VIOLA Wiggins’ childhood home of Marlbank House on the Border between Blacklion and Florencecourt hides many stories of history and the supernatural behind its doors.

Viola relayed the story to The impartial Reporter of a number of ghosts or supernatural experiences experienced by her parents, Jack and Alice Crozier, while she was a girl growing up.

One such ghost story relayed was one that Viola only became aware of when she was a married woman living away from Marlbank, but which her mother had been wary of when Viola was a little girl.

Viola said: “My mother saw a youth of about 19, with his hands cupped around his eyes, and staring in the kitchen window. She told my father and he said his name was ‘Brookes’.

“She was afraid that if someone was wakened in the middle of the night they would be frightened [of the ghostly figure of Brookes looking in].”

The mysterious figure may be tied directly to Marlbank house itself, which has a history of serving as a place of refuge for many people down the years, including as a billet for soldiers of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers during World War One.

However, one night, two men took refuge in the loft at Marlbank, but the men were found dead in their beds the next morning, having suffocated in the night.

Viola say that her family believes the “youth at the window” is the younger of the two men who died at Marlbank. She remarked that she had never seen the ghost, and added: “We were always too tired to stay up and look for ghosts.”

Viola recounted the story of another ghost in the Florencecourt area that was told to her by her father, who had been out walking late one evening in the area.

She said: “My father walked between Latimer’s Well and Coffey’s Well, and one night somebody stepped out beside him at Latimer’s Well near St. Laisher’s Well [the old spelling of Killesher], and just walked alongside him before disappearing at the next well.

“This person was a woman; she walked silently beside him, and when they reached Coffey’s Well she just disappeared. He said it was a frosty night and the grass didn’t rustle, and the woman never opened her mouth.”

These were just two of the strange occurrences that happened at the Marlbank home and area while Viola was only a child.