The Shadowlands: A Night at Knighton House
Issue #27: March 1981
Editor’s Note: The Shadowlands is our monthly collection of reader-submitted encounters with the unexplained. This month’s feature comes from Margaret T. from Reading, Berkshire, who visited the abandoned Knighton House with a group of amateur photographers in October 1980.
I should preface this by saying I’m not the sort to believe in ghosts. I’m a secondary school chemistry teacher. I deal in facts, formulae, and empirical evidence. When my photography club proposed an overnight shoot at Knighton House, I saw it as an opportunity to capture some interesting architectural shots of a historic building, nothing more.
Knighton House, for those unfamiliar, was a reform school for boys that operated from 1894 until 1960. It sits on a hill overlooking the Hampshire countryside, a massive Gothic Revival structure that looks more like a mediaeval fortress than a school. Its history is grim: harsh discipline, abuse, mysterious deaths, and at least one unsolved murder.
The First Hours
We arrived at dusk, six of us with our cameras and equipment. The building’s caretaker let us in with a warning: “Don’t go into the cellar. The floor’s unstable.” He locked us in (fire code violation, I know, but he’d return at dawn) and left us to our work.
The first few hours passed uneventfully. We split up to cover different sections. I focussed on the main hall with its grand staircase, playing with long exposures to capture the interplay of moonlight through broken windows.
Around midnight, I decided to check on Tom and Ellen, who were shooting in the north wing dormitories. The corridor seemed to stretch longer than I remembered. My torch beam caught something odd: a door I was certain had been closed now stood ajar.
The Boy in the Doorway
That’s when I saw him.
A boy, perhaps twelve or thirteen, stood in the doorway of one of the dormitory rooms. He wore what looked like a rough wool uniform: dark trousers, a loose shirt. But it was his stillness that struck me first. He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just stared at me with an expression I can only describe as desperate longing.
“Hello?” I called out, assuming it was someone’s child who’d somehow got in. “You shouldn’t be here. It’s not safe.”
He didn’t respond. Instead, he raised one hand, slowly and deliberately, and pointed down the corridor behind me.
I turned to look. The corridor was empty. When I turned back, the boy was gone.
The Photograph
I should have left then. Every instinct told me to find the others and wait by the entrance until dawn. But I’m stubborn, and I was determined not to let my imagination get the better of me. I convinced myself I’d seen shadows, nothing more.
I continued shooting, but something had changed. The air felt heavier. Every creak of the old building seemed amplified. And I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched.
At one point, I heard footsteps above me, slow and measured, pacing back and forth. But I knew for certain that all of us were on the ground floor. I photographed the ceiling, capturing the sound on film if nothing else.
Dawn’s Revelation
We compared notes as the caretaker unlocked the doors at first light. Tom and Ellen reported similar experiences: doors opening and closing, footsteps, cold spots that appeared and disappeared. None of us mentioned seeing the boy. I kept that to myself, embarrassed.
But when I developed my photographs the following week, I found something that still makes my hands shake when I think about it.
In one shot, a long exposure of the main staircase, there’s a figure on the landing. It’s translucent, barely visible, but unmistakable: a boy in period clothing, his hand raised, pointing down the stairs towards the cellar. The cellar we’d been warned not to enter.
I had the negative examined by three different professionals. None could explain it. There was no double exposure, no light leak, no evidence of tampering.
The Murder of Anna Corbin
Later research revealed a disturbing detail. In 1950, Anna Corbin, the school’s housekeeper, was found murdered in the cellar. Her killer was never identified, though several boys were questioned. Some of those boys, records show, later claimed they knew who killed her but were too afraid to tell.
I can’t prove the boy I saw was trying to lead me to evidence of that crime. I can’t prove I saw anything at all, except that photograph, and I have six witnesses who’ll confirm we all felt something wrong in that place.
I’ve been asked to return to Knighton House by several paranormal investigation groups. I’ve declined every invitation. Some doors, once opened, are better left closed.
And some mysteries, perhaps, are meant to remain in the shadowlands.
Have you had an encounter with the unexplained? Submit your story to The Shadowlands at: Beyond the Veil Magazine, P.O. Box 1313, London W1A 1AA