In the heart of the dramatic Bannau Brycheiniog National Park, nestled among rolling hills and vast moorland, sits a remote farmhouse known as Heol Fanog. It’s a place of ancient stone and palpable isolation, but in the late 1980s, it became the stage for a haunting so relentless and terrifying it earned the chilling moniker, “The Welsh Amityville.”
This is the story of Bill and Liz Rich and their son Lawrence, a family who moved to Heol Fanog seeking a fresh start, only to find themselves stumbling into a nightmare.
A Prelude to Terror
Before the family even settled into their new home, a series of bizarre events began to unfold, starting with a trip to Egypt. Inside the Great Pyramid of Cheops, Liz was the first to experience it—a sense of overwhelming oppression and tiny, unexplainable lights. The entire family felt a suffocating presence, an unseen force that made them flee in terror. It was a moment they would later look back on as the beginning of their torment, a belief that they had somehow brought something home with them.
Back in Wales, the initial unsettling incidents seemed almost mundane. Bill, a talented artist hoping to find creative solace in the countryside, began noticing an alarming recurrence of the number “666” on receipts and even a car’s license plate that nearly hit them. It was a coincidence, they told themselves, but a chilling one nonetheless.
The first truly paranormal event occurred late one night. After Bill returned to his art studio, he was terrified by the sound of heavy, hobnail boots stomping directly above him. He raced upstairs to check on his son, Lawrence, but the boy was fast asleep, and his wife, Liz, had heard nothing. It was the first sign that the haunting was targeting Bill directly.
The Escalation
Over the following months, the haunting intensified with a terrifying focus. The family was hit with a series of physical and financial assaults. They received an electricity bill for £750—a sum large enough to power a village—and a technician confirmed that the meter was inexplicably spinning even with all the appliances turned off. A foul, sulphurous smell would appear and vanish without a trace, and the house's temperature would swing wildly between freezing and sweltering, even with the heating off.
The psychological toll was immense. Lawrence, a once happy teenager, retreated into himself, painting his room a disturbing shade of crimson and spending hours alone. The family's animals also seemed to suffer under a curse—goats died, a pig was put down, and even their dog ran off. It was as if the entity was working to isolate and break them.
A Procession of "Experts"
As the family's sanity frayed, they began a desperate search for help. They reached out to a series of so-called experts, each more bizarre than the last. The visits were repetitive and largely unhelpful.
The Priest: The first to arrive was a Catholic priest who blessed every room in the house, except for Lawrence’s, which was locked. For a brief time, the activity subsided, giving the family a fleeting sense of hope.
The Spiritualists: Later, they contacted a group of spiritualists. One went into a trance, identifying four entities: an old woman, a mischievous young man, another young man, and a fourth being—a witch—who refused to leave. This medium claimed the entity was conjured in the 16th century and was attached to Bill because of something he had done in a past life.
The Exorcists: French "exorcists" arrived, declaring that the solution lay in a pagan burial ground beneath the house. Next, Dutch mediums, in a surreal scene, drew a pentacle on the kitchen floor and performed a ritual while one stood in the center, arms outstretched in the shape of a cross. The mediums insisted that if they were ever in trouble, they should draw a pentacle and sit inside it for protection.
The Horrifying Climax
Despite the rituals, the visual apparitions became more intense. Liz began seeing a ghastly, wrinkled old woman in the house and garden, and a terrifying seven-foot black figure would appear in their kitchen. The haunting reached a fever pitch during a final exorcism performed by a minister named David Holmwood and a "reformed Satanist."
During a phone call with David, Bill watched in horror as the seven-foot figure materialized in his kitchen. David, on the other end of the line, cried out that he could see it too. He then commanded a "wall of fire" to encircle the demon, and as he spoke, the figure was engulfed in a fiery inferno. It was the most dramatic event in the entire ordeal.
The most shocking moment, however, came during an exorcism with a different expert. When Liz was asked if she believed in Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior, an "inhuman," terrifying voice rasped from her, "No."
A Skeptical Lens and a Tragic End
A skeptical mind might view the events at Heol Fanog as a case of mass hysteria brought on by a man suffering from a mental health crisis. The financial stress, the isolation, and the pressure of a new family could have taken a severe toll on Bill's psyche, leading him to hallucinate and misinterpret events. In this scenario, the "experts," with their grand pronouncements of curses and witches, only exacerbated the problem.
However, the fact that Liz and others witnessed some of the same events lends a chilling credibility to the story. The physical phenomena, from the electricity bills to the bizarre death of a neighbor's horse, defy simple explanation. Was it a "stone tape theory" haunting, with malevolent energy recorded in the old stone? Or was it something else entirely?
The truth, as it often is, remains elusive. The family eventually left the house and, tragically, the strain of the ordeal led to Bill and Liz's divorce. Bill's life was never the same, and he later passed away after struggling with alcoholism. The events at Heol Fanog left an indelible mark on all who experienced them, a testament to the idea that some evils can truly be uninvited.
The full story is chronicled in Mark Chadbourne's book, Testimony.