Fri 31 Oct 2008
Getting away with murder
A recent court case concerned a Yorkshire couple who sought compensation from the previous owners of their house for not telling them that it had been the scene of a murder.It was only when, by chance, they watched a TV documentary that they realised that their new home had been – some 20 years previously – the setting for the notorious and rather grisly episode. On learning of the house's secret past, they no longer felt comfortable living in it, and moved out, eventually selling it for a loss. The judges, however, ruled that the people who sold the property to them had been under no obligation to tell them of its history, and that the principle of caveat emptor ("buyer beware") still stood, no matter how distressing the details of the crime.
This is not the only case where houses in which deaths have occurred are deemed to be blighted. In fact, the current trend seems to be that if a house is the site of a violent death, then it acquires the tabloid newspaper label "House of Horror", and has to be knocked down.
But have we really become so squeamish that we cannot stand the thought that a house has ever had a death in it? If every house that had been the scene of a murder or suicide was to be demolished, then there would be some significant gaps in the streetscape. Some terraced streets in the east end of London, for example, would surely look like rows of rotten teeth.
And that would only be for the tragedies that came to the attention of the authorities. It is accepted that in Victorian times, when these things took place very much behind closed doors, there were many domestic fatalities which did not trouble the coroner. I myself was working on a Victorian terraced house where a child's body was found buried beneath the basement floorboards. The police forensic expert who investigated told us that such finds were by no means unusual. (The body was judged to be more than 100 years old, and so no police investigation was opened).
And how does this new squeamishness square with the idea of a house having or acquiring "history"? After all, some of the most famous country houses in the land have been the scenes of suicides, executions or brutal murders. The idea that such events might lead to the presence of creaking floorboards, eerie presences, and ghosts holding their heads under their arms only seems to add to their attraction. After all, one of the most interesting facets of researching your home's history is finding details of the births and deaths that took place within its walls, and if you come across one of significance or notoriety, then surely that can only add to the building's curiosity.
How far back does a controversial death need to have taken place, however, before we can view it not as a tragedy to be mourned, but as a historical event to be celebrated? Not all that long, it seems. I have recently read books about two celebrated country murder cases that took place within living memory – at Cusop Dingle in Herefordshire and Peasenhall in Suffolk. In both cases the houses where the murderous events took place are still standing, and are places of local curiosity, not to say local pride. There is no suggestion that their notoriety has made these properties undesirable, or hard to sell. On the contrary, a scrap-book of contemporary newspaper cuttings detailing the dastardly deeds would probably be seen as a positive selling point. As would the idea that a ghost is rumoured to haunt the west wing or the library.
The trouble with my own house is that it is too small to have a wing of any orientation, nor a library. I would love to have a ghost, but I really don't know where we'd find room for it. But if it were ever to be revealed that a notorious murder had taken place within its four walls, then I'd be the first to announce it to the local press – it could only add to the value!
Posted by Jeff Howell
in The Jeff Howell Column on Fri 31 Oct 2008
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