1
With the date set and my flight booked, the only thing left was for me to assemble a team. Based on what I’d seen of the place from TV documentaries and photographs posted online, I knew that the Cage wasn’t a large building. I should be able to cover it adequately with a crew of just three or four investigators, which would be a lot easier to organize and coordinate than the larger teams I used when investigating places as large as Waverly Hills or Asylum 49.
I finally settled on a mix of seasoned investigators and relative newbies. Right out of the gate I knew that I wanted my friend and fellow paranormal investigator Stephen Weidner. He lived not far from me in Colorado and was the kind of friend who was more than willing to up sticks and fly five thousand miles to spend five days living in a haunted witches’ prison with me.
The fact that he was a Catholic priest also couldn’t hurt, I figured.
The second half of my team would be British, and they agreed to meet us at the Cage on day one of the investigation. The end of January came all too soon, and it seemed as if the weeks had simply flown by.
Once I cleared customs and immigration at London’s Heathrow Airport, I found the nearest coffee shop and sat down to enjoy a hot chocolate and wait for Stephen to arrive. Although we had both taken different flights (I had flown direct, whereas Stephen had enjoyed a brief layover in Iceland) we both arrived in London within an hour of each other.
The coffee shop was our prearranged meeting point, and it wasn’t long before we were both enjoying a drink together and chatting excitedly about what the next few days might bring.
A hire car whisked us both from London to St Osyth, a journey that only took a couple of hours, even in the face of heavy traffic in and around the nation’s capital. Once we were free of the typical London gridlock, it was all smooth sailing: we arrived at our hotel early on that Saturday afternoon, with plenty of daylight to spare.
Each of us went to our hotel room, dropped off our suitcase full of clothes, and grabbed the equipment kits that would be used over the course of the coming week’s investigation. So far as we were concerned, unpacking could wait. We had more important things to think about right now: after all, the Cage was waiting for us …
Vanessa and Richard.
Vanessa Mitchell picked us up outside the hotel. We exchanged a hug. She was short of stature by comparison to me, coming up to my chest, and I was immediately struck by Vanessa’s larger-than-life personality. She was quick to laugh but quickly grew serious when discussion turned to the subject of the Cage.
Although we had spoken together many times online over the past few months, this was the first time that we had ever met in person. All three of us hit it off instantly, and it wasn’t too long into our drive to the Cage that we were laughing and swapping funny stories.
However, it soon became apparent that the closer we got to the old witches’ prison, the more uneasy Vanessa was becoming. During our many Internet conversations, the slender, dark-haired woman had struck me as the sassy, no-nonsense type, independent and fearless. Now, meeting her in person for the very first time, I was getting a very definite vibe that this was not a woman who was easily frightened or intimidated.
“This is a beautiful little village,” Stephen said admiringly, taking in the old world charm. “Absolutely beautiful.”
“Yeah, isn’t it?” Vanessa agreed. “But it has a dark past. Do you know anything about the history of St Osyth—the actual saint, I mean, not just the village?”
We shook our heads. Clearing her throat, Vanessa kept one eye on the traffic in front of us as she began to tell us about the village and its tragic namesake.
The legend of St Osyth dates back to the Dark Ages. Britain was a hard, brutal place in which to eke out a living. Most people were deeply religious, and this belief permeated all levels of society, from the king on his throne to the lowliest peasant toiling in the fields.
At the end of the seventh century AD, many of the coastal towns and settlements lay at the mercy of the Viking raiders. The villagers soon learned to dread the appearance of the dragon-headed longships when they appeared suddenly off the coast or slid stealthily along the rivers and estuaries of eastern England in search of plunder.
One such raid took place on the 7th of October, 700 AD. A Danish raiding party, led by Inguar and Hubba, took the village of Chich by surprise. They burned many homes to the ground, indiscriminately murdering and assaulting men, women, and children alike. The village was totally devastated.
A lady by the name of Osyth was numbered among the dead that day. She was the daughter of Frithwald, chieftain of the Mercians, and Wilburga, who was the daughter of the powerful pagan king Penda of Mercia. Osyth was raised in a convent and wanted nothing more in life than to become a nun, but life seemed to have other ideas: She instead became betrothed to King Sighere of Essex in order to cement an alliance of political expediency.
Osyth’s yearning to become a woman of God only grew stronger with time, despite the wishes of her parents and King Sighere for her to marry and assume the mantle of a queen. She understood that it was her duty to get married, as the resulting alliance would be for the greater good of the people. Yet at the same time, her calling could no longer be ignored.
One day, when her betrothed was out on a hunt and trying to kill a rare white hart, Osyth made a leap of faith. This was, she reasoned, her one chance to truly follow her own path. She took sacred vows and entered a convent, with the fervent desire to dedicate her life completely to the service of her God.
