lamps,

(01:24:53):
the air of mourning was traded for one of leisure.
Curious George asked, I just realized my notes. I wrote
curious Comma George, which just sounds like curious George the monkey.

Speaker 2 (01:25:04):
Curious George.

Speaker 1 (01:25:05):
Well, Curious George asked the housekeeper how the ghost had
taken to this transformation. Her reply was quote, oh, Master George,
don't talk about her. Her voice dropped, her eyes wide.
Last night she made a horrid noise, knocking the billiard

(01:25:27):
balls about. Because whether it was a bedchamber, a nursery
or a billiard room, what was once the tapestry Room
would forever remain Ann's. And a curious twist, a strikingly
similar legend is tied to another property entirely one also
once occupied by the Tottingham family, this time at Tottingham

(01:25:50):
Green near Tagman, same bloodline, different walls. According to the
local tale, the devil once again arrived at the house uninvited,
unholy as hell, and as usual charming, and once again,
when his true form was revealed, he fled the scene.
This time leaping through a dormer window that just so

(01:26:13):
happened to be missing a roof. Now here's where it
gets really delicious. Subsequent generations of the Toddihams refused to
ever install a roof over that dormer. Why because they
feared the devil might still use it, coming and going
as he pleased. Why build it if it's just gonna

(01:26:34):
keep getting knocked down? He was a guest they couldn't evict.
They figured better just let him pass through in silence
than risk a return visit through less polite means. As
we know, he's got a pinch it for busting through
walls like the kool aid man. So why, oh yeah, yeah,
why build it? Why keep rebuilding this little section if

(01:26:55):
he's just gonna keep blowing through it?

Speaker 2 (01:26:57):
The bastard.

Speaker 1 (01:26:58):
The bastard delicious though, and refreshing, so the whole remained,
that is until a man named James Cullen brought the
property years later, a man with no patience for you know,
silly things like ghosts and devils and superstition. Culin promptly
had the dormer roof sealed, sealed and closed for good.

(01:27:23):
Of course, if we're chasing the facts that we do have.
Charles Tottingham is very unlikely to have ever visited Tottingham Green,
this other place we're now talking about. So if he
did have a daughter named Anne, and if she did
meet a mysterious stranger who made his exit through an
open roof, then either the story migrated from one place

(01:27:45):
to the other, or Anne did perhaps visiting other members
of her family, perhaps staying the night during a storm.
And if the devil did arrive, who's to say he,
rather than leaping through the ceiling, went through the dormer window,
whether it was Wexford or Tagman. Maybe the story's real,

(01:28:06):
It's just we got the wrong locale. Of all the
names we have covered that are bound to the legend
of Loftis Hall, there's one more to discuss. His name
was Father Thomas Brothers. He was the Catholic priest the
known exorcist Brotus, as we talked about in the very
beginning of this story. He served for fifty years as

(01:28:28):
parish priest of Saint James Church in Ramsgrange, just a
stones throw away from the haunted estate. He was also
not a man given to ghostly tales. He was a
man of ritual and resolve, and according to the lore,
when all other efforts failed, when Protestant ministers had tried
and failed to quiet the disturbances, it was Father Brotherers

(01:28:52):
who was summoned. He brought with him at challice, said
to have been his sacred tools since at least seventeen
forty two, and apparently he did what no one else could.
He bound the spirit, silenced the poltergeist, and banished the devil,
or what was left of him, from the hall, or

(01:29:13):
at the very least was able to confine it. Perhaps
still there, just silent for centuries. That chalice has remained
at Saint James, a quiet relic of a spiritual war
that most had long forgotten. That is until twenty eleven,
when the chalice was suddenly stolen. The story made the papers.

(01:29:37):
A holy artifact tied directly to one of Ireland's most
infamous hauntings was gone. But here's the good news. It
was eventually recovered, like it just showed back up. When
Father Thomas Brothers died in seventeen seventy three, he was
laid to rest in Horrortown Cemetery. Yes, Horrortown just no

(01:29:58):
w on the front, but just whoretown cemetery, and his
epitaph says everything we need to know. It reads, here
lies the body of Thomas Brothers, who did good and
prayed for all, who banished the devil from Loftis Hall.
And just when you think the legend settled, when you've

(01:30:21):
named the devil, seeing the ghost and praised the priest
who put it all, the rest the dates start wiggling
around again, because while father Thomas Brothers is proudly credited
as the man who banished the devil from Loftis Hall,
the historical record delivers a troubling wrinkle. Of course, right,
this can't just make sense. Brothers, as we know, died

(01:30:42):
in seventeen seventy three, and if the more widely accepted
versions of the tale are to be believed, and Tottingham
died in seventeen seventy five, two years later, So how
then could he have been the one to exercise the
house when it was seventeen seventy five, when the whole
bang apparently happened. So what does this mean? Well, maybe

(01:31:04):
the tail was twisted over time, the timelines blurred, blurred
and tangled to the point that it has almost become indecipherable.
I think this episode is pretty much indecipherable. Maybe brothers
did perform a cleansing just after Anne's death, but during
some earlier instant that the house conveniently forgot to write down.

