The haunted house

In the gentle clays of Sussex, the old squire’s house called Rackham stands like a weary relic of centuries. Its half‑Elizabethan wing, its brick additions, and the damp stucco kitchens together hint at a layered past of monasteries, civil wars and mercantile ambition. The rooms are filled with plastered beams, faded portraits and a lone Gainsborough‑like canvas that seems to watch visitors over the cracked carpet and the modest yet surprisingly modern bathroom.

The present master, Henry Maple, is a self‑made gentleman of scholarly leanings, a widower raising his young son, John, in the house his family has owned for three hundred years. Though the surrounding Downs and the modest park offer a calm countryside life, the house’s strange architecture and the whispered histories that cling to its walls suggest that something beyond the ordinary may be stirring within its ancient walls.