Haunted house used for doomed 'witches' back on market 4 years after it was finally sold

The owner of Britain’s most haunted house has put it just four years after it was finally sold.

The property, dubbed “The Cage”, took 12 years to sell because it was plagued by terrifying accounts of. It was finally snapped up in 2020, despite its morbid history as a former village lock-up used to imprison "witches" who sat waiting to be burnt or hanged.

It’s now back on the market for £250,000 after another former owner said she was shoved to the floor by an unknown force while heavily pregnant. The new estate agents have admitted that rather than a home the site "presents an enticing opportunity for a cosy and eccentric let."

Vanessa Mitchell purchased the house in St Osyth, , in 2005 for £144,000, but her stay there was a short one. She claims to have witnessed the ghost of a man disappear into an eerie mist, found blood on the floor, and says she was even shoved to the ground while heavily pregnant. But the final straw was spotting a satanic goat wandering around on .

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The mum-of-two attempted to rent it out, but no-one would stay there for more than a few months, meaning the house lay empty since 2008. The roadside property, near Clacton-on-Sea, was the former site of a medieval prison, and is one of just seven left in Britain.

Thirteen witches were locked in the building before going on trial, where three of them were hanged, including Ursula Kemp, who was executed in 1582. The home appeared on Channel 4's docudrama True Horror: The Witches Prison, while paranormal experts around the have visited the premesis.

Vanessa says a young man had committed suicide at the house not long before she purchased it, adding to the cottage's grim history. But the 46-year-old lived in the road as a child and wanted to make the move back from Newcastle, where she was working in caravan sales.

Vanessa, 46, first moved in with childhood pal Nicole Kirtley, 42, but the hauntings started as soon as they began unpacking their boxes. She said she heard Nicole come in and went to make her a cup of tea, only to find out she was still outside. The lights then started turning themselves on, taps began running, and the pair started seeing flashing lights and feeling "heavy" presences.

The mum also also saw a big, foreboding figure in her hallway, which vanished and turned into a mist. She said: "The activity started straight away. There were so, so many things, from the first day. Nicole was bringing our boxes in and I stopped to make a cup of tea. I heard a noise behind me and thought it was her behind me. I turned around and she wasn't there but there was this tall, black figure. I froze to the spot. It was like a thick, black fog, but it was broad daylight."

Things only got worse, and before long, Nicole felt like a prisoner in her own home. "The activity was getting stronger and stronger," Vanessa said. "I saw a lady walk through what would be the prison room into my front room. She walked straight up to me. She had this bowl, she put her hand in the bowl - I don't know what was in it - and she sprinkled it over my head. Then she was gone.

"I could see her like I would see a person, again it was broad daylight. Her energy felt lovely though, really nice. If they're bad, you can feel it, and she wasn't. I instinctively felt she was giving me some kind of protection."

Vanessa's oldest son Jesse, now 15, was born at the Cage after which things took a more sinister turn. Vanessa, who is also mum to another boy, Jude, six, saw a legless man, and was one day looking in the mirror, only to be pushed to the ground from behind. At one point, her plumber refused to return because he was left terrified by the paranormal activity.

In Vanessa's final weeks, she even resorted to eating packed lunches in bed and kept a potty nearby so that she didn't have to leave the room in the dark.

She says she vividly remembers the moment she knew she had to move. She said: "It was freezing cold and I remember getting out of the car. It was so cold but I couldn't go in. My head was saying 'Vanessa you've got to, you've got the baby, you need to go in.'

"The snow started coming down and I remember thinking it just wasn't safe. It was just horrible, just too much. There were so many layers of history in that house. The spirits were just reliving and reliving it over and over again. I never in the world thought there could be such an active, hostile, persistent haunting like a movie."

After years on the market, the sale finally went through in 2020 for £220,000 - after Vanessa had paid a mortgage on the empty home for 11 years. During that time, the mum made ends meet by hosting ghost trips and paranormal group visits.

Spiritual healer and psychic, Rev Ted Woodroffe, visited the home in November 2018 and "cleaned the place up" before it was put back on the market. He said: "The problem is with powerful entities, which clearly there were within the Cage, is that you have to be protected if you are going in to clear them.

"There were some nasty, powerful presences in that property. A young man who had taken his life was also an issue. The witches suffered enormous abuse prior to being hanged, not helped by the paranormal groups who had been visiting. But all should be well now as I sent them to the light."

The Cage is now on sale for £250,000, only four years after its last sale. It comes with two bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room, reception room and downstairs loo, as well as an upstairs bathroom and large parking area.

New agents Lamb & Co say on Rightmove: "Steeped in medieval history, this former prison for witches dates back to the 16th century and boasts character features. With its quaint charm, the property presents an enticing opportunity for a cosy and eccentric holiday let, offering promising returns on investment."