(01:31:25):
Or maybe there was no exorcism at all. Maybe the
devil was never cast out. Maybe he simply left when
he was good and ready to leave, and the stories
of chalices and banishment were just the living's way of
pretending that they had some kind of control over what
was happening in the house. That part is just human nature.

(01:31:46):
We write the endings we need we give the devil
a dore, but we also need someone to push him
through it. So maybe the tale of an Tottingham and
the devil in disguise doesn't hold up to historical scrutiny.
Maybe the timelines don't really fit, maybe the records don't match.
But the ghosts they're very real, and over the years,

(01:32:08):
countless witnesses to this day have reported eerie sightings and
experiences inside of Loftus Hall, phantom voices, the sense of
being watched in more than once, the same apparition as
described the female unusually tall dressed in antique clothing, drifting
through the shadows of the upper rooms. In twenty fourteen,
a man named Thomas Beavis was touring the hall with families,

(01:32:32):
snapping casual photos on his phone. He saw nothing at
the time, but later, going through the pictures, he noticed
in one of the windows two shadowy figures, one a
tall woman standing in the window looking out at the courtyard,
the other much smaller, possibly a child, standing just beside her.

(01:32:52):
Its features are indistinct, but it seems to have long
hair pulled back, or is perhaps wearing a bonnet or
a cat. The woman, though her face is visible, her
hair swept back from her forehead, her dress drawn up
into a high collar around her neck, one hand slightly

(01:33:13):
raised as if reaching forward or maybe simply resting on
the sill. But what unsettled Beavis most was her expression.
She wasn't smiling, nor was she angry looking, but she
did look aware, as if in that split second she
noticed the camera. No taking pictures, folks. And maybe that's

(01:33:37):
the real story of Loftus Hall, not a tale of
cloven hoofs and heartbreak, or even a sanctified banishment of
old Scratch himself but a house that watches you back,
and a woman, whoever she truly, was still standing at
the window, still waiting, still watching, forever suspended in time.
The photo taken by Thomas Beavis has been passed around

(01:34:01):
online for years. Maybe we'll try and find it and
put it on our socials, always with the same question,
who are they? At first glance, you might think it's
a reflection, maybe just two visitors passing by and their
shapes just happen to get caught in the glass. But
that theory doesn't hold. These figures are standing in opposition
to the crowd outside, facing a different direction entirely. Their

(01:34:24):
positions don't match the angle of any reflection, and if
it were just light or coincidence, then explain this. They
look three dimensional, not sharply defined, but still solid, as
if standing just inside the room, almost like when when
you're streaming something and it doesn't pause, it doesn't buffer,

(01:34:46):
but like things get cloudy. It's almost like that, like
it's it's there, it hasn't stopped yet, but it's like
the cloudy uh we saw. We were watching WrestleMania the
other night, and every now and then the Wi Fi
would get a little bit cloudy, but you could still
I'll see the blurry figure and then it would snap back.
I think I just had the router in the wrong place,
and maybe that's the problem here. Some have speculated that

(01:35:08):
the image shows Anne Toddingham with her mother, a point
an idea, but it doesn't quite fit. The taller figure,
while mature, appears to be just entering adulthood, and the
smaller one seems to be around nine or ten, perhaps
seems too small to be her daughter and too young
to be her mother. If anything, they look more like

(01:35:30):
sisters standing side by side, perhaps Anne and Elizabeth watching
the world pass by them, or perhaps it was the
child Anne died within childbirth, as some legends tell at
the end of the day, While there might be in
Anne haunting the place, who knows what version of Anne
it is. Today, Loftus Hall is known far and wide

(01:35:52):
as the most haunted house in Ireland. A title printed
on brochures and etched into folklore these days is the
female ghost is said to still roam the hall silently,
like a memory, slowly fading from the wallpaper. The house
she knew may have been pulled down and rebuilt and
repainted and renamed but she still walks now. I wanted

(01:36:16):
to add this quick bit on here because I was
doing my research for this episode and it sounded so familiar,
to the point that I was wondering if we had
covered it in the almost two hundred and fifty episodes
that we've made here on Creep Street. Well episode eighty
eight back in August of twenty twenty one, we covered
the story of the Dublin hell Fire Club, and its

(01:36:37):
story bears a lot of resemblance in Ireland. There are
two places where the Devil is said to have paid
a visit, at least popularly known, two places where a
charming visitor came knocking, where storms were rattling, and where
people were playing cards, a game that would turn into
a reckoning. One is Loftus Hall, its halls stick with

