Snuggling up in bed in their three-bedroomed rural cottage in Ross-on-Wye, Chris Benwell and his fiancée Pam Webb turned off the lights and settled down for the night.
Twenty minutes later, they were startled to hear the smashing of glass downstairs.
‘We both sat bolt upright wondering what on earth was going on,’ says Chris, 66. ‘We looked at each other and then heard another smash – and then another. I thought someone must have broken in, so I got up, grabbed a stick to defend myself with and made my way down the stairs.’
Heart racing as he cautiously took each step, the sight that greeted him in the living room of the 350-year-old property was chillingly bizarre. Thousands of tiny shards of glass were shattered over the wooden floor – not from the windows or doors, which were all still securely locked – but from three glass ornaments that had, apparently, hurled themselves to the ground from a shelf.
‘It really shook us up and we couldn’t work out how it had happened,’ admits Pam, 61, a former shop owner. ‘There was no draught. No tremor. The shelf wasn’t broken as other smaller ornaments and bottles were still standing on it. It was as if someone had grabbed these thick, glass bottles and smashed them deliberately. We’re still finding bits of glass even today. It was very unnerving.’
After sweeping up, the couple returned to their room, shaken and scared. This was the most mysterious thing to happen in their home over the past 30 years. But it was not unique. Ghostly goings-on in Primrose Cottage have been occurring ever since Chris, a retired pet business owner, moved into the house in 1996 with his late wife Julie, who died nearly six years ago.
‘We moved to this area from London because we wanted to live somewhere quiet and the cottage was perfect,’ says Chris.
‘We had heard nothing about any eerie happenings here previously – the owners before us had never mentioned it – and even after we had moved in, all we heard was the occasional knock or bang. Or we’d hear a door closing, but we put that down to it being such an old, creaky house.’
Chris Benwell and his fiancée Pam Webb next to the shelves that three glass ornaments fell from. ‘We’re still finding bits of glass even today,’ Pam, 61, says
But it was when their son was two years old that the spooky activity began to increase.
‘When Aaron arrived in 2000, we gave him the original upstairs bedroom while Julie and I slept downstairs in the extension we’d built. Several times, when he was a toddler, Aaron would mention there was an old man sitting in his room, looking at him,’ remembers Chris.
‘We thought it was his childish imagination – we had never seen anyone in there – but Aaron was convinced there was a man.
‘He remembers it even today… this silent figure who said nothing but would often watch him. Aaron said he didn’t like sleeping in there but there was nowhere else he could go. He had also mentioned a tall man in a very tall hat standing in the kitchen – but again, we had never seen anyone or anything there.
‘A few years later, we extended the house again to create another bedroom for Aaron and he was delighted. But from that moment on, the noises became even weirder.
‘I’ve always believed in the paranormal, but Julie was a lot more cynical. When we heard the steps, we’d look at each other as if to say: “You heard that too?”. There was no sense of fear, though. The house is centuries old so it creaks and makes funny noises anyway, but this definitely felt more unusual.
‘Of course I’d occasionally check, but no one was there. Yet soon we could hear footsteps clearly walking from room to room, even stepping down the little stair on the landing. I’d spoken to the previous owners and was told that a vicar had lived here previously but we never had a sense that it was him – I don’t know why. No one has ever been able to shed any light on it.’
Although the noises and footsteps continued, the couple lived at Primrose Cottage relatively peacefully for another 15 years until Julie sadly died in 2020. Devastated, Chris moved out of the house for a year, unable to bear living there without her.
When he moved back in, Aaron, now 20, came to stay for a while to keep him company, but would only sleep in the downstairs room – perhaps wary of the childhood bedroom he’d never liked. In the meantime, Chris had become more interested in the paranormal.
‘When Aaron and I moved back in, that’s when the activity ramped up big time,’ admits Chris. ‘There was a lot more banging and crashing; the footsteps were very regular. But now, I’d sometimes find that if I left items around the house – a plate or a cup, for instance – they would move.
