For many years the building at 19 Magdalen Street has held the reputation of being the most haunted in Norwich. Originally this building was part of an old public house, which is now divided into three separate properties. It's had many uses over the years but its ghost is believed to date back to when it was an inn of ill-repute.

19 Magdalen Street.

In the late 1960s the building was home to Radio Rentals when the staff began to notice some unusual activity. Cups would fall from tables when there was nobody near them, pieces of paper would float across the room and staplers would jump from desks as people went to use them. A figure had been seen standing at the foot of the stairs and cold draughts had been experienced in most unusual circumstances. Most scary of all was when a member of staff witnessed a typewriter begin to work whilst there was nobody anywhere near it. When it was announced that Radio Rentals would be moving offices there was a general feeling of relief amongst the staff.

The new owners of the building were Stirling Travel who soon reported similar occurrences. Many of the staff reported feeling uneasy when they worked alone in the upstairs office, often claiming they felt that somebody else was in the room with them and, again, there was general relief when the firm relocated.

It was shortly after Oxfam had taken over the shop in 1972 that the sound of footsteps mounting the stairs were heard several times. The cold draughts that had previously been reported by the Radio Rentals staff became very obvious to the new tenants.

Most helpers laughed off the suggestion of the ghost until one night in the mid 1970s a gentleman arrived just before closing time with a number of bin liners full of clothes. The bags were taken upstairs and left in the front office to be sorted out the following day and the staff locked up and went home. When they returned the following morning they were amazed at what they found. All the bags of clothes had been tipped out into a pile in the middle of the upstairs room. All the clothes that would have fitted a young woman had been carefully sorted from the rest and were now neatly folded on one side of the room. The other clothes for men, children and older women were left scattered across the floor.

The ghost of a woman was seen on the landing outside the room by four people on separate occasions. Back in the room, a sheet of paper, pinned to a notice board, was seen swinging as if in a breeze, but the windows were closed and there was no breeze. It was then noticed that similar sheets of paper pinned to the same notice board were completely still.

Some of the staff decided that a little investigation was in order decided to hold an Ouija board session in the room and a few days later after the shop had closed the staff assembled upstairs. After the initial nervous laughter and joking, things turned serious and the upturned glass began to spell out messages.

The messages were from a young girl called Sara who claimed she had been attacked in that very room many years earlier when the building had been used as a public house. It soon became apparent that Sara didn't realise she was dead and the reason she was moving things around was to draw attention to herself and to get people to talk to her.

Subsequent research showed that a young girl had, indeed, been murdered at the building many years earlier. So convinced were the staff that Sara was still living in the upstairs room they approached the Bishop of Norwich with a view to having it exorcised. Accordingly the City's Deliverance Team came and performed the exorcism claiming, as they left, that the staff would be troubled no further. However the exorcism seems to have failed, and why not? After all exorcisms are intended to get rid of evil spirits and Sara is anything but evil, just a friendly soul trapped between this world and the next.

Anybody walking through the building for the first time cannot fail to notice a most unusual feature. As soon as you pass through the door separating the front of the building from the rear the temperature drops by about 10 degrees. There is no logical explanation for this anomaly as the structure to both front and rear of the building is identical. It is noticeable, however, that the rear of the building is directly below the room where Sara was murdered. Many people also claim to have smelt lavender and heard footsteps on the ceiling above when standing in the rear room.

But perhaps the most interesting feature of the building is a window in the upstairs wall at the rear. Inside the room the window no longer exists, it appears to have been bricked up many years ago by unknown hands. However, people still claim from time to time that when glancing up at the window from the back yard they can see the face of a young girl looking back at them. Could it be after all these years that what they are seeing is the face of Sara, the young girl murdered in front of that very window over 100 years ago?

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This ghostly tale has kindly been provided by Ghostly Dave - visit his Norwich Ghost Walk website here.