(01:36:59):
the grid and the spray of the sea. The others
sits high above Dublin, hunched like a watching gargoyle atop
Montpellier Hill, the hell Fire Club. The stories are not twins,
but they are ken. At Loftus Hall, the legend curls
slow and tragic. A storm rolls in from the sea,

(01:37:20):
and a stranger arrives at the door drenched in the rain,
yet refined and welcomed in. Over the days that follow,
something blooms, a connection, a courtship, a thrill of romance.
Then one evening, seated at the card table and drops
the card. Bending over to retrieve it, she sees the
cloven hoof beneath the table. She screams. The stranger vanishes

(01:37:43):
upward through the ceiling, leaving scorched plaster and a girl
unraveling in her mind. Now shift the scene to Dublin,
to the hell Fire Club. Climb that hill into Dublin's cold,
cold breath. It's the seventeen hundreds and the men of
the hell Fire Club are deep in their cups, candles flickering,

(01:38:03):
laughter booming like thunder, and the rafters. They drink, they gamble,
They dare God himself to stop them. Many legends surround
this group, some saying that they were a murderous cult.
If you go back in that episode, I believe some
believe they were like it was like a group of
almost like a secret society, you know, like a bohemian grove,

(01:38:24):
and it's like sometimes they'd kill for fun. Or some
just thought it was an exclusive men's club for men
and so people naturally think, oh, they must be evil
because they're the rich and powerful meeting and who knows well.
In that legend, the gentlemen are having a rowdy game
of cards on a stormy night. When a gentleman knocks,

(01:38:45):
polite and collected, he's invited in to join their game,
and just like a loftus hall, a card falls. The
player leans down to find the same damn thing, a
sulfurous cloven hoof. The man jolts back in horror, and
in the blink of an eye, the guest vanishes. Some

(01:39:05):
say he blasted through the roof, but others say he
just grinned and went out in a blaze of fire.
Two locations, two storms, two card tables, two glances under
the tablecloth that changed everything. But here's where they diverge
and why they each carry their own flavor of dread.
The hell Fire Club is wild, feral, and indulgent. It's

(01:39:28):
a tale of arrogance being punished. The men who mocked
sacred things got exactly what they asked for. It's a cmuppets,
a pack of privileged assholes and thrill seekers calling for
the devil to appear, as if it's a party trick
until he actually shows. But Loftis Hall is something else.

(01:39:49):
It's quieter, much sadder, and gothic in the truth sense.
It isn't about acts of sacrilegious, blasphemous things. It's about
love and longing and a girl who opened her heart
and lets something terrible in. She didn't summon him for sport.
She welcomed him unknowingly, and when she saw the truth

(01:40:13):
that shattered her. One tale is about punishment, the other
is about betrayal. At the hell Fire Club, the devil
burned the curtains and laughed as he left. At Loftis Hall,
he left something behind, a wounded girl who sat in
the tapestry room for days, waiting for someone who would

(01:40:33):
never come back. In both legends, the devil is not
some horned brute storming in with fire and brimstone. He's elegant,
he's clever. He sits at the table and smiles kindly
and waits for you to look down. Because the devil
doesn't have to kick down the door, he only has

(01:40:53):
to knock, and the horror of Loftis Hall, unlike the
Hellfire Club, does not come from the Devil's arrival. It
comes from the moment you realize you let him in, folks.
That wraps up the devil came to loftus hal. Now

(01:41:16):
I think you can understand why we didn't split this
into two parts, because the second half it wouldn't make sense,
I think if it wasn't attached, because it's all just
as you can tell. It is a web of similar names,
records that might not be true, records that might be
hidden because of aristocratic shame. If there's a lesson to

(01:41:38):
be learned in this, it's more complex than the hell
Fire Club, which is don't be a dick, don't tempt
the devil. This is a story about loving those who
are lost. Loving even if it means others might look
differently at you. It means loving your family even if
you don't agree, even if you think they're nuts. You

(01:41:59):
gotta love, You got to cherish them. It's a much
deeper I think, and a much more haunting sat like
it said, a Gothic story. It's almost like Wuthering Heights
or something like that. It's a tale of lost love.
Like we said, it's also possible she did meet a
charming young man. Maybe the father did something, or the

(01:42:20):
devil himself, spirited him away and took his place. We
don't know obviously, this is it's all legend. And what's
what makes this so fun is you also can't discredit
it because there's always one more thing. You get the
rug pulled out under you in both ways. Right when
you think okay, it didn't happen, there's another card dropped

(01:42:41):
on the floor. You find another card dropped on the floor,
just like and did. And then you think, okay, maybe
it did happen. Then something something else comes up and
you're like, okay, no it didn't. Then oh wait, maybe
it did just over here at this place. I mean,
it's a story that I'm really glad we did this.
But Gage, I guess, so what do you make of this?
I mean, whether real or not, it's really it's almost

(01:43:04):
a beautiful story. It's like a beautiful tragic tale in
a way.