‘I know I’m an old g*t and can forget things but this was different – I’d put something down by the TV, go out of the room, come back and it had moved.
The 350-year-old property, Primrose Cottage, in Ross-on-Wye. Chris moved into the property in 1996 with his late wife Julie
Chris and Pam in one of their home’s bedrooms. They often hear footsteps and find drawers open in rooms they have not been in all day
‘I began to wonder if the spirits living with us – whoever they were – didn’t like any changes. They seemed more active when we altered the house and now that Julie had gone, that was another major change. But I loved the house so much – it had so many good memories – that I didn’t want to move.
‘Using the knowledge I’d gained after reading up on [ghosts], I did once try something called dowsing, which helps locate paranormal energy. I detected that there were possibly three spirits in the house, but one was a lot more dominant. I couldn’t tell if it was male or female or even adult, but it had more energy than the other two so would be the one making the noises and moving things around. But that’s all I could gather.’
Two-and-a-half years ago, Chris met Pam via Tinder. She sensed that something in the house was not right straight away.
‘It wasn’t an uncomfortable feeling,’ she says. ‘The first few times I was here, even just having a coffee, it felt like we weren’t alone. I wondered about Julie and whether the feeling had something to do with her presence and Chris losing her so recently.
‘The house itself was beautiful but I just felt something was off. I’ve never particularly believed in ghosts but I think I must be in tune with them. Chris tells me I’ve had full-blown conversations with people in my sleep. Nothing eerie, just mundane chatter – he even recorded me doing it because I didn’t believe him at first. Spirits don’t frighten me.’
Since the couple moved in together full-time, whatever is present in the house has become a lot more active.
‘We redecorated one of the bedrooms, and drawers are constantly being opened in there,’ says Pam. ‘I’ll shout down to Chris saying: “Why have you opened these drawers?” and he’ll say he hasn’t been in that room all day.
‘There is a little brush and mirror set that we keep on the dressing table that moves all the time. And candles that we put in holders will be found lying next to them. We cleared out some of Julie’s personal items recently – very respectfully – but the drawer in which they were kept is constantly opening now.
Chris adds: ‘We’ve seen shadows in the mirrors we can’t explain, but which seem to be in a human form. And one time we were sitting in the kitchen and the kitchen drawer actually opened slowly as we were eating. We really don’t get scared easily by this sort of thing – and we looked at each other as if to say, ‘Did that really happen?’. It was weird but we have never felt threatened.
‘A couple of days ago, just as I was leaving to go out, I heard Pam get up and move from bedroom to bedroom so I popped upstairs to give her a kiss goodbye… but she was fast asleep.’
Chris and Pam with a Ouija board at their haunted home. Their interest in the paranormal has led to them working alongside a company called Haunted Happenings, which sees them accompany groups on ghost hunts around the country
Recently, their interest in the paranormal has led to Chris and Pam working alongside a company called Haunted Happenings, which sees them accompany groups on ghost hunts around the country.
‘We’ve never had the team come to visit our house yet but perhaps we should,’ jokes Chris.
‘Other people have definitely sensed something here. Pam’s grandson comes to visit us regularly now and, like Aaron when he was a toddler, he’s told us about some ‘people’ – we don’t know how many or who they are – who come to his room and play games with him. He used to say to us that “the man is not evil” and he’s not afraid of him, but it’s very eerie.
‘And Pam’s niece stayed here once – and only once – on her own and told us she went to bed early because she kept hearing noises and was freaked out about it. She is too scared to come again.
‘We used to have two dogs and one of them would sit at the bottom of the stairs, simply staring up them for half an hour at a time, as if something was up there.’
Despite the ghostly goings-on, the couple – who are now engaged – have no plans to move.
‘They don’t scare us,’ says Chris. ‘They’ve shaken us up a couple of times but we feel the spirits are just misbehaving. I don’t think they mean us any harm. In fact, they’re like part of the family now.’