This decision paid off when her would-be husband eventually accepted her decision and donated a tract of land to her, located in the village of Chich. She subsequently established a beautiful nunnery and church upon the land, and it was there that Osyth spent the happiest days of her entire life, filled as they were with peace, fulfillment, and the love of God that she had craved for so long. Osyth found true contentment in her role of abbess there, but all of that was swept away on that fateful day in October when the Danes came to call.
Having sacked the village, the Danish raiding party turned its attention to the nunnery. They stole as much money and treasure as they could possibly find, ruthlessly butchering all who tried to stand in their way, and then burned the nunnery to the ground.
Along with a small group of monks and nuns, Osyth had evaded the attack, managing to make her way to a small clearing within the farthest part of the grounds. The company soon found themselves totally surrounded, completely cut off from any chance of escape.
When she finally came face to face with the leader of the raiding party, Osyth knew without a shadow of a doubt that her fate was sealed. The huge Dane had no respect for her, her God, or the way of life that she loved so much. He demanded there and then that she renounce her God before everyone, offering her allegiance instead to the Norse Gods, worshipping them above all others.
Osyth naturally refused. What choice did she have, she who had given up so much in order to follow her beliefs, even if they led to such a bitter end?
With a single stroke of his sword, the Dane lopped Osyth’s head from her shoulders.
But the story does not end there. Legend has it that once she had been beheaded, Osyth’s decapitated body rose to its feet, and then stooped down to pick up her missing head. Tucking the head firmly in the crook of one arm, Osyth’s body walked into the village, where it knocked three times on the great wooden door of the church, before collapsing onto the front step and dying for a second time, the head dropping from her lifeless fingers.
It is said that at the exact place of Osyth’s martyrdom within the woods a spring gushed forth at the very point where her head first struck the ground. The spring has since become a stream, and legend has it that the waters have mystical healing properties that can cure the sick and the dying of their afflictions.
As for the village of Chich, it was later given the name of St Osyth, reflecting the honorific bestowed upon the brave young woman who once braved a Danish raider’s wrath and refused to give up her faith, even at the cost of her own life. St Osyth Prior was named in her honor, and it still stands proudly today upon the same land on which Osyth so lovingly established her nunnery.
Local tradition holds that each year upon the anniversary of her execution, Osyth can be seen walking with her head still held under one arm, traversing the priory grounds and moving along Colchester Road; she then carries on into the village that now bears her name, knocks three times on the church door, and then vanishes.
While St Osyth’s tale is one of woe, and seems to have a hideous ending, this brave lady is remembered not only for her martyrdom but also for dedicating her life to helping those less fortunate, and for her devout love and devotion to God. For generations after her death, travelers came from miles around, making the pilgrimage in order to sit by the side of her grave. It was believed that illnesses could be cured in such a way, and that St Osyth was still performing miraculous feats of healing from beyond the grave.
“I take it that Osyth isn’t one of the spirits that is said to haunt the Cage?” I asked, smiling. Vanessa shook her head.
“No, but there’s plenty of others in there, Rich. Don’t worry, you’ll meet them all soon enough.”
She turned onto Colchester Road, which ran long and straight toward the heart of the village. We passed a long row of historic old houses on the left-hand side. Some were so old that they leaned out crookedly into the road, looking a little like drunks who were off-balance and desperately trying not to fall down into the street.
And then suddenly, at the very end of the row, there it was. The Cage.
“Sometimes I really hate this place,” Vanessa muttered under her breath as she pulled the car onto the tarmac apron, just in front of the Cage, and slipped it into park.
All three of us climbed out of the car. Stephen and I took a few steps backward to take a good look at it for ourselves. To the right of them ran Coffin Alley, which cut around the back of the building and disappeared off into the distance.
Exterior of the house.
Exterior of the house.
The sign on the outside of the building.
I found myself thinking that the Cage itself was actually a rather unassuming, anonymous-looking building; it certainly didn’t look like the classic style of Hollywood haunted house: all dark, gothic, and brooding. On the contrary, the Cage was simple red brick, and the residence that had been built above and around it was painted a bright, mustard yellow color.
Coffin Alley runs behind the house.
The back side of the Cage.
Stephen and I walked around the building, stepping onto the sidewalk in front of the house. A small wooden plaque caught my eye, and I leaned in to examine it more closely: the Cage Medieval Prison. St Osyth resident Ursula Kemp was imprisoned here before being hanged as a witch in 1582. It was last used in 1908.
“Alright,” I said, craning my neck to look up at the gargoyles set high into the wall above my head. “What happened here—before you bought it, I mean? There are hundreds of prisons all across the UK, and I’ve only heard of a few being haunted. Why is the Cage so special?”
With a sidelong glance at the upstairs window (we would learn later on why it unnerved Vanessa so much), she began to lay it all out for us.