Any X, I'm afraid I can't remember! Sorry
I think it was near Limoges...
Bah, the place I stayed in was nowhere near Limoges, but thanks for the reply. I wasn't realistically expecting them to be the same house, but you never know. What a coincidence that would've been.
I'm almost wondering if it's worth posting an account of this, as it's so similar to other tales on this thread...but as it's interesting to note that this kind of thing is a kind of thing that happens frequently...and as I have a couple of other quickies to share, I might as well.
Nasty House #1) France, on summer holiday with ex-girlfriend and parents (hers)
Some English friends of theirs had a holiday home in a very rural
commune and had kindly lent a set of keys in case we cared to use the place - which we eventually did as we needed beds for the night whilst deciding where to head off next and as everyone fancied a break from sleeping under canvas. The house was a solid rustic dwelling in the village square with wooden shutters typical of the area. All very inviting. We eventually stayed for two nights and on the evening of our arrival had a lively sociable time in the comfortable living room, possibly made friends with the non-English-speaking neighbours (hard to tell), and I had a bunch of fun trying to produce a meal with local ingredients in the pleasant, sunny kitchen. To our surprise, as the late twilight crept in we could even just about recieve the BBC World Service on shortwave, which was broadcasting a John Peel show with Billy Bragg and others in session: very fitting as the locals seemed interested in British folk music and culture. It was a happy house.
We retired relaxed but knackered, with only sleep in mind, but I privately balked at entering the upper storey bedroom we'd selected (it had felt hostile when I'd taken our bags up earlier in the evening but I'd put it out of my mind). Unusually, despite the stifling heat I kept on a pair of lightweight shorts as if to be prepared for a hasty exit during the night. I was edgily uncomfortable, had great trouble sleeping at all and continued to feel observed and resented. Even the great dark wooden bed and imposing wardrobes seemed oppressive, (but this could be down to unfamiliarity, I thought). My gf seemed less bothered.
The next night, after some sightseeing, we had a pleasant evening at the local Café des Sports and Brasserie and all was well with the village, which I'd grown to like very much. It was very quiet and there was an wonderful old monster of a church squatting right on the square where we were staying - what a privilege to be staying there! How relaxed we were! However this time I felt stupidly uneasy about going back to the room, and almost suggested we try to sleep downstairs.
Here's the thing: we both had a horrible night, waking up frequently from identical unpleasant dreams which were abstract enough to make any details hard to grasp, but which were characterised by a sort of distillation of violence and fear and what seemed like murder or assault from a first-person perspective - as opposed to any distinct narrative. I certainly woke up shouting at least once. Then when I awoke for the final time in daylight we were both lying flat on our stomachs with our hands on the pillows - which neither of us ever did, and I have certainly
never done since. I'm aware that that last detail sounds like something from The Amityville Horror book, but there it is.
I'm unclear wether the original owners had any 'problems'.
Nasty House #2) Scotland, a few year earlier on family holiday
Rather cinematically we eventually found our holiday let (before civillian GPS) way after dark in the middle of an October Bank Holiday rainstorm (think Withnail and I's holiday arrival). To me, this was all very exciting, just like moving into any unexplored holiday home. It was a funny old place: a rambling single-storey farmhouse or mill cottage adjacent to some very boggy ground leading to a dilapidated boathouse and jetty on the edge of a loch - in fact you were almost knee-deep in the loch as soon as you went round the back of the property. There was an iffy looking rowing boat there, which my Dad and I nearly killed ourselves in, but that's not a very Fortean story, more a lesson in respecting Nature and her weather.
Anyway, I wasn't a lad to be spooked by these creaky old places; we'd toughed it out in several, including a spooky big old manor house with mysteriously unused rooms and a secret staircase and everything - which I couldn't get enough of. But I was inexplicably frightened of the bedrooms in this house - even the one that I was to share with my grandad - and especially dreaded having to go in there on my own to put my pyjamas under the pillow or whatever. Nothing occurred save for a persistent feeling of unease, but my mother admitted when we'd returned home that she'd HATED the house straight away and explained that was why she'd refused to go into their bedroom and some other rooms on her own, even during the day. To her credit she hadn't admitted this to anyone but my Dad at the time so as not to completely ruin the holiday for everyone, but she was clearly miserable there and had behaved oddly. She has form with this kind of thing, for example on first visiting the house where she lives now instantly seeing herself going up and down the staircase many thousands of times in a split second as if from some outside observation point.
I've looked the house up on TripAdvisor etc and no one has complained of any uncanny feelings as such, but holidaymakers always seem to be very unhappy and depressed there. Someone commented to the effect "Don't ever book this cottage, it is uninhabitable", but possibly that's just because it's been neglected to the point that it's begun dissolving into the swamp that surrounds it.
Nasty House #3) London, until not very long ago
Long story short: often, as a bolt hole after working long into the night, I used to stay in a tiny bedroom at the rear of an unusual old building that virtually coexists with the Victorian railway bridge that looms over it - the two structures having apparently fused in what order I cannot say. Anyway, I sometimes felt very uneasy in this little cell as if watched / not wanted...the usual stuff. Someone who had also used the room made an odd remark about it which prompted me to refer to it as 'the haunted room', after which it just became a joke.
Theory: Massive great railway barely overhead taking everything from passengers to freight to nuclear waste in the dead of night (oh yes) - therefore infra sound could be the explanation.
Edited due to many, many typos.