Speaker 2 (01:43:09):
It's it really is. You mentioned it how cinematic it
is earlier. I mean, it really does paint such a
vivid picture, and especially the moment of her seeing the hoof,
and just that scene of him standing up and revealing
himself to everyone in the room before bursting through the ceiling.
I mean, it sounds like such a perfect scene for

(01:43:32):
a horror film. Now as to the validity of the story, obviously,
it's so convoluted and the time change, like the different
years involved and the names and everything, but also the
similarities to the hell Fire Club story make me think
that this has to be a story that has some

(01:43:54):
truth to it that got just changed or miss interpret
or miscommunicated over the years, but that something something happened.

Speaker 1 (01:44:06):
Something happened. Yeah, it's like, how did this exact story happen?
But it's under a different context, this time at the
health Fire Club. It's about a bunch of dickheads. It's
kind of like Roger Downs. It's like Roger Downs from
our last episode. It's like a group of guys like
that of rich A Holes who essentially they mock religious

(01:44:27):
artifacts and welcome the devil to join then, and of
course he comes and scares the high holy hell out
of him. You know. It's like, whereas this is a
more complex tale and a more human tale, I would
argue even it's more about the people than the devil.

Speaker 2 (01:44:41):
Absolutely, I think the Hellfire Club is like a tale
of karma, whereas Anne's story is one of tragedy.

Speaker 1 (01:44:48):
Right, absolutely, absolutely, because part of you, when you look
at the health Fire Club, you're like, well, yeah, they
deserved it, whereas Anne did not deserve what happened to her,
which is truly like what you think the devil would
do for the devil to come. And you would almost
think the devil would prefer that you do the things
those guys were doing at the hell Fire.

Speaker 2 (01:45:08):
Right, he'd be like, hey, that's cool, you know, let
me pull up a chair and join you, Phillis, take
all your money.

Speaker 1 (01:45:13):
Yeah, you'd think he would prefer that, whereas, like what
he did to Anne was truly evil.

Speaker 2 (01:45:19):
And the devil is the ultimate sadest.

Speaker 1 (01:45:21):
Yes, absolutely absolutely, So maybe someone took that framework and
put it on this other tail. But wow, I'll tell
you what, Gauge, I got a list of names that
I wouldn't mind knocking on my door in the dead
of night.

Speaker 2 (01:45:35):
Oh yeah, who's that?

Speaker 1 (01:45:36):
The list of our Patreon subscribers, of course, The Dream
James Watkins, The Finished Face, Via Lungpus, The Madman, Marcus Hall,
the Tenacious Teresa Hackworth, The Heartbreak Kid, Chris Hackworth, Theoso Swave,
Sean Richardson, the Notorious Nicholas Barker, the terrifying Taylor lash Met,
the Count of Cool, Cameron corlis At, the arch Duke
of Attitude, Adam Archer, the sinister Sam Kaiker, the Nightmare
of New Zealand, noeh Lein Vavili, the loathsome Johnny Love,

(01:45:56):
the carnivorous Kevin Bogee, the Killer Stud Carl Stop, the
fire Starter, Heather Carter, the conquer Christopher, Damian Demris, the
awfully awesome Annie, the murderous Maggie Leech, the ser of
Sexy Sam Hackworth, the Evil Elizabeth Riley, Laura in Hell Fire,
Hernandez Lopez, the maniacal Laura Maynard, the vicious Karen van
Vier and the Archie Nemesis, Aaron Bird, the sadistic Sergio Castillo,
the rapt Scallion Ryan Crumb, the Beast, Benjamin Hwang, the

(01:46:19):
devilish Christu Set, the Psycho Sam, the Electric Emily Jong,
the ghoulish Girt Hankum, the renegade Corey Ramos, the crazed Carlos,
the antagonist, Andrew Park, the monstrous Mikaela Sure, the witchy
Wonder J. P. Weimer, the Freiki, Ben Forsyth, the barbaric
Andrew Berry, the Mysterious Marcella, the Hillacious kal Hoffman and
Pug Borb the Poulter guys. Folks, thank you so much

(01:46:41):
for listening. We love you. Of course I won't ramble
on because this is probably a longer episode, but we
thank you so much. Give us your feedback, give us
your suggestions for episodes. If there's something you want us
to cover, please reach out on any of our socials.
Don't be scared. Will happily respond and chat with you
and stuff like that. But of course are citizens of
the Milky Way. My name is Dylan Hackworth and I'm

(01:47:04):
Gade Charley. Good Night and goodbye.

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Ep241 - The Devil Came To Loftus Hall

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep241 - The Devil Came To Loftus Hall